Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street
Victorian History's Greatest Detective
Real or not, Sherlock Holmes is one of the most interesting figures from Victorian Britain.
(Please note: the following article is written in the sense of fun. In reality, Sherlock Holmes was a character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For a better understanding of why I chose to write the article this way, please see my blog.)
Very little is known about the early life of Sherlock Holmes. He was born sometime around the year 1854, and had at least one sibling, an older brother named Mycroft. Of his parents we know nothing, except that one of his grandmothers was the sister of the French artist Vernet.
Around the year 1872 Holmes attended University. It is thought that this was either Oxford or Cambridge, but so far his name has not been found in either of the school's registers. After leaving University, Holmes moved to London where he continued to study the sciences, most notably chemistry.
In 1881, Holmes first met Dr. John Watson, who would soon become his best friend and chronicler. The two took lodgings together at 221B Baker Street in London. At the time, Sherlock Holmes was unemployed, but he soon began taking work as a private detective, a rare, if not unique profession at the time.
For the next ten years, Holmes shocked the world of law-enforcement by solving case after case, using a process called ratiocination, or logical deduction. It is said that he solved over 500 cases in this time, which if true, means he averaged almost a case a week. He also solved cases for at least three royal families.
Sherlock Holmes first came to public attention in 1887 when Dr. Watson published his first novel, "A Study in Scarlet." Although a clumsy novel in many ways, the reading public was fascinated by Holmes and his methods. Over the next four decades, Watson wrote over 50 stories about his friend.
In 1891, Sherlock Holmes faced his greatest challenge. After solving a string of cases, Sherlock discovered that a huge percentage of the crime in London could be linked to one man, a Professor James Moriarty. Holmes devoted himself to the pursuit of this mastermind of crime, and his chase eventually took him to Switzerland where the pair battled it out hand-to-hand at the top of Reichenbach falls. The fight ended with both men plunging over the edge.
For a while it appeared that the world had lost one of its greatest minds. Even Dr. Watson was convinced that his friend had died that day. The world heard nothing of Sherlock Holmes until 1894 when he suddenly reappeared in London and aided in the capture of Colonel Moran who had been Moriarty's right-hand man.
Holmes never spoke much of these missing years. He claims to have faked his own death to escape the many enemies he had made, especially the associates of Professor Moriarty. We know that Holmes travelled extensively during this time, seeing Tibet and Mecca, but why he went to those places remains a mystery.
After 1894, Holmes returned to his detective work. Although some have claimed that he was never quite the man he had been before Reichenbach falls, he quickly re-established himself as the greatest detective the world had ever known.
In 1903, Sherlock Holmes retired from both detective work and from the public eye. He moved to Sussex and took up beekeeping. On several occasions he was convinced to come out of retirement to take on the odd case, most notably helping catch a German spy during the first World War.
There is no evidence as to when exactly Sherlock Holmes died, and certainly no authentic gravestone has ever been discovered, but historians seem to think he passed away in the year 1957. If so, Sherlock Holmes lived to at least 102.
It is hard to sum up the life of such a man as Sherlock Holmes. Certainly he is regarded the world over as the greatest detective who ever lived, and his career has inspired countless others to follow in his footsteps. His old flat at 221B Baker Street has been converted into a small museum and thousands of people make the pilgrimage ever year.
Perhaps his legacy is best shown by the continued popularity of the tales penned by his friend John Watson. There are few bookstores in the English-speaking world (and much of the rest of it) that don't have at least a volume or two of the stories. In the pages of those stories, Sherlock Holmes lives forever.
