The Private Detective in Literature – Part 6 | Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes: The Final Phase

Once again, readers have to wait three long years

In the final instalment of our series “The Private Detective in Literature”, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief: Sherlock Holmes is back, and not merely in “prequels” with stories set before his death, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles, but this time truly and very much alive – at least in the 13 short stories brought together in 1905 as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. There is little time left for anything else, however, because exactly twenty years after the master detective first appeared in 1887 in A Study in Scarlet, he is still at the height of his popularity – and with him Arthur Conan Doyle himself!

 

The time since the last short story featuring the hero already feels far too long to readers, so in 1908 Doyle, after a few excursions into other genres, returns to the safe option and launches a new series of short stories with The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge. This time, however, there are only three, published at short intervals between September and October of the same year – perhaps to briefly replenish the bank account? Who knows …

Holmes between mysticism, fantasy and science fiction

The following years see Doyle overflowing with creativity and productivity, and this period also gives rise to another iconic figure whom he creates in 1912 with The Lost World, a character who in many respects represents the exact opposite of Sherlock Holmes: Professor Challenger, half scientist, half adventurer, researcher and explorer.

 

By this point at the latest, Doyle is fully aware of his “power”; with Sherlock Holmes he can always play it safe if necessary, because when things get tight, there is simply something new from the old Sherlock. At the same time, this naturally also pays tribute to his yearning readership. Fortunately, however, never at the expense of quality, because everything Doyle writes remains true to itself, has substance and a distinctive style. He lets himself go, his imagination knows no bounds: while Sherlock Holmes always remains firmly grounded in reality and seemingly mystical events are invariably explained rationally, Doyle’s other stories are increasingly shaped by mysticism and tend more towards fantasy and science fiction in terms of genre. Readers love him, and Doyle rewards them: alongside many other adventure and fantasy stories, they repeatedly receive new material about their favourite Sherlock Holmes at irregular intervals. In addition, a fourth and final novel follows in 1915 (The Valley of Fear).

Personal losses, spiritualist confusions and their consequences

With His Last Bow, Doyle publishes one more short story featuring Sherlock Holmes in 1917; otherwise, the following years are quiet for the master detective. This in turn has personal reasons, because the horrors of the First World War overshadow Doyle’s private life: he loses his son, his brother, his two brothers-in-law and his two nephews on the battlefields. As a result, he increasingly turns towards the spiritual and the occult, writing about fairies and the paranormal – however, as non-fiction, which partly meets with incomprehension from his otherwise loyal readership. He travels extensively to investigate the occult and paranormal, takes the séances and conjuring tricks popular at the time at face value, and regards obviously forged photographs of fairies as genuine. Legendary is his dispute with his erstwhile good friend Harry Houdini, who, unlike Doyle, insists that all magic (including his own) should be understood as trickery and illusion.

 

Doyle has long been one of the best-paid writers in the world, but the travels and research into the occult take their toll on his fortune. Ultimately, and probably above all for this reason, Doyle returns to the one who has always stood faithfully by his side and filled the coffers: the greatest literary detective of all time. In October 1921, The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone is published, forming the opening to a further eleven short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes – unfortunately the last about the literary forefather of our private detectives in Saarbrücken. They are published at irregular intervals until April 1927 (naturally once again in The Strand Magazine) and are brought together in June of the same year as The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle’s most famous figure thus totals 56 short stories and four novels – and those are only the ones written by Doyle himself, that is, the canon.

Conan Doyle: contentious at the end, yet a life’s work that remains inexhaustibly inspiring

Arthur Conan Doyle dies in 1930 at the age of 71 after a successful and fulfilled life, of a heart attack. Not only as an author, but also as a doctor, politician, researcher, sportsman and adventurer, he had made a name for himself. Unforgotten and revered, however, he will probably always be remembered above all for the figure that has shaped the image of the detective to this day and is the ultimate icon of deduction. The world’s first “consulting detective” even had a lasting influence on police methodology and thus ultimately also on that of Kurtz Detective Agency Saarbrücken and Saarland.

 

Sherlock Holmes made Arthur Conan Doyle rich, but he brought a far greater enrichment to the imagination of generations of readers, television viewers, cinema-goers and audio drama enthusiasts around the world. Countless private investigators cite Sherlock Holmes as an early inspiration that sparked their enthusiasm for their profession. Our detectives from Saarbrücken bow to a great man who lived his dreams and in doing so gave us so many of our own.

Author: Gerrit Koehler

 

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