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Doctor Watson

Doctor Watson

Dr. John H. Watson is a fictional character, the sidekick of Sherlock Holmes, the fictional 19th century detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Various (extra-canonical) sources give Watson's birth date as August 7, 1852 and his full name as Dr. John Hamish Watson.

Background and description

In the debut Holmes story A Study in Scarlet (published in 1887), Watson, as the narrator, describes meeting Holmes, their subsequent sharing of rooms at 221B Baker Street, his attempts to discover the profession of his taciturn companion, Holmes's eventual taking of Watson into his confidence, and the events surrounding their first case together. Watson describes Holmes and his methods in detail, but in too romantic and sentimental a manner for Holmes' taste. In The Sign of Four, Watson met Mary Morstan, who became his wife. Mary seemed somewhat less sure of her future husband, however, absent-mindedly calling him "James." Some have speculated that this is a wifely reference to Watson's unknown middle name, which could have been "Hamish." She repeats the nickname (or Doyle repeats the error) in The Man with the Twisted Lip. Watson is a medical man of some experience. He had served in the military in Afghanistan, having been discharged following an injury received in the line of duty.

Personality

Watson is not a stupid man (he is, after all, a medical doctor), but he does not have Holmes' insight. He serves as a foil to Holmes: the ordinary man against the brilliant, emotionally-detached analytical machine that Holmes can sometimes be. With the two, Conan created a clever literary pairing: two vivid characters, different in their function and yet each useful for his purposes. Watson is well aware of both the limits of his abilities and Holmes' reliance on him: :"[Holmes] was a man of habits... and I had become one of them... a comrade... upon whose nerve he could place some reliance... a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him... If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance." Conan Doyle portrays Watson as a capable and brave individual, whom Holmes does not hesitate to call upon for both moral and physical assistance: "Quickly Watson, get your service revolver!" Watson occasionally attempts to solve crimes on his own, using Holmes's methods. For example, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson efficiently clears up several of the many mysteries confronting the pair, and Holmes praises him warmly for his zeal and intelligence. However, because he is not endowed with Holmes's almost-superhuman ability to focus on the essential details of the case, he meets with limited success in other cases, as Holmes remarks "Quite so... you see, but you do not observe." Watson is too guileless to be a proper detective; he is naturally open and straightforward, while Holmes is secretive and devious.

Watson as archetype of the sidekick

In Conan Doyle's early rough plot outlines, he intended that the role of Watson would be filled by two junior detectives known simply as Sandifer and Phillip; these characters became merged as "Watson." In turn, the introduction of Dr. Watson in the Holmes novels proved a precursor to other, similar characters. Many of the great fictional detectives have their Watson: Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, for example, is accompanied by Captain Arthur Hastings. In the words of William L De Andrea, :Watson also serves the important function of catalyst for Holmes's mental processes. [...] From the writer's point of view, Conan Doyle knew the importance of having someone to whom the detective can make enigmatic remarks, a consciousness that's privy to facts in the case without being in on the conclusions drawn from them until the proper time. Any character who performs these functions in a mystery story has come to be known as a "Watson." In 1929, English crime writer and critic Ronald Knox stated as one of his rules for fledgling writers of detective fiction as that - :the stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader."

Not necessarily a fool

In a number of film adaptations, in particular those featuring the comic skills of the actor Nigel Bruce, the character of Watson becomes more of a caricature. Far from being the able assistant as presented by Doyle, Watson is portrayed as an incompetent fool. Modern treatments have returned to the roots of Conan Doyle stories and have portrayed a more sympathetic and competent Watson. The most famous example of this restored image of Watson is the depiction played by David Burke and later Edward Hardwicke in the 1980s television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett in the title role. Another well-liked depiction was by actor André Morell in the 1961 film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Cultural references

Microsoft Corporation named a tool for debugging Microsoft Windows applications "Dr. Watson" (drwatson.exe, drwtsn32.exe).

Notes

# Watson gives two separate locations for the Jezail bullet wound he received whilst serving in the army. In A Study in Scarlet he states "I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery." However in The Sign of Four, Watson informs us "... [I] sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and though it did not prevent me from walking it ached wearily at every change of the weather". The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor contains the only other reference to the injury. Here Watson is a little ambiguous; he tells us "the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence."

External links

- [http://www.who2.com/drwatson.html Who2 biography]
- [http://www.parkcity.ne.jp/~hirayama/Hamish.htm A discussion of the middle name Hamish]
- [http://www.diogenes-club.com/watson.htm A short illustrated profile of Watson as Honorary Member of the Diogenes Club]
- [http://members.iinet.net.au/~exlibris/watson.html An analytical profile of The Good Doctor] Watson, Dr. Watson ja:ジョン・H・ワトスン

Fictional character

A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. More accurately, a fictional character is the person or conscious entity we imagine to exist within the world of such a work. In addition to people, characters can be aliens, animals, gods or, occasionally, inanimate objects. Characters are almost always at the center of fictional texts, especially novels and plays. It is, in fact, hard to imagine a novel or play without characters, though such texts have been attempted (James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is one of the most famous examples). In poetry, there is almost always some sort of person present, but often only in the form of a narrator or an imagined listener. In various forms of theatre, performance arts and cinema (except for animation and CGI movies), fictional characters are performed by actors, dancers and singers. In animations and puppetry, they are voiced by voice actors, though there have been several examples, particularly, in machinima, where characters are voiced by computer generated voices. The process of setting up characters for a work of fiction is called characterization.

Names of characters

The names of fictional characters are often quite important. The conventions of naming have changed over time. In many Restoration comedies, for example, characters are given emblematic names that sound nothing like real life names: "Sir Fidget", "Mr. Pinchwife" and "Mrs. Squeamish" are some typical examples (all from The Country Wife by William Wycherley). Some 18th and 19th century texts, on the other hand, represent characters' names by the use of a single letter and a long dash (this convention is also used for other proper nouns, such as place names). This has the effect of suggesting that the author had a real person in mind but omitted the full name for propriety's sake. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo uses this technique. One reason for this dash is that, in Britain and in other countries with a feudal heritage, the names of counties and places might be the names of the feudal lords over those places. One cannot arbitrarily give someone the name "Earl of Manchester" because someone may either have or be elevated to such a title, so it may be grounds for a lawsuit. Hence fictitious names are based on disparaged historical characters, or tend to be re-used. For example, "Lady de Winter" is a character in Dumas pères Three Musketeers, and the family name was used in Du Maurier's Rebecca. (The same holds true for the names of houses: in the latter book, "Windermere" is named after a lake, not a feudal holding). The 19th century movements of sentimentalism, realism and naturalism all encouraged readers to imagine characters as real people by giving them realistic names, names that were often the titles of books, such as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre or Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. These conventions were followed by the majority of subsequent literature, including most contemporary literature. However, there are few characters with names that are completely arbitrary. At the very least, names tend to indicate nationality and status. Often, the literal meaning or origin of a name is of some symbolic importance.
Some ways of reading characters
Readers vary enormously in how they understand fictional characters. The most extreme ways of reading fictional characters would be to think of them exactly as real people or to think of them as purely artistic creations that have everything to do with craft and nothing to do with real life. Most styles of reading fall somewhere in between. Here are some typical ways of reading fictional characters in literary criticism:
Character as symbol
In some readings, certain characters are understood to represent a given quality or abstraction. Rather than simply being people, these characters stand for something larger. Many characters in Western literature have been read as Christ symbols, for example. Other characters have been read as symbolizing capitalist greed (as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby), the futility of fulfilling the American Dream, or quixotic romanticism (Don Quixote).
Character as representative
Another way of reading characters symbolically is to understand each character as a representative of a certain group of people. For example, Bigger Thomas of Native Son by Richard Wright is often seen as representative of young black men in the 1930s, doomed to a life of poverty and exploitation. Dagny Taggart and other characters from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are seen as representative of American's hard-nosed, hard-working class. Many practitioners of cultural criticism and feminist criticism focus their analysis of characters on cultural stereotypes. In particular, they consider the ways in which authors rely on and/or work against stereotypes when they create their characters. Such critics, for example, would read Native Son in relation to racist stereotypes of African American men as sexually violent (especially against white women). In reading Bigger Thomas' character, one could ask in what ways Richard Wright relied on these stereotypes to create a violent African-American male character and in what ways he fought against it by making that character the protagonist of the novel rather than an anonymous villain. Often, readings that focus on stereotypes demand that we focus our attention on seemingly unimportant characters, such as the ubiquitous sambo characters in early cinema. Minor characters, or stock characters, are often the focus of this kind of analysis since they tend to rely more heavily on stereotypes than more central characters.
Characters as historical or biographical references
Sometimes characters obviously represent important historical figures. For example, Nazi-hunter Yakov Liebermann in The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin is often compared to real life Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and corrupted populist politician Willie Stark from All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is often compared to Louisiana governor Huey P. Long. Other times, authors base characters on people from their own personal lives. Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb chronicles her love affair with Lord Byron, who is thinly disguised as the title character. Nicole, a destructive, mentally ill woman in Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is often seen as a fictionalized version of Fitzgerald's wife Zelda. Perhaps because so many people enjoy imagining characters as real people, many critics devote their time to seeking out real people on whom literary figures were likely based. Frequently authors base stories on themselves or their loved ones.
Character as words
Some language- or text-oriented critics emphasize that characters are nothing more than certain conventional uses of words on a page: names or even just pronouns repeated throughout a text. They refer to characters as functions of the text. Some critics go so far as to suggest that even authors do not exist outside the texts that construct them.
Character as patient: psychoanalytic readings
Psychoanalytic criticism usually treats characters as real people possessing complex psyches. Psychoanalytic critics approach literary characters as an analyst would treat a patient, searching their dreams, past, and behavior for explanations of their fictional situations. Alternatively, some psychoanalytic critics read characters as mirrors for the audience's psychological fears and desires. Rather than representing realistic psyches then, fictional characters offer us a way to act out psychological dramas of our own in symbolic and often hyperbolic form. The classic example of this would be Freud's reading of Oedipus (and Hamlet, for that matter) as emblematizing every child's fantasy of murdering his father to possess his mother. This form of reading persists today in much film criticism. The feminist critic Laura Mulvey is considered a pioneer in the field. Her groundbreaking 1975 article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"[http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html], analyzed the role of the male viewer of conventional narrative cinema as fetishist, using psychoanalysis "as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form."
Round characters vs. flat characters
Some critics distinguish between "round characters" and "flat characters" or types. The former are made up of many personality traits and tend to be complex and both more life-like and believable, while the latter consist of only a few personality traits and tend to be simple and less believable. The protagonist (main character, sometimes known as the "hero" or the "heroine") of a novel is certain to be a round character; a minor, supporting character in the same novel may be a flat character. Scarlett O'Hara, of Gone with the Wind, is a good example of a round character, whereas her servant Prissy exemplifies the flat character. Likewise, many antagonists (characters in conflict with protagonists, sometimes known as "villains") are round characters. An example of an antagonist who is a round character is Gone with the Wind's Rhett Butler. A number of stereotypical or "stock" characters have developed throughout the history of drama. Some of these characters include the country bumpkin, the con artist, and the city slicker. Often, these characters are the basis of "flat characters", though elements of stock characters can also be present in round characters as well.
Unusual uses
Postmodern fiction frequently incorporates real characters into fictional and even realistic surroundings. In film, the appearance of a real person as himself inside of a fictional story is a type of cameo. For instance, Woody Allen's Annie Hall has Allen's character call in Marshall McLuhan to resolve a disagreement. In some experimental fiction, the author acts as a character within his own text. One of the earliest examples of this is Niebla ("Fog") by Miguel de Unamuno (1907), in which the main character visits Unamuno in his office to discuss his fate in the novel. Paul Auster also employs this device in his novel City of Glass (1985), which opens with the main character getting a phone call for Paul Auster. At first the main character explains that the caller has reached a wrong number, but eventually he decides to pretend to be Auster and see where it leads him. In Immortality by Milan Kundera, the author references himself in a storyline seemingly separate from that of his fictional characters, but at the end of the novel, Kundera meets his own characters. With the rise of the "star" system in Hollywood, many famous actors are so familiar that it can be hard to limit our reading of their character to a single film. In some sense, Bruce Lee is always Bruce Lee, Woody Allen is always Woody Allen, and Harrison Ford is always Harrison Ford; all often portray characters that are very alike, so audiences fuse the star persona with the characters they tend to play, a principle explored in the Arnold Schwarzeneggar vehicle, Last Action Hero. Some fiction and drama make constant reference to a character who is never seen. This often becomes a sort of joke with the audience. This device is the centrepoint of one of the most unusual and original plays of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which Godot of the title never arrives.
Iconic fictional characters
Some fictional characters are so famous that they can be references easily outside of the work from which they came, often because they have come to symbolize some archetype or ideal.
Lists of fictional characters

General

- List of advertising characters
- List of aliens in fiction
- List of comic and cartoon pairs
- Comic and cartoon characters named after people
- List of notable female fictional characters
- List of dead fictional characters
- List of fictional characters with one eye
- List of fictional clergy and religious figures
- List of mad scientists
- List of mythological pairs
- List of real-life characters
- List of fictional robots and androids
- List of Greek mythological characters
- List of heroic fictional scientists and engineers
- List of unseen characters
- List of video game mascots
- List of fictional witches
- List of fictional television sitcom characters
- List of fictional people known for their names
- List of horror film killers
Stock characters

- Damsel in distress
- Femme fatale
- Butch and femme
- Hero
- Mad scientist
- Villain
Fictional animals

- list of fictional apes (and other non-human primates, excluding Monkeys)
- list of fictional monkeys
- list of fictional bears
- list of fictional birds
- list of fictional cats
- list of fictional dinosaurs
- list of fictional dogs
- list of fictional dragons
- list of fictional elephants
- list of fictional horses
- list of fictional mice and rats
- list of fictional pigs
- list of fictional rabbits
- list of fictional sheep
- List of fictional animals of other species
Lists of fictional characters in specific works or series

- List of X-Men
- List of Digimon
- List of Pokémon
- Characters from Dune
- Characters of The Sandman
- Characters in Atlas Shrugged
- List of DC Comics characters
- List of Dickens characters
- List of Disney characters
- List of Dragon Ball characters
- List of Middle-earth peoples
- List of Middle-earth characters
- Characters from The Lord of the Rings
- List of Characters in Grand Theft Auto Vice City
- List of characters in Beavis and Butt-head
- List of Hercules and Xena characters
- List of Mortal Kombat characters
- List of Archie Comics characters
- List of Characters in The Chronicles of Narnia
- List of characters from Family Guy
- List of characters from The Simpsons
- Fictional characters within The Simpsons
- List of celebrities on The Simpsons
- List of recurring characters from The Simpsons
- One-time characters from The Simpsons
- List of characters from The Sopranos
- List of the Legend of Zelda characters
- List of Hanna-Barbera characters
- Invader Zim characters
- List of Mario series characters
- List of Marvel Comics characters
- List of Nintendo characters
- List of Final Fantasy characters
- List of Characters from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- List of Mega Man characters (original series)
- List of Mega Man characters (X series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Zero series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Legends series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Battle Network series)
- List of Metroid characters
- List of Tekken characters
- List of the Adventures of Tintin characters
- List of Carmen Sandiego characters
- List of characters in translations of Harry Potter
- List of characters in the Harry Potter books
- Characters in the Wheel of Time series
- List of Soul Calibur characters
- List of Star Trek characters
- List of Star Wars characters
- List of Sesame Street characters
- Minor characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- List of characters from Alias
- List of characters in the Oz books
- List of Robert Heinlein characters
- Love Hina main characters
- Love Hina minor characters
Heroes and villains

- List of fictional heroes
- List of anti-heroes
- List of black superheroes
- List of female superheroes
- List of male superheroes
- List of literary works with eponymous heroines
- List of supervillains
See also

- Archive of fictional things
- Fictional realm
- Grand argument
- Mary Sue
- The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time Category:Fiction Category:Lists of fictional characters
- ja:架空の人名一覧

Sidekick

:For Borland's computer program, see SideKick. :For the T-Mobile-branded mobile device, see SideKick. SideKicks. By Gustave Doré]] A sidekick is a stock character, a close companion who assists a partner in a superior position. The origin of the term comes from pickpocket slang of the late 19th and early 20th century. The "kick" is the front side pocket of a pair of trousers, and was found to be the safest pocket from thieves. Thus the "side-kick" became an inseparable companion. ([http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_297a.html] [http://www.word-detective.com/122099.html] [http://www.brownielocks.com/wordorigins.html]) In fiction, the term sidekick most commonly referred to assistants to heroes, usually in a crimefighting capacity. The sidekick has the literary function of playing against the hero, often contrasting in skill, asking the questions the reader would ask, or performing functions not suited to the hero. Those functions may include being funny. The comic sidekick was a common feature in westerns, where Fuzzy Knight, Al "Fuzzy" St. John, and Andy Devine had longer careers than some of the heroic singing cowboys for whom they took pratfalls. Famous fictional sidekicks include:
- Sancho Panza: Sidekick to Don Quixote.
- Dr. Watson: Sidekick to Sherlock Holmes. The stories are told as his journals. Watson, an ex-military man, is also Holmes's "muscle", bringing along his service revolver on tough cases.
- Captain Arthur Hastings: Sidekick to Hercule Poirot, plays a similar role as Dr. Watson. An ex-military man, he's both romantic and unimaginative.
- Captain Haddock: Sidekick to Tintin. In stories without Haddock, the role of the sidekick can be attributed to Milou, Tintin's dog (known as Snowy in the English-language editions). The stories also feature two policemen, Dupont and Dupond (Thompson and Thomson in the English translation), who can be seen as equal sidekicks to each other.
- Obelix: Sidekick to Asterix.
- Tonto: Sidekick to The Lone Ranger. His name means "fool" in Spanish, although he was not foolish. Always described as the "faithful Indian companion", Tonto frequently served as a spy, going into town to find out what was going on.
- Kato: Sidekick to The Green Hornet. Kato served as chauffeur and assistant to the Green Hornet. Because of Bruce Lee's appearance in the television series based on the character, this is one property where the key interest is more on the sidekick than the hero. In Hong Kong during the original series run, The Green Hornet was known as "The Kato Show"
- Ebony White: Sidekick to The Spirit.
- Robin: Sidekick to Batman. He shows Batman's softer side. Batman, orphaned by criminals, takes on young Dick Grayson as his ward after his parents were killed by criminals. Batman trains Robin in crime-fighting. Three others have stepped in over time to fill the role of Robin: Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown.
- Ronald "Ron" Stoppable: Sidekick (and boyfriend) of Kim Possible.
- Ron Weasley: Sidekick to Harry Potter. Ron was Harry's first friend and Harry considers him his "best friend in the world". While he commonly functions as the laid-back comic relief, he is fiercely loyal and will confront even his worst fears if he feels that is what must be done.
- Samwise Gamgee: Sidekick to Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. He followed Frodo across Middle Earth and into the darkness of Mordor with his undying loyalty and need to aid his friends.
- Willie Garvin: Sidekick to Modesty Blaise. Garvin is notable as a male sidekick to a female hero, a setup less frequently encountered in adventure fiction. Most often the sidekick is of the same sex than the hero, and for male heroes, a female companion more often serves as a romantic object rather than a sidekick.
- Jolly Jumper: Sidekick and mount of Lucky Luke. Jolly Jumper is an example of an animal as sidekick, which is not at all unusual, though in most cases the non-human sidekick is a dog (such as Milou in Tintin or Devil in The Phantom). Jolly Jumper is more of a parody of a sidekick, poking fun at the wonder horses of the Western genre, and his specific task in the series is to provide witty and cynical commentary. Some stories also feature Ran Tan Plan, who in turn is the parody of the super-intelligent dogs prevalent in adventure genre (such as Rin Tin Tin): he is possibly the most stupid canine in fiction.
- Goose: Sidekick to Maverick (Top Gun).
- Arthur: Sidekick to The Tick. Arthur is a reluctant sidekick who wears a white body suit with wings, thus resembling a giant moth. He helps out his dense pal The Tick in numerous episodes of the comic book, cartoon series, and live-action show.
- Launchpad McQuack: Sidekick to Darkwing Duck.
- Gabrielle: Initially considered a sidekick to Xena by fans and even other characters, much to her annoyance. One of the few sidekicks who was openly suggested to have a physical relationship with a titular hero(ine).
- Linus: Sidekick to Gatsby from the show Cats
- Muttley: Sidekick to Dick Dastardly, an animated character in the Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines series.
- Miles "Tails" Prower: Sidekick to Sonic the Hedgehog in the game series of the same name. He has the ability to fly by twirling his two tails.
- Spencer Rice: Sidekick to Kenny Hotz in many of Kenny movies and the television show Kenny vs. Spenny. Category:Lists of fictional characters Category:Stock characters

19th century

:Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) The 19th century lasted from 1801 to 1900 in the Gregorian calendar (using the Common Era system of year numbering). Historians sometimes define a "Nineteenth Century" historical era stretching from 1815 (The Congress of Vienna) to 1914 (The outbreak of the First World War).

Europe

For Europe, the period is marked with revolution, social upheaval, and the emergence of a united conservatism from the monarchs of Europe in response to the emerging republican firestorm spreading from revolutionary France. There were many revolutions in Europe in 1848. Furthermore, the later end of the century was dominated by what many call the New Imperialism, which was the rapid aquisition of colonies worldwide by European powers, most noteworthy is the Scramble for Africa. Many countries in Europe underwent an Industrial Revolution, especially Britain and Germany, that spread elsewhere by the end of the century, with factories and railway lines built all over the continent. The start of the 19th century there was a struggle between France and Britain and their allies for control of Europe and the world during the Napoleonic Wars, with Napoleon being finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815. During the rest of the century, the British empire became the largest and most powerful empire in history, during the period known as the Pax Britannica.

Americas

In the Americas, the United States slowly grew economically, militarily, and politically, but nevertheless faced dramatic changes domestically, best seen in the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the expansion across the American continent known as Manifest Destiny. Industrially, America will explode following the Civil War, and would eventually begin expansion outward across the Pacific Ocean and in Latin America.

Other countries

For the rest of the world, there were few places not influenced by the West in some fashion, whether through colonialism, imperialism, or war. European powers gained increasing influence in China, where Qing control had weakened, and wars were fought by the western powers against China, such as the first and the second Opium wars and Sino-French War. Japan, which was forcibly opened to Western trade, began a rapid industrialisation. Africa which was largely free from European control at the start of the century, was almost completely dominated by Europe at the end of it, with the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s and 1890s. Large European settlement, especially British, of colonies such as Australia, New Zealand and the Cape Colony continued during the nineteenth century.

Events

- 1801: The Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merge to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
- 1803: The United States buys out France's territorial claims in North America via the Louisiana Purchase.
- 1804-06: Americans Meriwether Lewis and William Clark lead an expedition to the Pacific Coast and back.
- 1805-48: Muhammad Ali modernizes Egypt.
- 1806: Holy Roman Empire dissolved as a consequence of the Treaty of Lunéville.
- 1809: Napoleon strips the Teutonic Knights of their last holdings in Bad Mergentheim.
- 1813-1917: The contest between the British Empire and Imperial Russia for control of Central Asia is referred to as the Great Game.
- 1815: Congress of Vienna redraws the European map.
- 1815: Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo brings a conclusion to the Napoleonic Wars and marks the beginning of a Pax Britannica which lasts until 1870.
- 1816: Year Without a Summer
- 1816-28: Shaka's Zulu kingdom becomes the largest in Southern Africa.
- 1819: The modern city of Singapore is established by the British East India Company.
- 1820: Liberia founded by the American Colonization Society for freed American slaves.
- 1830: France invades and occupies Algeria.
- 1830: The Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands led to the creation of Belgium.
- 1833: Slavery Abolition Act bans slavery throughout the British Empire.
- 1834: Spanish Inquisition officially ends.
- 1835-36: The Texas Revolution in Mexico resulted in the short-lived Republic of Texas.
- 1837-1901: Queen Victoria's reign is considered the apex of the British Empire and is referred to as the Victorian era.
- 1845-49: Irish Potato Famine
- 1848: The Communist Manifesto published.
- 1848: Revolutions of 1848 in Europe
- 1848-58: California Gold Rush
- 1850: The Little Ice Age ends around this time.
- 1851-60s: Victorian gold rush in Australia
- 1851-64: The Taiping Rebellion in China
- 1854: The Convention of Kanagawa formally ends Japan's policy of Sakoku.
- 1855: Bessemer process enables steel to be mass produced.
- 1856: World's first oil refinery in Romania
- 1857-58: Indian rebellion of 1857
- 1859: The Origin of Species published.
- 1864-67: French intervention in Mexico
- 1865-77: Reconstruction in the United States
- 1866: Successful transatlantic telegraph cable follows an earlier attempt in 1858.
- 1866: Creation of the North German Confederation and the Austrian-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.
- 1866-69: Meiji Restoration in Japan
- 1867: The United States purchased Alaska from Russia.
- 1867: Canadian Confederation formed.
- 1869: First Transcontinental Railroad completed in United States.
- 1869: The Suez Canal opens linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
- 1870-71: Unifications of Germany and Italy.
- 1871-1914: Second Industrial Revolution
- 1870s-90s: Long Depression in Western Europe and North America
- 1872: Yellowstone National Park created.
- 1874: The British East India Company is dissolved.
- 1877: Great Railroad Strike in the United States may have been the world's first nationwide labor strike.
- 1877-78: The Balkans are freed from the Ottoman Empire after another Russo-Turkish War.
- 1878: First commercial telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut.
- 1880-1902: Great Britain conquers Dutch settlers in South Africa in two Boer Wars.
- 1882: First electrical power plant and grid in Manhattan.
- 1884-85: The Berlin Conference signals the start of the European Scramble for Africa. Attending nations also agree to ban trade in slaves.
- 1885: Unification of Bulgaria
- 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre is the last battle in the American Indian Wars.
- 1894-95: After the First Sino-Japanese War, China cedes Taiwan to Japan and grants Japan a free hand in Korea.
- 1895-1896: Ethiopia defeated Italy in the First Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1896: Olympic games revived in Athens.
- 1896: Klondike Gold Rush in Canada
- 1898: The United States gains control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War.
- 1898-1900: The Boxer Rebellion in China is suppressed by an Eight-Nation Alliance.

Wars

List of wars 1800–1899
- 1799-1815: Napoleonic Wars.
- 1801-15: Barbary Wars between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa.
- 1806-12: Russo-Turkish War
- 1810-21: Mexican War of Independence.
- 1810s-20s: South American Wars of Independence.
- 1812-15: War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain.
- 1821-32: Greek War of Independence.
- 1828-29: Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829
- 1833-76: Carlist Wars in Spain.
- 1839-60: After two Opium Wars, Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia gain many concessions from China.
- 1854-56: Crimean War between Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
- 1861-65: American Civil War between the Union and seceding Confederacy.
- 1866: Austro-Prussian War.
- 1877-78: Russo-Turkish War.
- 1879: Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa.
- 1879-84: War of the Pacific between Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
- 1880-81: First Boer War.
- 1894-95: First Sino-Japanese War.
- 1895-96: First Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1899-13: The Philippine-American War.

Significant people

- Gilbert and Sullivan, playwright, composer
- William Gilbert Grace, English cricketer
- Baron Haussmann, civic planner
- Sándor Körösi Csoma, explorer of the Tibetan culture
- Fitz Hugh Ludlow, writer and explorer
- Florence Nightingale, nursing pioneer
- Ignaz Semmelweis, founder of hygiene
- Dr. John Snow, the founder of epidemiology
- F R Spofforth, Australian cricketer

Science

- Henri Becquerel, physicist
- Charles Darwin, biologist
- Thomas Alva Edison, inventor
- Michael Faraday, scientist
- Gottlob Frege, mathematician, logician and philosopher
- Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician, physicist, astronomer
- James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist
- Gregor Mendel, biologist
- Louis Pasteur, biologist
- Nikola Tesla, inventor
- Amedeo Avogadro, physicist
- Johann Jakob Balmer, mathematician, physicist
- Pierre Curie, physicist
- Christian Doppler, physicist, mathematician

Philosophy and Religion

- Bahá'u'lláh, Persian religious leader and founder of Bahá'í Faith
- Báb, Persian prophet and founder of Bábísm
- Nikolai of Japan, religious leader who introduced Eastern Orthodoxy into Japan.
- Mikhail Bakunin, anarchist
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, philosopher
- Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher
- Karl Marx, political philosopher and economist
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher
- Joseph Smith, Jr., religious leader, founder of Mormonism
- Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Hindu mystic
- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
- Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of French socialism
- Brigham Young, Mormon religious leader
- William Morris, social reformer

Politics

- Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor
- Napoleon Bonaparte, French general, first consul and emperor
- Guiseppe Garibaldi, unifier of Italy and Piedmontese soldier
- Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. general and president
- Theodor Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism
- Andrew Jackson, U.S. general and president
- Thomas Jefferson, American statesman, philosopher, and president
- Lajos Kossuth, Hungarian governor; leader of the war of independence
- Hong Xiuquan, revolutionary, self-proclaimed Son of God
- Benjamin Disraeli, novelist and politician
- Libertadores, Latin American liberators
- Robert E. Lee, Confederate general
- Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president; led the nation during the Civil War
- Mutsuhito, Japanese emperor
- István Széchenyi, aristocrat, leader of the Hungarian reform movement
- Queen Victoria, British monarch
- Klemens von Metternich, Austrian Chancellor

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

List of 19th century inventions
- Department stores
- Electromagnetism
- Epidemiology
- Mail order businesses
- Philology
- Postage stamps
- Public busses
- Subway
- The invention of the telegraph connected the world like never before, leading to quicker communication and interaction.
- One of the more devestating technologies emerging from this period is the machine gun, first used during the Civil War (considered the first modern war)

Decades and years

Category:19th century Category:Centuries Category:Romanticism als:19. Jahrhundert zh-min-nan:19 sè-kí ko:19세기 ja:19世紀 simple:19th century th:คริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 19

Detective fiction

Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. It is closely related to mystery fiction but generally contains more of a puzzle element that must be solved, generally by a single protagonist, either male or female. A common feature of detective fiction is an investigator who is unmarried, with some source of income other than a regular job, and who generally has some pleasing eccentricities or striking characteristics. He or she frequently has a less intelligent assistant, or foil, who is asked to make apparently irrelevant inquiries and acts as an audience surrogate for the explanation of the mystery at the end of the story.

Whodunit?

The most widespread subgenre of the detective novel is the whodunit (or whodunnit), where great ingenuity may be exercised in narrating the events of the crime and of the subsequent investigation in such a manner as to conceal the identity of the criminal from the reader until the end of the book, when the method and culprit are revealed. Early archetypes of these stories were the three Auguste Dupin tales by Edgar Allan Poe: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (1843), and "The Purloined Letter" (1844). Poe's detective stories have been described as ratiocinative tales. In stories such as these, the primary concern of the plot is ascertaining truth, and the usual means of obtaining the truth is through a complex and mysterious process combining intuitive logic, astute observation, and perspicacious inference. As a consequence, the crime itself sometimes becomes secondary to the efforts taken to solve it. "The Mystery of Marie Roget" is particularly interesting, as it is a barely fictionalized analysis of the circumstances of the real-life discovery of the body of a young woman named Mary Cecilia Rogers, in which Poe expounds his theory of what actually happened. The style of the analysis, with its attention to forensic detail, makes it a precursor if not the inspiration of the stories about the most famous of all fictional detectives, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, who in turn set the style for many others in later years, including Holmesian pastiches such as August Derleth's Solar Pons. Another early archetype of the whodunit is found as a sub-plot in the vast novel Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens. The conniving lawyer Tulkinghorn is killed in his office late one night, and the crime is investigated by Inspector Bucket of the Metropolitan force. Numerous characters appeared on the staircase leading to Tulkinghorn's office that night, some of them in disguise, and Inspector Bucket must penetrate these mysteries to identify the culprit. Dickens's protégé, Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), is credited with the first great mystery novel, The Woman in White. He is sometimes referred to as the "grandfather of English detective fiction." His novel The Moonstone (1868) was described by T. S. Eliot as "the first and greatest of English detective novels" and by Dorothy L. Sayers as "probably the very finest detective story ever written". Although technically preceded by Charles Felix's The Notting Hill Mystery (1865), The Moonstone can claim to have established the genre with several classic features of the twentieth-century detective story:
- A country house robbery
- An 'inside job'
- A celebrated investigator
- Bungling local constabulary
- Detective enquiries
- False suspects
- The 'least likely suspect'
- A rudimentary 'locked room' murder
- A reconstruction of the crime
- A final twist in the plot Some readers have suggested even earlier prototypes for the whodunit, most notably the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders (Daniel 13; in the Protestant Bible this story is found in the apocrypha) and the story of the dog and the horse related in the third chapter of Voltaire's Zadig (1747). However, popularity of this genre has only grown in time and even has made it into the [http://privatedick.blogspot.com online community].

The Private Eye Novel

Although the British private eye Martin Hewitt (by Arthur Morrison) had already appeared by 1894, the genre was adopted wholeheartedly by the likes of Dashiell Hammett, and were considered novels of the proletariat, exploring "mean streets" and the underbelly of corruption within the United States. Several movies have been based on his work, including three versions of The Maltese Falcon and a series of movies based on The Thin Man. Raymond Chandler updated the form with his private detective Philip Marlowe, who brought a more intimate voice to the detective than Hammett's distant-third viewpoint. His cadenced dialog and cryptic narrations were musical, evoking the alleys and tough thugs, rich women and powerful men about whom he wrote. Laced with commentary, his books still hold up. Several feature and television movies have been made about the Phillip Marlowe character. Ross Macdonald, pseudonym of Ken Millar, updated the form again with his detective Lew Archer, while still writing in what is considered the PI's Golden Age, begun by Hammett. Archer, like Hammett's fictional heroes, was a camera eye, with hardly any known past. "Turn Archer sideways, and he disappears," one reviewer wrote. Two of Macdonald's strengths were his use of psychology and his beautiful prose, which was full of imagery. Like other 'hardboiled' writers, Macdonald aimed to give an impression of realism in his work through violence, sex and confrontation; this is illusory, however, and any real private eye undergoing a typical fictional investigation would soon be dead or incapacitated. The movie Harper starring Paul Newman was based on the Lew Archer character. Michael Collins, pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, is generally considered the author who led the form into the Modern Age. His PI, Dan Fortune, was consistently involved in the same sort of David-and-Goliath stories that Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald wrote, but he took a sociological bent, exploring the meaning of his characters' places in society and the impact society had on people. Full of commentary and clipped prose, his books were more intimate than his predecessors, dramatizing that crime can happen in one's own living room. The PI novel was a male-dominated field in which female authors seldom found publication until Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton were finally published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Each author's detective was brainy, physical, and could hold her own. Their acceptance then success caused publishers to seek out other fine female authors. The PI today is rich in variety. The strongest characteristic that binds them is that the detective now has a past and a life, while solving cases. The premier authors' organization of PI writers is the Private Eye Writers of America.

Cosies

English readers between the wars generally preferred a different, but equally implausible, type of detective story in which an outsider - sometimes a salaried investigator or a police officer, but more often a gifted amateur - investigates a murder committed in a closed environment by one of a limited number of suspects. These have become known as 'cosies' to distinguish them from the 'hard-boiled' type preferred in the USA. The most popular writer of cosies, and one of the most popular writers of all time, was Agatha Christie, who produced a long series of books featuring her detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, amongst others, and usually including a complex puzzle for the baffled and misdirected reader to try and unravel. The 'puzzle' approach was carried even further into ingenious and seemingly impossible plots by John Dickson Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson, and John Rhode, whose detective Dr. Priestley specialised in elaborate technical devices, while in the US the 'cosy' was adopted and extended by Rex Stout and Erle Stanley Gardner. The popularity of cosies has declined in the last four decades, perhaps partly due to attacks on their 'unrealistic' approach; although given that their primary goal is to present a puzzle, one might as well attack a crossword or a chess problem for its unrealism. This subgenre is also known by many critics as the "Golden Age" of detective fiction. This does not mean that the writing in this subgenre is considered to be the best but it was used to describe the way in which writers in this era approached the writing of detective fiction. The most typical characteristic of this subgenre is the strict adherence to conventions of detective fiction. The "Golden Age" also displayed many elements typical of escapist writing and this was attributed to its popularity at the time as many wished to escape the depressing state brought about by World War..

Police procedural

Many detective stories have police officers as the main characters. Of course these stories may take many forms, but many authors try to go for a realistic depiction of a police officer's routine. A good deal are whodunits; in others the criminal is well known, and it is a case of getting enough evidence. Some typical features of these are:
- The detective is rarely the first on the crime scene - it will be milling with uniform, paramedics and possibly members of the public.
- Forensic reports - and the wait for them.
- Rules and regulations to follow - or not.
- Suspects arrested and kept in custody - sometimes wrongly.
- Pressure from senior officers to show progress.
- A large investigating team - two, three or four main characters, plus other officers to order about.
- Pubs - places to discuss or think about the case - especially in the Inspector Morse mysteries.
- Informants - to lean on.
- Political pressure when the suspects are prominent figures
- Internal hostility from comrades when the suspects are fellow police officers
- Pressure from the media (tv, newspapers) to come up with an answer
- Interesting and unusual cars driven by the principal detective

Other subgenres

There is also a subgenre of historical detectives. See historical whodunnit for an overview.

Suspense - the core tenet of detective fiction

A beginner to detective fiction would generally be advised against reading anything about a piece of detective fiction (such as a blurb or an introduction) before reading the text itself. Even if they do not mean to, advertisers, reviewers, scholars and aficionados usually have a habit of giving away details or parts of the plot, and sometimes -- for example in the case of Mickey Spillane's novel I, the Jury -- even the solution. (After the credits of Billy Wilder's film Witness for the Prosecution, the cinemagoers are asked not to talk to anyone about the plot so that future viewers will also be able to fully enjoy the unravelling of the mystery.)

The unresolved problem of plausibility and coincidence

Up to the present, some of the problems inherent in crime fiction have remained unsolved (and possibly also insoluble). Some of them can be dismissed with a shrug: Why bother at all, even if it is obvious to everyone that an ordinary person is not likely to keep stumbling across corpses? After all, this is just part of the game of crime fiction. Still the fact that an old spinster like Miss Marple meets with an estimated two bodies per year does raise a few doubts as to the plausibility of the Miss Marple mysteries. De Andrea has described the quiet little village of St. Mary Mead as having "put on a pageant of human depravity rivaled only by that of Sodom and Gomorrah". Similarly, TV heroine Jessica Fletcher is confronted with bodies wherever she goes, but over the years people who have met violent deaths have also piled up in the streets of Cabot Cove, Maine, the cosy little village where she lives. Generally, therefore, it is much more convincing if a policeman, private eye, forensic expert or similar professional is made the hero or heroine of a series of crime novels. On the other hand, who cares for authenticity? Also, the role and legitimacy of coincidence has frequently been the topic of heated arguments ever since Knox categorically stated that "no accident must ever help the detective" (Commandment No.6). Technological progress has also rendered many of plots implausible and antiquated. For example, the use of mobile phones by practically everyone these days has significantly altered the dangerous situations that investigators traditionally find themselves in. Some authors have not succeeded in adapting to the changes brought about by modern technology; others, among them Carl Hiaasen (born 1953), have.

Famous fictional detectives

The full list of fictional detectives would be immense. The format is well suited to dramatic presentation, and so there are also many television and film detectives, besides those appearing in adaptations of novels in this genre. Fictional detectives generally fall within one of four domains:
- the amateur or dilettante detective (Marple, Jessica Fletcher);
- the private investigator (Holmes, Marlowe, Spade, Rockford);
- the police detective (Ironside, Kojak, Morse);
- more recently, the medical examiner, criminal psychologist, forensic evidence expert or other specialists (Scarpetta, Quincy, Cracker, CSI). Notable fictional detectives and their creators include:

Amateurs

- Father Brown — G. K. Chesterton
- Roger Bannion — Herbert Adams
- Roger Sheringham — Anthony Berkeley
- Albert Campion — Margery Allingham
- Kate Fansler — Amanda Cross
- Dr. Gideon Fell — John Dickson Carr
- Jessica Fletcher — Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson & William Link: Murder, She Wrote (TV)
- Kinky Friedman — Kinky Friedman
- Jannie Jansen — Janwillem van de Wetering
- Jimmy Kudo (Shin'ichi Kudo) a.k.a. Conan Edogawa — Gosho Aoyama
- Hajime Kindaichi — Yozaburo Kanari & Fumiya Sato: Kindaichi Case Files manga series
- Donald Lam — Erle Stanley Gardner
- Miss Marple — Agatha Christie
- Hercule Poirot — Agatha Christie
- The Great Merlini — Clayton Rawson
- Sir Henry Merrivale — Carter Dickson
- Special Agent Pendergast — Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
- Drury Lane — Ellery Queen
- Ellery Queen — Ellery Queen
- Jim Qwilleran — Lilian Jackson Braun
- Simon Templar aka The Saint — Leslie Charteris
- Easy Rawlins — Walter Mosley
- Rabbi David Small — Harry Kemelman
- Paul Temple — Francis Durbridge
- Philip Trent — E.C. Bentley
- Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen — Jacques Futrelle
- Lord Peter Wimsey — Dorothy L. Sayers
- Philo Vance — S.S. Van Dine
- Perry Mason — Erle Stanley Gardner

Private eyes

- Lew Archer — Ross Macdonald
- Joe Caneili — Hayford Peirce
- Rex Carver — Victor Canning
- The Continental Op (He never reveals his name, but he's an operative for the Continental Detective Agency.) — Dashiell Hammett
- Dan Fortune — Dennis Lynds, aka Michael Collins
- Mike Hammer — Mickey Spillane
- Sherlock Holmes — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Thomas Magnum — Donald P. Bellisario, Glen A. Larson:Magnum, P.I. (TV)
- Travis McGee — John D. MacDonald
- Philip Marlowe — Raymond Chandler
- Hercule Poirot — Agatha Christie
- Kinsey Millhone — Sue Grafton
- Laura Principal — Michelle Spring
- Cliff Hardy — Peter Corris
- Precious Ramotswe — Alexander McCall Smith
- Jim Rockford — Stephen J. Cannell & Roy Huggins: The Rockford Files (TV)
- Sam Spade — Dashiell Hammett
- Spenser — Robert B. Parker
- Nero Wolfe — Rex Stout
- John Shaft — Ernest Tidyman

Police detectives

:Includes FBI agents, etc.
- Roderick Alleyn — Ngaio Marsh
- Sir John Appleby — Michael Innes
- J. P. Beaumont — J. A. Jance
- Martin Beck — Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (Sjöwall and Wahlöö)
- Henri Bencolin — John Dickson Carr
- Lou Boldt — Ridley Pearson
- Harry Bosch — Michael Connelly
- Commissario Guido Brunetti — Donna Leon
- Charlie Chan — Earl Derr Biggers
- Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn — Tony Hillerman
- Lieutenant Columbo — Richard Levinson and William Link: Columbo (TV)
- De Cock — A. C. Baantjer
- Inspector Espinosa — Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
- Inspector Ghote — H. R. F. Keating
- Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs et al. (NCIS) — Donald P. Bellisario & Don McGill: Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (TV)
- Det. Robert Goren — Rene Balcer, Elizabeth Benjamin, et al.: Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TV)
- Grijpstra and de Gier, the Amsterdam cops (who later became private eyes) — Janwillem van de Wetering
- John Hartigan — Sin City
- Robert T. Ironside (strictly, an ex-police detective) — Collier Young: Ironside (TV)
- Maigret — Georges Simenon
- Jack Malone et al. (FBI) — Hank Steinberg: Without a Trace (TV)
- Colonel March — John Dickson Carr
- Adrian Monk (another ex-police detective) — Andy Breckman: Monk (TV)
- Inspector Morse — Colin Dexter
- Inspector Rebus — Ian Rankin
- Greg Rush and Rick Chinbroski — Steve Copling
- Charlie Resnick — John Harvey
- Commissaire Tama — Hayford Peirce
- Dick Tracy — Chester Gould
- Kurt Wallander — Henning Mankell
- Inspector Wexford — Ruth Rendell
- Saito Masanobu — Janwillem van de Wetering (also as Seiko Legru)
- Wachtmeister Studer — Friedrich Glauser (some kind of Maigret in Switzerland)
- Luis Mendoza — Dell Shannon

Medical examiners, etc.

- Dr Thorndyke — R Austin Freeman
- Dr Priestley — John Rhode
- Reggie Fortune — H. C. Bailey
- Craig Kennedy — Arthur B. Reeve
- Dr Basil Willing — Helen McCloy
- Dr. Temperance Brennan — Kathy Reichs
- Dr. Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald (a criminal psychologist) — Jimmy McGovern: Cracker (TV)
- Gil Grissom, Ph.D. et al. — Anthony Zuiker: C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation
- Horatio "H." Caine et al. — Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn & Anthony Zuiker: CSI: Miami (TV)
- Det. Mac Taylor et al. — Andrew Lipsitz & Janet Tamaro:CSI: NY (TV)
- Dr. Jane Halifax (a forensic psychologist) — Halifax f.p. (TV)
- Daphne Matthews, forensic psychologist — Ridley Pearson
- Dr. R. Quincy, M.E. — Glen A. Larson & Lou Shaw: Quincy, M.E. (TV)
- Dr. Kay Scarpetta — Patricia Cornwell
- Dr. John H. Watson — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Dr. Joseph Bell

Others

- Anthony Blake (Anthony Dorian in pilot episode) (magician) — Larry Brody: The Magician (TV)
- Jonathan Creek (designer of illusions for a magician) — David Renwick: Jonathan Creek (TV)
- Insp. J. Auguste Dupin, from short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. One of the earliest fictional detectives.
- Perry Mason (lawyer) — Erle Stanley Gardner
- Ben Matlock (lawyer) — Dean Hargrove: Matlock (TV)
- Tony Petrocelli (lawyer) — Harold Buchman & Sidney J. Furie: Petrocelli (TV)
- Tarot (magician) — Trevor Preston: Ace of Wands (TV)
- Arsène Lupin (gentleman-thief) Maurice Leblanc
- Batman (vigilante/superhero) — Bob Kane and Bill Finger, first appearance in 1939 comic book Detective Comics #27 (Comics, TV, Movies)
- Robert Langdon (Professor of Religious Symbology) — Dan Brown
- Takeshi Kovacs (Ultraviolent soldier turned investigator) — Richard Morgan