BIRTH AND BURIAL OF "SHERLOCK HOLMES."

Evening Star, Issue 11454, 23 January 1901, Page 5

BIRTH AND BURIAL OF "SHERLOCK HOLMES. "

p»Jt AN AGREEABLE PROSPECT. |? In the thousandth number of ‘ Tit-Bits ’ !|| ||sppropriatoly a double number, full of ia-|| .Jtorestiug and entertaining matter D/f|s •ftConan Doyle is represented by a page which cannot fail to ba widely read, descriptive he birth and burial of “ Sherlock Holmes ”:s;j The idea of the detective was suggested a professor under whom I hud worked Edinburgh, and in part by Edgar Allei-fe |Poo’3 detective, which, after all, ran on thfO 5 lines of all other detectives who have ap t® || pearod in literature. “ lu work which oon-fej i? data in the drawing of detectives there arc||:| ['ioaly one or two qualities which one can u6c.|& Ojand an author ia forced to hark back Sthem constantly, so that every /leteccivcp] d’must really resemble every other ’detective | to a greater or less extent. There is ncM great originality required in devising or j| constructing such a man, and the onlv pcs 5k | dble originality which one can gat "into a a ® story about a detective is in giving himfij original plots and problems to solve, as in jin ig! his equipment there must be of necessity an&vj Iff- alert acuteness of mind to grasp facts $ the relation which each of them bears to thelm other. pi H At the time I first thought of a deteotive||j it was about 18S6—I had been ifesotne detective stories, and it struck mf|| fjwhat nonsense they were, to put it mildly, for getting the solution of the mys-pl iAjtery the authors always depended on (gcoiocidence. This ptruck me as not a faille of playing the game, because the detec-wj Native ought really to depend for his successonffiJ in bis own n.iad, and not onvM gmeroly adventitious circumstances, which do|| an y mean?, always occur in real life, iff, f j was se=dy at the limo, and, not workingc-H had leisure to read, so I read half iadozen or so detective stories, both ia Frenchp? S|and English, and they one and all filled tm| yjwi -h dissatisfaction and a sort of feel-p* 1 how much more interesting they gjbe made if one could show tba'lg' Bthe8 the man deserved his victory over thrP criminal or the mystery he was calledP to solve. Then I began to think, suo-i? jlposo my old professor at Edinburgh were ioP sjthe place of one of these lucky detectives, hr M ||would have worked out the process of effectpl Jijf.'om cause just as logically as he would havi|| iHiiagnosed a disease, instead of bavin* some-pi given to him by more luck, which, a-M bH said just now, does nob happen in real life p j|Eor fun, therefore, I startedconattucting aM jMstory and giving my detective a hjiyatem, so as to make him reason everythiu|lK Aout. Intellectually that had been donTgl jfjbcforo by Elgar Allan Pos with M. Dupin.fe where Holmes differed from Dupin was® he had an immense fund of exact know-® pledge to draw upon in consequence of hup? scientific education. 1 mean b>f| that by looking at a man’s hand ht|| aknew what the man’s trade was, as by look-® |ling at hia trousers leg ha could deduce the® ii!| Mesmeric Magic.—The influence of the sootb-ll i^-AAriji* 1 the 3imße ° f 601(1011 Eagle tobacco.ll

oharaoter of the man. He was practical and he was systematic, and his success in the detection of crime wau to be the fruit, not of tuck, hut of his qualities. Dr Doyle describes in detail how Holmes first appeared in 'A Study in Scarlet,' which was made 'Beeton'a Christmas Anaual in ISS7. was " rigged up" three veara later in ' Lippiccott's' sub-.e. quently developed into ' The Sign of Four,' and finally j a the ' Strand Magazine,' in a hugely Buoceasful attempt of the author to prove that he " could write a serial without appearing to do so," " I was then in prac Uco in Wimpole street as a specialist, and while waiting for my patients to come 1 began writing to fill up my waiting hoars." Dr Doyle explains the motives which impaled him to kill his great creation;—«'l was still a young man and a young novelist, ind I have always notioed that the ruin of 'very novelist who has oome up h*a heen ■ff-cted by driving him into R groove. • . . Now, why Bhould a man be driven nto a groove and not write about what inhim ? When I waß interested about Holmes I wrote about Hoimes, and it amused me making him get involved in new conundrums; but when I had written twenty-six stories, each involving the making of a fresh plot, I felt that it was becoming irkscrae this searching for plots—and if it were getting irksome to me, most oertainly, 1 argued, it must be losing its freshness for others. I knew I had done better work in other fields of literature. Yet, just because '.ho Sherlook Holmes stories were, for the moment, more popular, I was becoming more and more known as the author of Sherlock Holmes instead of as the author of 'The White Company.' My lower work was obscuriDg my higher." . When Dr Doyle had killed Holmes in' Switzerland—at a "fine romantic place" for " a gaudy kind of death "—" I was surprised at the amount of interest people took' 'o his fate. I never thought they would ake it so to heart. I got letters from all over tha world reproaching me on the sub! V-ai. One, I remember, from a lady whom' I did not know, began ' you hcaat.'" ] . "From that duty to this," conduces Dr; Doyle, "I have never for an instant re-! fretted the course I took in killing |loek. That does not say, however, that loecause he is dead I should not write about] f-iira again if I wanted to, for there is no' j'imit to the number of papers ho left behind' jor the reminiscences in the brain of his 1 j