Influenced by the writings of Poe, Gaboriau and Wilkie Collins, Conan Doyle was struck by the desire to create a “powerful detective whose deductive powers would be equal to those of his illustrious predecessors, but who would be fully described, and more amusing” (Higham 67–8). As such, he wrote his first detective story, A Study in Scarlet, in between meals, being called to patients and calls from his wife, he would have no idea that he was creating the “most famous character in the English language” (Carr 64). It was in this story that Conan Doyle crafted the five words of a story that would prove to be one of the most famous introductions of two characters in all of fiction: “Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

While not the first fictional crime-solver in literature, he is by far perhaps the most iconic. In light of the events period, perhaps the character of Sherlock Holmes could not have arrived at a better time. In his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet in 1887 the public was near-desperate for a “good detective in Scotland Yard,” with Jack the Ripper abroad and the idea that if one such investigator could not be found in reality, then turning to fiction was the next best option available to them.

Originally named “Sherringford Hope” after Doyle’s whaling ship, the name was soon changed to “Sherlock Holmes,” inspired by both Alfred Sherlock and Oliver Wendell Holmes, respectively (Higham 68). There are indeed a great deal of parallels between both of the Holmes men, along with ties to the violinist, Alfred Sherlock, providing the detective’s formal name as they were both avid violin players themselves and equally fond of German music. His character was also based off of a surgeon and teacher that Conan Doyle had studied while in university by the name of Dr. Joseph Bell, particularly inspired by the latter’s uncanny ability to “reveal a patient’s symptoms” and diagnose them without them having said a word of their affliction (The Wide World). There are also certain other traits of Holmes that he shared with his creator, including such things as them both being familiar with a wide range of topics and intrigued by the excitements that came with murder cases. Sherlock Holmes was not left to work alone in his adventures, however, and was promptly joined by his soon-to-be iconic Dr. John Watson.

It was Dr. John Watson, a Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society member, who had Holmes’ partner named after him (The Wide World). However, it may also be argued that a Dr. James Watson may have also had an influence, along with a Dr. John A. Watson who had served in the First Afghan War that may have been the inspiration for Doyle’s Watson having served in the Second. These two men exist as parts of a whole to one another, living in a similar fashion as an old married couple and, in some views, perhaps as the two opposing sides of Doyle’s personality: Watson was “the one the public knew best” whereas the other served as the basis for Holmes (Higham 70).

Both exhibit characteristics similar to those found in their author, including such things as Watson being more well-read and Holmes an avid boxer and fencer, among other various things. The doctor is, in a way, the more social and loyal, and the public identity of Conan Doyle where Holmes is the more reserved and well-versed, both sharing aspects of the author and doing well to create a relatively even balance.

The first meeting of these two now famous characters comes in the aforementioned first tale of A Study in Scarlet, in which Watson is established as a veteran of the Afghan War and Holmes as the detective with whom he finds lodging. Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of their initial encounter is that rather than simply introduce himself, Holmes instead adopts an inscrutable disguise for quite some time before the sudden reveal to a proclamation of “You’d have made an actor and a rare one” (An Actor).

As for the story itself, Conan Doyle had written in some three weeks time in 1886 and then published it the following year in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, followed by the second Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign of Four. Interestingly enough, only six years later in 1893 would Conan Doyle grow tired of his main character, deciding to kill him off during an encounter with his otherwise nemesis, Professor Moriarty during the fall of Reichenbach in Switzerland (Carr 112).

However, in spite of the author’s attempt to end the series, public demand and income helped to bring about the return of Holmes, who would continue to appear in stories by Conan Doyle until 1927. Such tales of the mystery duo comprised of The Hound of the Baskervilles that, while published in 1902 (after The Final Problem), was not dated by Conan Doyle and instead served as a tale that had not been told by Watson previously. Despite being a central character, Holmes was still dead in Switzerland (Higham 171).

While some say that Conan Doyle initially had plans to write some twelve stories of the duo, he actually had no plans to do so. If anything, the six stories he’d written between April and August 1891 were all that he had intended to write, though Holmes’ popularity had the editors asking the author for more (Carr 85). In response to such a demand, Conan Doyle wrote to his mother often, she being his most devoted follower and the one he turned to for the most criticism.

It was in one of his numerous letters to her in which he revealed his plans to kill off Holmes before the end of 1891, an idea she quickly struck down and in turn ended up saving the renowned detective from a sudden twist of fate, despite his preconceived notions: “I think of slaying Holmes in the last and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things” (Carr 87–8). Mary Doyle had managed to save Sherlock Holmes from meeting a premature death, and even so some of the current events in Conan Doyle’s life did, in turn, lead up to the end of the detective.

The Final Problem served as the story in which Sherlock Holmes was to meet his end, as he and Professor Moriarty plunge over Reichenbach Falls to their apparent deaths. Watson was not present at this time, having been deceivingly called to the aid of a woman suffering from consumption, much in the same manner as Conan Doyle’s wife Louise. Perhaps it was her longtime suffering that had brought on Holmes’ death, he having felt that he’d neglected her for the fictional detective and had “helped to bring about her death sentence” (Higham 112).

At the time of his first proposing an end to the series, Conan Doyle’s wife Louise’s health had been deteriorating to the point that he felt as if he had been neglecting his wife for the fictional detective (Higham 112). Louise would pass away in 1906 after a thirteen year long battle with consumption with her husband and mother at her side and her death would prove to be the darkest day in Conan Doyle’s life, him succumbing to questions over how happy he’d been able to make his late wife (Carr 215).

The end of the Sherlock Holmes series a few years previous was inevitable; as Conan Doyle eventually did indeed stop writing of him for some time, although a new series did appear in 1903 in The Strand. This new series made clear Doyle’s reliance on past experiences as a source of his inspiration as Holmes materializes in one of his numerous disguises, having disappeared from the Reichenbach Falls and thought dead (Higham 182–3).

Despite this reappearance, Conan Doyle often responded angrily to the question of whether or not he planned on reviving Holmes, claiming that he “saw too much of himself in the character to be quite at ease with it” (Higham 112).

“My whole life is spent in a series of frantic endeavors to escape from the dreary commonplace of existence,” says the titular character of Sherlock Holmes, a play written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette (Higham 15).

The stage drama was not the first hint of Sherlock Holmes being in the theatre, seeing as it is rumored that the man may very well have been a performer before beginning his crime-solving career. In some manner Sherlock Holmes is an “anomaly: an actor who doesn’t like to talk about himself” (An Actor).

His is a character with a history in the theatre and acting, and yet he never makes it a point to mention it, nor does he divulge a great deal of information about himself forthright. In one instance it takes seven years for him to inform Watson that he has a brother and while his acting career may have been profitable at a certain point in time, it is only fitting that Holmes’ relent such a path in order to take on the role of a consulting detective, using skills he’d managed to acquire both from working theatrically and trying his hand at various chemicals and subjects of the like. For him, “acting was a means to an end, never a goal in itself. (An Actor).

Sherlock Holmes did not simple splash on some rouge or pull a cap down over his ears — he became the character he was working to convey with the audience in the palm of his hands. With skills such as these it has been said that the detective could have made a fantastic criminal, and that “a life in the theatre would never had done for him. It simply wasn’t enough of a challenge” (An Actor).

The many skills of Sherlock Holmes are not merely limited to the varying paths of theatrical performances and sciences, but come with the inclusion of musical skill with the violin as well. It is most likely that this talent is derived from his namesake, the popular violinist Alfred Sherlock, whom Doyle possessed a great deal of admiration for (The Wide World). At times Dr. Watson could compare his role in their relationship to the violin Holmes so cared for, humbled by it and his position.

In Dr. Watson Holmes by and large he had his most devoted follower, silently marveling at the man and providing applause when he felt necessary, it being genuine in nature. He was always astounded at his partner’s skills and “intelligent enough to appreciate Holmes’ genius, but never so intelligent that he gets ahead of the play” (An Actor).

In a way, Sherlock Holmes’ theatrics may have very well depended upon Watson, him being what may have been seen as his closest comrade and an important key in their series of adventures and cases. Dr. John Watson served as the narrator in each tale save for four and each time held his friend in a near-reverence, their relationship at odds but never done away with.

In modern media, the character of Sherlock Holmes may come off as standoffish, and yet he is much more than a man wandering around spouting off facts that he has deducted and sounding intelligent while doing so. In Doyle’s time, the readers were attracted to Holmes’ “integrity, trustworthiness, sensibility, rational decisiveness, lack of emotionalism, and intellectual superiority,” key traits that appear to draw the public in still today (The Wide World).

In other cases there have been rumors that Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict, and yet these claims may in fact be proven false that, while it may be confirmed that Holmes was an adamant user of morphine and cocaine, it should also be duly noted that these were both perfectly legal at the time and could in fact be purchased at a local drugstore. There is also no evidence that Conan Doyle himself recreationally used drugs in any fashion (Sherlockian.Net).

In more recent years Sherlock Holmes has also been well portrayed by names such as Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. The latter both place Holmes and Watson in a different setting, still a crime-solving duo just in a more modern world. Jude Law accompanies Downey Jr., Martin Freeman Cumberbatch, and Lucy Liu Miller as the ever-present and necessary Dr. John — or, in Liu’s case, “Joan” — Watson to the at times infuriating detective (IMDb). Each actor puts a different sort of twist on Sherlock Holmes, one include some focus on his physical prowess in boxing and disguises, and others on some of the uses of his intellect and the way in which he interacts with various people.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would ultimately pass away on July 7th, 1930 from heart disease with his second wife Jean Leckie by his side. Is it said that they did not wish for mourning, and in the words of biographer John Dickson Carr: “And, whether it be said in that the spiritual sense or only the earthly influence he has left behind among us, one word may be added. Let no man write his epitaph. He is not dead” (Carr 334, 338).

In some form, Carr’s words may very well ring true, as while Conan Doyle may no longer be living in the physical sense, his characters still exist and live on, continuing to grow and evolve and remain some of the most iconic of all literary creations.

The thought of fictional detectives is just about as synonymous with “Sherlock Holmes” as is “221B Baker Street.” One does not simply speak of mysteries and detectives and neglect to even vaguely consider the notion of Sherlock Holmes and the ever-present Dr. John Watson, the inseparable pair that has since lived in fame in various fashions and instilled themselves in the lives of many, just as their author has.

“The immortality of this marvelous writer is fixed forever in the Holmes stories, today enjoying their greatest vogue,” said Charles Higham, “These perhaps more than any others in the detective-story genre can give irresistible pleasure to child and adult alike” (Higham 12).

With the continual publications of the Sherlock Holmes adventures and the various appearances in media, the characters, author and stories can never die; these stories may simply retire if need be, but they are always alive.

For two-hundred and fifteen years Sherlock Holmes has been influencing and antagonizing the media society with his at times irritable demeanor and his unmatched intelligence. While he was not the first fictional detective in existence, the name “Sherlock Holmes” is famed and synonymous with being known as such and the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fifty-six short stories and four novels are clear proof of his popularity and to a greater extent the power he has had over literature.

These works serve as a basis for the various other forms in which these characters have appeared and the modern mystery in and of itself. The detective is at once modeled after Sherlock Holmes if not unconsciously and the continued following remarkable. It may very be unlikely that Conan Doyle set out to write one of the most well-known and adored literary characters, but rather that he merely set out to create a detective that was both entertaining and in possession of nearly unmatched intellectual capabilities.

Whatever the case, together, both changed the mystery genre along with forensic science, literature and the role of the fictional detective in the process. It’s elementary, really.