Today (May 22) is the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — the genius behind the prototype of countless fictional detectives, Sherlock Holmes. Although Edgar Allan Poe started the long, twisted and incredibly fun, genre of detective fiction with his ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (published in 1841 in Graham’s Magazine), no character compares to Sherlock Holmes as a model for all the detectives to come.
Holmes’ use of intense observation and deductive reasoning, his uncanny ability to see what others ignore and his outsider status, are characteristics that appear in all the great detectives. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot come to mind immediately, but there are many, many more.
I named my cat Morse after Collin Dexter’s Chief Inspector Morse. He was an extraordinary character with obvious roots in the Sherlock Holmes model. He was neither a regular guy cop, nor a member of the Oxford elite, but he navigated between the two worlds, doing crossword puzzles, downing his ale, listening to opera and falling hopelessly in love with the wrong women over and over again.
On TV this super-observant outsider has gone to extremes with Monk’s obsessive-compulsive disorder; virtually all the characters in the CSI dynasty of forensic scientists focused on trace evidence; and the super-diagnostician solving impossible medical mysteries — House.
Let’s celebrate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday by enjoying the legacy of great detective stories that followed in his wake.
You’ve just named all my favourite detectives except for Javier Falcon of Blindman of Seville fame and maybe Maigret 😀
Happy Birthday Sherlock! [preferably the one from the English tv remake 😀 ]
Yes! And they all owe a debt to Canon Doyle and his prototype.
An apt and concise comparison. Well done!
Thanks!
Interesting viewpoint on Monk.
I know many MONK fans — including kids with severe OCD — and the comparison holds for them. The obsessive concentration and ability to focus (upside of OCD) is very Holmes-ian. The downside of OCD is more MONK-ish, but in the end he gets the killer so alls well that ends well in who-dunnit-ville.
Thanks to a wonderful discussion leader with great taste in British mysteries, I have become acquainted with G. W. Malliet, Caroline Graham, Ian Rankin, and Anne Cleeves (only 4 of the 8 assigned in recent months). Nothing delights quite like British mysteries from Doyle through Christie to the present.
Yes, the Brits do mystery so well! There’s also Ruth Rendell (as Barbara Vine sometimes), P.D. James, Robert Barnard…. the list goes on and on.
Holmes is definitely the benchmark for the whole genre. You can’t create a mystery without borrowing in some way. There’s a cool project I saw on kickstarter. (I don’t have anything to do with it – i really did just stumble across it.) http://steampunkholmes.com
That’s true, you can’t step into the mystery world without Holmes leading the way. The entire idea of using deductive reasoning to follow the clues is the Holmes way. I will check out the project on Kickstarter, although, right now I’m busy launching my next Monster.
Sherlock Holmes was an amazing character, I loved reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s works years ago, and also love the television series with Jeremy Brett.
Rereading them years later is incredible. Of course, now I’m picturing Jeremy Brett.