The History of the Great Detective

Who doesn't know Sherlock Holmes? Well, if you don't know him, you must be slept through time, knowing barely nothing at all, just like Snow White or the cave men told in the story of al-Ashabul Kahfi. Sherlock Holmes is one of the greatest and the most famous detective in the world, although only fictional. He was created by the hand of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an English medical practitioner. His investigation method is unique, he always used his deduction skill (a skill to think backward) to solve a case. Using this skill, he often found some important clues which were invisible to the police before.


"You know my methods, Watson."

The public began to know Holmes through a story titled "A Study in Scarlet" which was included in 1886 Beeton's Christmas Annual. Doyle wrote in the beginning of the story that Holmes is a sort of chemistry maniac who always curious to prove any theories he studied. Holmes met his best friend, dr. John H. Watson, accidentally when he was searching for a friend who wanted to share a room fee with him. Watson agreed and they rented Mrs. Hudson's apartment on 221B Baker Street. That was where the two men began their adventure for years to come.

In 1891, the first compilation of Sherlock Holmes short stories titled "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" was published. Included in the book is 12 short stories which were published before as a series in the Strand Magazine. However, probably because Doyle was boring with the story of the great detective, he decided to kill Holmes in a short story titled "The Final Problem", the last story in the "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" which was published in 1893. The fans who were disappointed by the death of their beloved investigator began to write a protest letter to Doyle.

By 1900, Doyle had received thousands of letters from Holmes' fan, demanded Doyle to revive Holmes. In 1902, Doyle gave up and once more write a long story about Holmes' adventure in "The Hound of the Baskervilles". However, how exactly Holmes escaped from death was not clear until Doyle wrote it in a short story titled "The Empty House" which is a part of "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".


"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth."

Doyle then wrote two more long stories, The Sign of Four and The Valley of Fear, which were published in 1905 and 1907 respectively. In 1922, the fourth short story compilation titled "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes" was published. In the next five years, Doyle finished his last stories about Sherlock Holmes which was then compiled into "His Last Bow" (1927). Although Doyle had passed away on July 7, 1930, he will still be remembered fondly as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective in the world.


Note: The illustrations above were created by Sidney Paget to accompany the original series in the Strand Magazine. Who is Sidney Paget? Check him out at Wikipedia. The captions below the illustrations were quoted from the sayings of Sherlock Holmes in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Sign of Four" respectively.