Alas, Poor Sherlock

by Joseph Green and Peter Ridgway Watt

Published by Chancery House Press

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YET another new book about Sherlock Holmes?
Can there be anything left to say?

In 1944, even Ellery Queen, that most distinguished of detective story writers, who was then the fount of most wisdom where Sherlock Holmes was concerned, wondered about that. So much so that, when he published his celebrated anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, he warned his readers in his Introduction, 'We cannot bring you anything new of Sherlock - you've read all there is... more has been written about Sherlock Holmes than about any other character in fiction.' Yet, in 1972, D Martin Dakin prefaced his classic study, A Sherlock Holmes Commentary - after apologising to his readers for going over old ground - by quoting the words of Inspector Baynes, who appeared in Wisteria Lodge (1908), 'I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was a little over.' And did not Holmes himself remark, in The Valley of Fear (1914), 'It's all been done before, and will be again'? So, where the great Ellery strode and where Dakin strolled, we have ventured to tread.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Canon of 60 stories has been the subject of continuous examination for more than a century. Over the decades, we have had By-ways, Footsteps, Sidelights, Studies, Catalogues, and Commentaries, which have explored so many aspects of the work that it would be impossible to list them in a single book. The Canon's chief narrator, Dr Watson, admired and praised Holmes. In The Final Problem (1893) he called him 'the best and wisest man whom I have ever known.' Holmes, in turn, usually had the greatest affection and praise for Watson: in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901/1902) he called him 'a conductor of light' and in A Scandal in Bohemia (1891) he fondly said, 'I am lost without my Boswell.'
However, more like Homer than Boswell, Watson often nodded. The thousands of articles written about Holmes are almost all panegyrical in tone but many critics have unearthed lapses, errors and contradictions in Watson's narratives. Watson, of course, is often at fault: he plays havoc with chronology; his observations are often erroneous; he is unaware of absurdities; and he contradicts both himself and Holmes on many occasions as he proceeds through the Canon and even within the same story.

Holmes too does not come out of things as white as driven snow. Far from it. Although the centre-piece of the entire Holmes phenomenon is the brilliance of Holmes' deductive methodology, some of his deductions are more flamboyant than scientific and many are founded on fallacies. He is often mistaken in his conclusions; his numerous philosophical maxims are sometimes fallacious; his flirtations with the law are legion; he occasionally is cavalier with the truth; he contradicts himself endlessly; his financial arrangements were sometimes dubious; and when it comes to making quotations he is usually at fault.

It would appear that no attempt has been made, since Dakin's classic work, to review comprehensively the vast number of imperfections in the Sherlock Holmes Canon. The majority of relevant work is scattered in single publications and footnotes to other texts. It has been our purpose, in compiling this book, to consolidate previous studies and examine anew the imperfections in Watson's (and occasionally Holmes') narratives.

Many of our readers will be reasonably familiar with the Sherlock Holmes stories, which, in this book, we discuss in the order in which they were originally published. Readers will understand, however, that the date of a story's publication is often many years later than the date of the case itself. Although many modern texts of the Canon exist, we have relied on, and are indebted to, the most elegant of all extant and complete versions, The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, edited by William S Baring-Gould and also to the (presently incomplete) texts of The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, edited by Leslie S Klinger (Gasogene Books, 1998-2006).

As is well known, many of the original stories, especially those appearing in the Strand magazine, were illustrated by Sidney Paget. Many contemporaneous American publications were illustrated by Frederic Dorr Steele. Other artists, before and after these definitive figures, have had their work used to decorate subsequent publications. The illustrations we have used at the beginning of each chapter have been taken from a variety of early sources and, in keeping with the book's theme, we have added our comments where certain oddities or misrepresentations have been found.

There are so many hundreds of scholars who have preceded us in Sherlock Holmes studies that it would be impossible to mention them by name. In acknowledgement of our indebtedness we can only say that this book truly stands on the shoulders of giants. We hope it does not let them down.

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