The Private Detective in Literature – Part 3 | Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes: "A Study in Scarlet" and the Beginnings

Sherlock Holmes: Synonymous with the Detective Profession

As we know from Parts 1 and 2 of our series The Private Detective in Literature, the figure of the typical detective is still often attributed to the English, even though the concept owes more to the Americans and the French. In today’s third part, we will see why this is the case. As one might expect, it can only be about one person: Sherlock Holmes! It is rare that a literary figure is so successful and original that it becomes a synonym for an entire profession – and has been so for almost one and a half centuries. But why is that? Gerrit Koehler from Kurtz Detective Agency Cologne investigates this question.

Inspiration from Contemporary Greats: Poe, Émile Gaboriau, James M. Barrie, and Robert Louis Stevenson

Authors Poe and Gaboriau had already achieved great success in the mid-19th century with their detectives Dupin and Lecoq, establishing the new genre of detective fiction and undoubtedly impressing a young Scottish civil servant’s son from Edinburgh in his childhood: Arthur Conan Doyle, later “Sir”. Born in 1859, he was sent at the age of nine to a Jesuit boarding school in England, as his mother wanted to protect him from his depressive and alcoholic father. The dark and often lonely mood of these years would later be reflected in his stories, but it was the years after that most shaped him: back in Edinburgh, Doyle pursued medical studies at the local university to become a physician. Still inspired by Poe and others, he developed a fascination for the world of stories and narratives. Even at boarding school, he demonstrated his ability to tell exciting and original stories – a talent inherited from his beloved mother. This brought him into contact with like-minded peers at university, such as the Scots James M. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson, who later achieved their own literary successes (Peter Pan and Treasure Island / Jekyll & Hyde) and with whom he remained lifelong friends.

Formative Influence: Dr Joseph Bell from Edinburgh

As a medical student already drawn to literature, Doyle met someone who, though devoted to medicine rather than literature, profoundly influenced him and even inspired his most important main character: Dr Joseph Bell, lecturer and teacher of Conan Doyle at the University of Edinburgh. Although a physician, Bell was the first to bring the method of deduction, careful observation, and reasoning into criminology. Doyle later said that what annoyed him in contemporary crime stories was how often the investigator stumbled upon the solution by chance or how the process of reasoning was omitted entirely. Through his work with Joe Bell, Doyle conceived of integrating scientific analysis into detective work. Bell’s personal and literary influence on the young medical student and author Doyle cannot be overestimated, and Kurtz Detective Agency Cologne has already dedicated a feature to Dr Bell for this reason.

Doyle’s Fee for the First Holmes Novel: £25

In 1882, Conan Doyle completed his studies and began practising medicine, including on a whaler (“Fell into the Polar Sea three times today”). Writing remained his hobby, and he repeatedly drew on personal experiences and acquaintances in his stories, as well as his reading experiences. This blend of contemporary crime and horror stories on one hand, and Dr Bell’s modern scientific analysis on the other, laid the foundation for a character that would significantly contribute to the popularity of detective fiction: Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in November 1887 in A Study in Scarlet.

 

Prior to this, Doyle had gained experience publishing short stories in the then-popular literary magazines, and the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, was initially published not as a book but in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, a magazine featuring stories of all kinds. Doyle wrote the novel at age 27 in just three weeks. After being rejected by several other publishers and magazines, Beeton’s paid Doyle a mere £25 for the story and all rights to it – he received no further payment later! As is well known, this would quickly change with the subsequent detective stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. Anyone fortunate enough to still have that old magazine at home is lucky: when first issued in 1887 for a shilling, one of the rare surviving copies of Sherlock Holmes’ debut sold at Sotheby’s in 2007 for $156,000.

Holmes and Watson: The Beginning of a Legendary Friendship

A Study in Scarlet already contains almost everything that constitutes the myth of Sherlock Holmes to this day and prompts journalists in interviews about the real work of Kurtz Detective Agency Cologne to discuss the fictional detective: Dr Watson is introduced as the narrator, events are presented as real facts rather than fiction – a device popular in classical Victorian literature. In homage to the thrilling crime stories of the era – Patrick Kurtz’ / Aidan Johnstone’s Livingstones Mahnung – this stylistic device is also used, including a cameo by Doyle’s inspiration, Dr Joseph Bell.

 

In A Study in Scarlet, Watson meets his future friend Holmes in 1881: returning from the Afghanistan War and searching for lodgings, military doctor John Watson learns from an acquaintance that a certain Sherlock Holmes is seeking someone (today, a flatmate) to share rent at 221b Baker Street – though he should beware of Holmes’ eccentric behaviour. At Doyle’s time, the address was fictional, as Baker Street was numbered only up to 85; today it exists and is a popular site for Sherlock Holmes pilgrims (Sherlock Holmes Museum, Baker Street, London). Watson and Holmes meet, Watson moves in with Holmes – the start of a wonderful friendship! Watson learns that Holmes, brilliant in the sciences, works as a “Consulting Detective” and that the “guests” constantly coming and going are clients. Their landlady, later known as Mrs Hudson in The Sign of Four, appears, as does Inspector G Lestrade, who often mocks Holmes’ unconventional methods but repeatedly relies on his assistance.

Typical Holmes Clichés: Not Doyle, but Illustrator Sidney Paget

Other key figures and elements do not appear in A Study in Scarlet but are introduced in later short stories: Holmes’s supposed great love, Irene Adler, makes her sole appearance in 1891’s A Scandal in Bohemia; Holmes’s nemesis Professor James Moriarty first appears in 1893’s The Final Problem. The visual stereotypes associated with Holmes were not fixed from the outset: the magnifying glass appears in the first tale, but the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape are later accretions. The cap is not explicitly mentioned in the stories but was popularised by illustrator Sidney Paget, who illustrated 37 Holmes short stories and The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Inverness cape is likewise an invention of Paget’s artistic licence rather than Doyle’s text.

 

The pipe often depicted as the exotic “Calabash” model is described in the stories in various ways but never specified as that particular type. The Calabash shape became associated with Holmes through theatrical productions at London’s Royal Court Theatre in the 1890s, where a large, bowl-shaped pipe was preferred because it was visible from the stage — hardly discreet, and thus somewhat ill-suited to covert surveillance. Our detectives in Cologne can confirm that unobtrusive behaviour has always been and remains essential for observation, interviews and research.

Deduction, Inference and Observation — Modern Detectives Have Learned Much from Holmes

A Study in Scarlet drew the attention of an American publisher seeking a crime story for a new literary magazine. In 1890 The Sign of Four appeared in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Both novels enjoyed only modest success until July 1891, when the first Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, appeared in The Strand Magazine, then Britain’s leading literary periodical. Sidney Paget’s illustrations for The Strand did much to cement the enduring image of Holmes. Doyle became famous within three and a half years of the first Holmes novel and published further stories almost monthly, all of which enjoyed great popularity.

 

With increasing renown Doyle never concealed his admiration for Dr Joe Bell and in 1892 wrote to him acknowledging Bell as his inspiration: “It will be quite plain to you to whom I owe Sherlock Holmes. On the principles of deduction, inference and observation which you have instilled in us I have tried to create a man.” The often sombre atmosphere and the tense narratives contribute substantially to Sherlock Holmes’s continuing popularity. Above all, however, it is the meticulous work, the reading of every minute clue and the deductive reasoning from facts that has inspired detectives such as the private investigators at Kurtz Detective Agency Cologne for over 130 years. The aim is clear: to bring every case to a conclusion as swiftly and thoroughly as the famous model.

Author: Gerrit Koehler

 

Kurtz Detective Agency Cologne

Zülpicher Straße 58D

D-50674 Köln | Cologne

Tel.: +49 221 4558 0377

E-Mail: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-koeln.de  

Web: https://www.kurtz-detektei-koeln.de/en

Google: https://g.page/kurtz-detektei-koeln