Sherlock Holmes pastiches
Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for pastiche, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than Arthur Conan Doyle. Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
Further information: Sherlock Holmes, Popular culture references to Sherlock Holmes, and List of authors of new Sherlock Holmes storiesSherlock Holmes cameos[edit]
Print[edit]
According to The Alternative Sherlock Holmes: Pastiches, Parodies, and Copies by Peter Ridgway Watt and Joseph Green, the first known period pastiche dates from 1893. Titled "The Late Sherlock Holmes", it came from the pen of Doyle's close friend, J. M. Barrie, who was to create Peter Pan a decade later. The police are apprised of the death of Holmes and believe that Dr. Watson has killed him because of a disagreement about money. However, Holmes turns out to be alive and, although it is not made clear, Watson is presumably released.
In 1902 Mark Twain painted an unflattering portrait of Holmes and his methods of deduction in his A Double Barrelled Detective Story. In the short story, set at a mining camp in California, Fetlock Jones, a nephew of Sherlock Holmes, kills his master, a silver-miner, by blowing up his cabin. Since this occurs when Holmes happens to be visiting, he brings his skills to bear upon the case and arrives at logically worked conclusions that are proved abysmally wrong by an amateur detective with an extremely keen sense of smell which he employs in solving the case. Perhaps this ought to be seen as yet another piece where Twain tries to prove that life does not quite follow logic.
In 1905 the French writer Maurice Leblanc pitted his gentleman burglar Arsène Lupin against Holmes in a story called Sherlock Holmes arrive trop tard (Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late), the first of four in the Lupin series. Copyright concerns at the time forced Holmes to be renamed "Herlock Sholmes" or "Holmlock Shears", and Watson to be renamed "Wilson", in subsequent appearances. However, in many modern editions, the names have reverted to the original.
In 1910, the French writer Arnould Galopin teamed up his detective Allan Dickson, the Australian Sherlock Holmes with an aging Holmes renamed Herlokolms who had been much impressed by the young man's early exploits in L'Homme au Complet Gris (The Man in Grey).
Allan Dickson may have been the prototype for Harry Dickson (see #Successors of Sherlock Holmes, below).
Another French writer, Théodore Botrel, wrote the play Le Mystère de Kéravel in 1932 in which Holmes, travelling incognito in Brittany, solves a murder at the request of local police, who know his true identity. He is referred to as L'étranger in the list of characters, but named in the text.
In 1967, a The Man from U.N.C.L.E. novel, "The Rainbow Affair" by David McDaniel, features a cameo by an elderly bee-keeper named William Escott (Holmes in his retired identity).[58]
Several characters from the canon appear in Alan Moore's comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which various characters from Victorian fiction are recruited to serve the interests of an alternate-history British Empire. Holmes himself appears only in a flashback during the first series, as he is still presumed dead. Mycroft has a more substantial role in the second series. References in the series suggest Sherlock was a member of an earlier iteration of the League. Moriarty also figures into the first series and the film adaptation. Holmes also makes a minor but significant appearance in Warren Ellis and John Cassaday's comic book series Planetary.
Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright presented a mystery-adventure Enter the Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes (1979) in which Sherlock's older brother prevents a conspiracy involving a return of the American "colonies" to Great Britain. Sherlock makes appearances with Victor Trevor (from "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott"), Professor Moriarty and Moriarty's father.
Carole Nelson Douglas has written a spin-off series centring upon Holmes' nemesis Irene Adler. The first book is titled Good Night, Mr. Holmes and takes place concurrently with A Scandal in Bohemia. While Irene Adler is the main character, Sherlock Holmes plays a role in every book in the series.
Michael Mallory has written a series of short stories and one novel (Murder in the Bath) about the second wife of Doctor Watson, here named "Amelia Watson." Holmes appears in several of the stories as a semi-antagonistic foil for Amelia—a detective who is in reality slightly less than infallible, but who has been made to appear so to the public through Watson's writings.
In Kim Newman's alternate history novel Anno Dracula, set in a world where Dracula becomes the monarch of Britain, Holmes is one of the prominent "warms" to protest against the new order. The vampire government of Lord Ruthven in turn imprisons him in a concentration camp in Devil's Dyke, Sussex.
Holmes and Watson appear briefly in George MacDonald Fraser's short story Flashman and the Tiger (1999), which appears in the collection of that name. The events there are consistent with those of the canonical story The Adventure of the Empty House, which takes place in 1894. Holmes sees Flashman disguised as a tramp and draws a series of conclusions about him which are all wrong.
Holmes and Watson also appear in Alan Coren's children's books, Arthur and the Great Detective and Arthur and the Bellybutton Diamond. The titular Arthur is an erstwhile Baker Street Irregular.
In 1993 the psychologist Keith Oatley wrote The Case of Emily V., a novel in which Sigmund Freud, Watson and Sherlock Holmes turn out to be investigating the same person. This book won the 1994 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel.[59] In Oatley's book the reader finds out the "real truth" behind Freud's case notes on Emily V.
In the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures novel All-Consuming Fire by Andy Lane the Time Lord meets Holmes and Watson while investigating a recent theft from the Library of St. John the Beheaded, revealed to be the work of Holmes's unknown eldest brother Sherringford (sic), Holmes in the end being forced to kill Sherringford (sic) to save Watson. They are later amongst numerous characters from the series who attend Bernice Summerfield's wedding in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell. Holmes also features in the Faction Paradox novel Erasing Sherlock by Kelly Hale and in the novelette The Shape of Things by Stuart Douglas in the Iris Wildthyme collection Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate. Mycroft Holmes, Dr John Watson and Professor George Challenger also appear in the same book.
Boris Akunin's short story The Prisoner of the Tower, or A Short But Beautiful Journey of Three Wise Men in the Jade Rosary Beads compilation describes Holmes and Erast Fandorin's race to thwart a devious extortion plan by Arsène Lupin.
Author Nancy Springer has written a series of novels of the adventures of Enola Holmes, the much younger teenage sister of Sherlock and Mycroft. Upon their mother's disappearance, Enola discovers that she in fact left of her own volition according to a carefully devised plan to live independently and raised her daughter with the skills to do the same if she chose to. Finding the resources her mother carefully hid for her, Enola decides to run away rather than be forced into boarding school by Mycroft. She eventually comes to London where she secretly sets herself up in business as a private investigator when she realises she is equally as talented at the profession as her older brother even as she is determined to elude his notice.
Holmes cameos at the end of Detective Comics #572, the comic series' 50th anniversary issue, helping Batman, Robin, The Elongated Man, and Slam Bradley tie up a case involving the descendants of both Dr. Watson and Professor Moriarty. Well over a century old now, Holmes attributes his longevity to "a proper diet, a certain distillation of royal jelly, developed in my beekeeping days, and the rarified (sic) atmosphere of Tibet, where I keep my primary residence." He apparently gave up tobacco, too, indicating that his pipe was now "purely for show these days."[60]
Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series is set in a world in which magic and psychic powers are real. Holmes and the Watsons appear in three of the books; Dr Watson is a Water Master, Mary is an Air Master, and Holmes is at first skeptical, dismissing their talk of magic as superstitious twaddle.
In Theodora Goss' 2017 novel, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, the protagonist Mary Jekyll meets Holmes and Watson, and they help each other solve their respective mysteries, which happen to converge.[61]
TV[edit]
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a Sherlock Holmes mystery was one of the programmes on the Enterprise-D's holodeck. In the episode Elementary, Dear Data, Data, after memorising all of the Sherlock Holmes books, is challenged to use deduction in an original mystery created by Dr. Pulaski. However, the programme goes awry when Geordi La Forge, in response to Pulaski's challenge, asks the computer to create an adversary capable of defeating Data, resulting in the hologram of Professor Moriarty (played by Daniel Davis) gaining full sentience, kidnapping Dr. Pulaski and taking over the ship's computer. In a later episode, Ship in a Bottle, the holodeck Moriarty again takes control of the ship, insisting that a way be found for him to experience life beyond the confines of the holodeck, until the crew manage to trap him in a permanent simulation. The first Holmes-based episode was produced with the understanding that Sherlock Holmes was public domain, but a protest from the Doyle estate indicated otherwise (and, it is rumoured, prevented a plan for Data-as-Holmes to become a recurring character).
An elderly Holmes and Watson appear in a sketch of comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look, where Holmes is portrayed as an increasingly senile old man whose flawed deductions are merely humoured by Watson to try to make his old friend feel better; the sketch ends on a tearful note as Holmes, his mind briefly clear, admits to Watson that he knows that his powers are failing him but simply cannot think clearly enough to get past his age.
In 2020 Netflix released the film Enola Holmes based on the Nancy Springer character of the same name starring Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) as the titular character and Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes. The cast also includes Helena Bonham Carter as Eudora Holmes and Sam Claflin as Mycroft Holmes. The film was originally set for theatrical distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures but the distribution rights were picked up by Netflix due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A sequel, Enola Holmes 2, was released in 2022 with a third thought to be currently in production. No release date has yet been confirmed.
Holmes-inspired characters[edit]
Print[edit]
The future King of Thailand, Crown Prince Vajiravudh, published 15 stories featuring a detective Mr. Thong-in, and his assistant Mr. Wat, which were published in 1904-1905. The stories are widely recognised as containing elements from both Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".[63]
August Derleth's Holmes-inspired sleuth Solar Pons is an obvious and early homage to Holmes. Derleth began to write the stories in 1928 after asking permission of Arthur Conan Doyle to continue the series of Sherlock Holmes stories (it was denied). The first collection of Pons stories was published in 1948, and Derleth's stories are contained in 13 additional books, several published after his death in 1971. Basil Copper continued the Pons series with an additional eight books, the most recent published in 2005.
The protagonist of Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose, Friar William of Baskerville (per The Hound of the Baskervilles), and his novice Adso (who, like Watson, is the narrator), are patterned on Holmes and Watson. William of Baskerville is physically similar to Holmes, has the habit of addressing his companion with "My dear Adso" and the story itself is about a strictly rational brain following a path of investigation of a seemingly inexplicable chain of violent deaths.
Poul Anderson wrote several stories in which characters modelled themselves on Holmes, including "The Martian Crown Jewels", "The Queen of Air and Darkness", and "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound".
In Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) one of the characters is a computer, a model "HOLMES IV", which adopts the name Mycroft, after Sherlock Holmes' brother.
Julian Symons created a character named Sheridan Haynes, an actor immersed in the role of Holmes for an epic project to adapt the entire canon for television (almost ten years before Jeremy Brett took up a similar challenge), in the 1975 novel A Three Pipe Problem. Haynes finds himself confusing his own identity with Holmes', and becomes involved in a mystery. The character returned for a 1988 sequel, The Kentish Manor Murders, and Symons also wrote a Holmes short story pastiche.
Charles Hamilton, under the pseudonym Peter Todd, wrote almost 100 short parodies of the Holmes short stories from 1915 onwards. The characters became Herlock Sholmes and Dr Jotson, living in a Shaker Street apartment; and the sophisticated deductive reasoning of the original became absurdity in the spoofs, which were mainly published in a range of boys' comics of the period (The Greyfriars Herald, The Magnet, The Gem, etc.). Although satirical and often mocking contemporary mores (and World War I shortages), the stories had a real feel for the dialogue and structure of the originals. They were all reprinted in The Complete Casebook of Herlock Sholmes (Hawk Books 1989).
Michael Chabon's novella The Final Solution (2004) features an unnamed protagonist who is likely a retired Holmes. The story takes place during World War II, and features the Holmes character investigating the appearance of a mute boy with a parrot who repeatedly calls a string of seemingly random numbers in German. References to Holmes are plentiful: the protagonist is a bee keeper, is familiar with detectives in London, and smokes a pipe. The title simultaneously refers to the Nazi plan for genocide hinted at in the book and mirrors one of Doyle's own shorts, "The Final Problem".
Sarah Monette's The Angel of the Crows (2020), transposed to an alternative London with angels and werewolves, portrays Dr Watson as a field surgeon injured in the Second Anglo-Afghan War instead of India, and Sherlock Holmes as an angel. The work tries to be an anthology of several Holmes cases.
In the O. Henry short stories "The Sleuths", "The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes" and "The Detective Detector" — story collections: Sixes and Sevens (1911),[64] and Waifs and Strays (1917)[65] —
the character Shamrock Jolnes parodies Sherlock Holmes' deductive methods and disguises.
In Bret Harte's collection of burlesques of contemporaneous writers, Condensed Novels: New Burlesques,[66] the character Hemlock Jones in the story "The Stolen Cigar Case By A. Co—n D—le" has been praised by Ellery Queen as "probably the best parody of Sherlock Holmes ever written".[67]
In the first novel of Joyce Ballou Gregorian's Tredana Trilogy, The Broken Citadel, a young girl is transported from our world to a fantasy world called Tredana. She learns that the only previous traveller there from our world is a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson, who was taught how to get there by the Dalai Lama. In Conan Doyle's stories, during the period in which Holmes is presumed dead between the events of The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House, one identity Holmes adopts is a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson who meets with the Dalai Lama.
Timothy Zahn's series of novels about the Star Wars character Grand Admiral Thrawn have led many to draw comparisons between the Chiss and Conan Doyle's Sherlock, from Thrawn's deductive methods to his companions and rivals.[68][69][70][71] In Heir to the Empire, Captain Pellaeon serves as Thrawn's Watson,[72] though in later books like Thrawn and Thrawn: Treason, Eli Vanto also plays a similar role to Watson, serving as Thrawn's aide, friend, and successor. The elusive Nightswan serves as Thrawn's Moriarty in the 2017 novel, and Thrass could arguably serve as Thrawn's Mycroft. In contrast, others have compared Thrawn to Moriarty due to his role within the Empire.[73]
Film[edit]
Douglas Fairbanks played a cocaine-addicted Holmes spoof named "Coke Enneday" in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916). Many of this "scientific" detective's possessions are checkered in the Holmes manner, including his detective hat, jacket, and even his car, and whenever he feels momentarily dejected, he nonchalantly extracts yet another syringe from a bandolier on his chest and quickly injects himself with cocaine, laughing in merriment as an immediate result.
In 1924, comedian Buster Keaton made Sherlock Jr., about a film projectionist who dreams of becoming a great detective.
The 1971 film They Might Be Giants, adapted from James Goldman's 1961 British stage play of the same name, featured George C. Scott as a widowed judge named Justin Playfair who imagines himself to be Holmes. When his brother seeks to have him committed, he is brought to Dr. Mildred Watson (Joanne Woodward).
In The Return of the World's Greatest Detective (1976 TV movie), a rather ineffectual Los Angeles police officer, and avid fan of Sherlock Holmes, named Sherman Holmes (played by American actor Larry Hagman) suffers a brain injury when his parked motorcycle tips over and falls onto his head (he was lying beside it, reading). He wakes with both the unshakeable delusion that he is Sherlock Holmes and that he possesses all of Holmes' incredible deductive abilities. His friend and case-worker, Dr. Joan Watson (Jenny O'Hara), moves him to Apartment B of 221 Baker Street, where he becomes involved in the murder of an embezzler. Nicholas Colasanto also stars as Lt. Tinker, Holmes' former superior, who is in charge of the murder investigation. Reviewers of the day pointed out parallels to They Might Be Giants.
The 1986 Soviet comedy My Dearly Beloved Detective features two women (Shirley Holmes and Jane Watson) opening a private detective agency in London, to the displeasure of Scotland Yard at the competitors. Sherlock Holmes is fictional in the setting.
Zero Effect, loosely based on the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia", features Bill Pullman as Daryl Zero, a neurotic detective who is only in his element when on a case, and Ben Stiller as Watson-like assistant Steve Arlo. Set in modern Portland, Oregon, the search for a shady businessman's lost keys reveals a plot involving murder, blackmail, and secret identities. Instead of cocaine, Zero's occasional need for mental stimulation leads to experimentation with the drug mescaline. In the film, Zero indicates that he has mastered his technique of "Observation and Objectivity" – or as he calls them, "The Two Obs".
Sherlock Holmes also inspired Satyajit Ray to create the character Pradosh Mitter. Mitter, affectionately called Feluda, was immensely popular in Bengal. Feluda used the method of deduction to solve his cases, most of which were set in Calcutta. Ray even made some movies with Feluda as hero, including Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress). Additionally, the Bengali writer Saradindu Bandyopadhyay also had a detective named Byomkesh Bakshi, which had some resemblance to Doyle's Holmes.[74] In many ways Bakshi was different from the "drug-addict" bachelor image that Holmes had. Bakshi was married and had few addictions except that of a cigarette. In many ways, Byomkesh's character was distinctly different from that of Holmes. However both used deductions and were astute observers. In their character portrayal though the biggest difference lies. The frequently brooding trait in Holmes' character was not found in the cheerful portrayal of Byomkesh Bakshi. The adventures of Bakshi was later developed into a television series that was aired in Doordarshan, India's premier TV channel during those times, in the early 1990s. The series featuring Rajit Kapoor as Byomkesh Bakshi, telecast on the Doordarshan, inspired a lot of Indians to read the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and re-read the works of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay.
Text was copied from Influence of Sherlock Holmes at the Baker Street Wiki, which is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license.
