Sherlock Holmes: An astute brain in an iron head

{ It’s one of the first articles written by me. It was written for our college’s yearly magazine for the year 2006. The biggest thanks for this article go to my friend Arijit Ghosh who is the reason for my first acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The facts that I have written are mainly from the preface of the book I borrowed from Arijit in the hostel of Holy Home, Serampore. Hope you all like it. }
Biographies are normally written about living souls. But here is a man who never breathed a real breath but is one of the most loved and known personalities in the entire world. He had his abode at 221B Baker street, London and is the most enterprising and famous detective. He is Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical man by profession but it didn’t bring him enough success. So he started writing books which include the famous “The Lost World”. But what brought him into limelight was Sherlock Holmes, his master creation. He narrated the whole series of adventures through Dr. John Watson, a retired army doctor from Afghanistan, who was the friend-cum-chronicler of the eminent detective. Holmes was inspired from Doyle’s teacher Dr. Joseph Bell of Edinburgh University. Watson is seen as portrayal of Doyle himself.
Sherlock Holmes had his own virtues and vices. He was a man who was very active but was prone to cocaine during idleness. To rake up his brains, he loved to smoke strong shag tobacco. He knew boxing, played violin and knew almost every criminal case of his lifetime. He knew the British law just as the back of his hand. But he seldom paid enough attention to other matters which had little connection with crime. He believed that the attic of the brain has to be stocked with data which is required regularly while everything can be sent to the lumber room from where it can be extracted if required. He believed in personal cleanliness but his rooms were quite dirty. He was an excellent shooter who practiced generally in his drawing room. He was known to apply very unorthodox techniques in solving a case and his knowledge of Organic Chemistry was an important tool in these endeavours. He was courteous to the ones who were the same to him. He could give enough respect to a pauper and curtly dismiss a prince if he found him to his dislike. He was well behaved with the women but generally avoided them. He was highly secretive while solving a case and would divulge all the facts and threads even to Watson only after he solved the case.
Sherlock Holmes’s practice increased gradually and at his peak he had helped three ruling houses of Europe. It is not that he was successful always. But where he failed, the official police and others had already failed. He was in a way the final court of appeal. Money was secondary to him and generally took cases which provided him with a field of interest. He practiced art for art’s sake.
Although Sherlock Holmes brought Doyle phenomenal success, Doyle’s first love was not Holmes. So, he masterfully got rid of him by killing Holmes and Professor Moriarity, his enemy, in the Reichenbach fall in the story, “The Final Problem”. But then started a long agitation from the public and media and Doyle was forced to bring back Holmes. And he did so in the story, “The Adventure of Empty House”.
Sherlock Holmes was so popular that the fans used to write letters to him at 221B Baker Street. This queer fan-mail reportedly created quite a problem for the postal authorities in London at one time. The adventures of the super sleuth started appearing from the year 1887 and ended 1927, just three years before the author’s death in 1930. In total 4 novels and 56 short stories were published in the meantime. “A Study in Scarlet” introduced Holmes. “A Scandal in Bohemia” was the first short story to be published. “The Hound of the Baskervilles” is the most popular story. Sign of four, Silver Blaze, Six Napoleons, etc are the other popular stories.
Holmes-Watson pair has been inspiration for many other authors. Byomkesh-Ajit and Feluda-Topshe are clearly inspired. Sherlock Holmes has rightly been said the most convincing, the most brilliant, the most congenial and well loved of all detectives in facts or fictions.