A few years ago , a pollfound that 58 percent of British teenagers think Sherlock Holmes was a real mortal ( meanwhile , 47 percent conceive that Richard the Lionheart was not ) . That may be just a sad affirmation on the education system , but that does n’t stand for those Kyd are alone . There ’s actually a whole group of citizenry who enjoy the theory that Sherlock Holmes – or at least sidekick John Watson – was material .
The explanation is unsubdivided : Dr. Watson chronicled the piece of work of the London police detective Sherlock Holmes and their relationship . Arthur Conan Doyle ? He was Watson ’s literary federal agent and serve convey the stories toThe Strandmagazine and other outlets .
Of course , Doyle was n’t just an federal agent . He lay claim to have based the Holmes character off of his former instructor , Dr. Joseph Bell , who was said to have similarly impressive deductive top executive . The Holmes piece , depart with 1887 ’s “ A survey in Scarlet , ” quickly became his most famed deeds , overshadowing anything else he wrote ( a fact that frustrated Doyle and led to his decision to " wipe out " Holmes in " The Final Problem " ) . Eventually , Doyle wrote 56 unforesightful storey and four novel featuring Holmes across 40 years .
However , Doyle ’s presence make another trouble for the Holmesians who believe in the canon . The author was never one to stick closely to his earlier works and said on many occasions that he would n’t have the canon fend in the way of a effective report . That means dates do n’t line up and scholar have had fuss put the cases in chronological order . Likewise , eccentric encounter and re - fitting , physical descriptions alter and even personality trait vanish or dislodge as want .
For example , in several stories Holmes refuses to take a reward , even take that “ my profession is my reward . ” But in other cases , such as “ The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet , ” he takes as much 4,000 pound . This seeming inconsistency has been brush off with a simple account : Holmes only accepts money from wealthy clients when he want it .
The “ great game ” of studying the Holmes canyon began with Ronald Knox , who seek to enforce Holmes ’ own methods on the canyon in his essay “ study in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes . ” In it , he tackles the accurate order and date of the canon mysteries , Holmes ' ever - shifting procedure of probe and even the fault in Watson ’s personal history . Knox even offers up an explanation of the inconsistencies in Watson ’s work :
Interestingly , the estimate of believing in canon and receipt the source can be applied out of doors of the Holmes literature . For representative , TVTropes.orgexplains how Doylists and Watsonians subsist in TV fandom : a Doylist would sympathize that an actor had to be remodel , while a Watsonian would infer that the fictional character in question had get plastic surgery to change his or her appearing .
