Sherlock Holmes occupies an interesting niche in human culture by having many different portrayals that vary greatly.
The Origin
Sherlock Holmes has debuted in a 1887 novel "A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The following is a spoiler summary of the first novel.
An Afgan War veteran Dr. John Watson seeks for a place to settle in London, and agrees for 221B Baker Street, but is warned that the resident he'll be sharing a rent with is eccentric. There, Sherlock Holmes introduces himself as a "consulting detective" and surprises Watson by deducing where he's from by observing his appearance.
Sherlock's help is requested by the police and Watson decides to tag along. Sherlock looks into the murder of Enoch Drebber where the killer has written "revenge" on the wall with blood. Sherlock concludes that poison was the weapon, notes that the victim's secretary Joseph Stangerson gone missing, annoys inspectors Gregson and Lestrade, and picks a wedding ring from the victim. When Sherlock asks around London about Drebber's ring, an old lady claims it must be her daughter's, but she disappears when Sherlock finds her suspicious. Meanwhile, Gregson informs Sherlock that they've already arrested a suspect, but later Stangerson dies the same way as Drebber. Sherlock gets two pills from the victim and tests them on his dog, but only the second one kills it. Wiggins, a kid leader of the Irregulars, brings a cabby driver Jefferson Hope to Sherlock per his request, who immediately handcuffs him.
A backstory tells that Hope was in love with a Mormon girl Lucy, but her community only allowed to marry either Drebber or Stangerson. Her father asked Hope and Lucy to escape but they were unsuccessful, he gets killed by Stangerson, and Lucy is married off to Drebber before dying shortly from a "broken heart". Hope steals Lucy's wedding ring at the funeral and swears revenge. Hope spent 20 years chasing his targets around the world before finding them in London. He abducted Drebber and made him gamble between two pills, while Stangerson refused the challenge and got killed with a knife.
Sherlock explains that a cabby was witnessed near both scenes of the crime and he recognized Hope as the old lady in disguise. Hope admits defeat and is arrested, but dies from aneurysm before trial. Sherlock lets the police take all the credit, but offended Watson decides to document what really happened.
Many following novels have Sherlock take strange requests with Watson as a sidekick.
Legacy
The first Sherlock novels weren't well known at the time, but the release of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1891 has sparked popularity. When Sherlock died in 1893 in The Final Problem, a fan backlash forced Doyle to continue the series.
While Sherlock wasn't the first detective story, he has helped building an entire genre of unofficial sleuth detectives.
Sherlock has a large passionate fanbase around the world. There are many who believe Watson's notes describe events that happened in real life and send letters to 221B Baker Street, which are now handled by the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Even in the 19th century there were already clubs dedicated on writing reviews about Sherlock's skills and the writing's quality.
Sherlock utilized many tricks like psychological profiling, examining evidence with a magnifying glass, footprint analysis, handwriting analysis, fingerprint analysis and etc. At the time those were just novel ideas Doyle found interesting that helped Sherlock stand out from how the police normally operates. Today, these are considered the basics of forensics.
Legal status
The copyright on early Sherlock novels has expired in UK, Canada, and Australia in 1980, but in UK the copyright time has extended from 50 years to 70, so it entered public domain again in 2000.
In US the copyright for first novels has expired in 1998, yet the Doyle Estate has applied copyright claims on post-1923 stories to the rest of the series. In 2013 Leslie S. Klinger sued the Estate on that part and was successful, meaning adaptations can be based on Sherlock as long as no information was taken from the remaining ten novels. Yet, in 2020 the Estate unsuccessfully tried to sue the Enola Holmes film by claiming Sherlock's "emotions" are still a part of later novels.
The entirety of the copyright has expired in 2023, freeing the entire canon for reinterpretation. While copyright lapsed, trademarks on specific logos or branding may still exist.
The Formula
Holmes standardized the "genius, eccentric detective" archetype, a template adaptable across genres and settings. His deductive reasoning, and being followed by a loyal partner, are universally recognizable elements, making it easy to build stories with that premise.
The following are the general traits that are present in Sherlock adaptations:
- Sherlock's main skill is noticing small details in his field of view and thinking about how they came to be, figuring out new information from the reconstructed chain of events. He's usually the only one to be doing that.
- Sherlock is officially unemployed and acts as a private investigator as a hobby. Sherlock is asked by the police for opinions on strange cases, but often they don't take him seriously until the end despite own poor track record. Private citizens also reuqest Sherlock, but he refuses cases that aren't interesting.
- Sherlock has limited knowledge and often removes basic scientific facts from his memory because they don't have practical application and thus are not helpful for cases.
- Sherlock's favorite method is "eliminating the impossible". Even if the working theory is unlikely, for the lack of better alternatives it's usually the most correct one.
- Sherlock has a tendency to piss people off with his "do now, explain later" approach and refusing to disclose his plans until they are complete.
- Sherlock has some degree of moral ambiguity and isn't above playing dirty to collect evidence.
- Sherlock sometimes uses recreational drugs when he has nothing to do, canonically a 7% cocaine mixture, which at the time was considered acceptable for medical use.
- Sherlock iconically wears a deerstalker hat, an Inverness cape, and calabash pipe, all of which ironically he never had canonically.
- Watson was always smart and has plenty of combat experience, but he usually just acts as Sherlock's chronicler. Adaptations have him to be a mix of an overweight gentleman, a bumbling sidekick who requires everything explained to him, or helping Sherlock with emotional context he doesn't take into account.
- Mrs. Hudson is the landlady of 221B Baker Street, who Sherlock often uses as his personal secretary, cook and janitor because she's a nice lady. In later adaptations she has an additional role of providing motherly support for the two.
- Sherlock has a group of orphan kids called Baker Street Irregulars, who do errands for him. In adaptations, the Irregular are normally a group of various recurring comic relief characters who act as witnesses and aren't connected to each other.
- James Moriarty was just a former mathematician turned mafia boss in one of the novels, who also dies in it. Due to being described as Sherlock's equal who he spent years of tracking down, adaptations turn him into an overarching villain who supplies other criminals for the sake of world domination or personal amusement and in turn has a grudge against Sherlock.
- Irene Adler is an opera singer, who the king of Bohemia asks Sherlock to take a compromising photo away from. She is notable by noticing Sherlock's trap against her, using a disguise mess with him, then escaping with the photo. In adaptations, she's a recurring femme fatale anti-villain similar to Catwoman, even though in the novel she's really an innocent victim.
- Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's elder brother who works in the government. He's described as being even smarter than Sherlock and has a lot of connections.
Deviations
Like ancient myths or folktales, Holmes transcends his origin. Public domain status allows him to function as a cultural meme, changing with each retelling. Writers can explore his core traits while altering settings, time periods, or even species.
Due to the flexibility of archetypes and the public domain status, adaptations are free to use cultural reimagining and change the context of Sherlock stories through reinvention. Notable changes include:
- A Slight Trick of the Mind / Mr. Holmes: A 93 year old Holmes tries to remember his final case.
- Sherlock (BBC): Mainly follows the novels but is set in modern London, with heavy use of technology.
- Elementary: A police drama set in contemporary New York.
- Miss Sherlock: Female Holmes in Tokyo.
- Case File nº221: Kabukicho: Sherlock as a Japanese rakugo comedian and Moriarty as a schoolboy who looks up to him.
- Shekhar Home: An Indian Holmes.
- The Enola Holmes Mysteries: Focuses on Sherlock's teenage sister.
- The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: A bumbling Sherlock assists a Japanese lawyer in a steampunk London, while Watson is a little girl gadgeteer.
- Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century: Animated Sci-Fi series.
- Moriarty the Patriot: Moriarty as a heroic anti-classist revolutionist who is opposed by Sherlock.
- Undead Girl Murder Farce: Moriarty uses folklore monsters for biology experiments while Sherlock has hyper-reflexes to keep up with supernatural enemies.
- Sherlock Hound: The characters as dogs.
- Basil of Baker Street / The Great Mouse Detective: An intelligent mouse who lives in Sherlock's house and took after him.
Conclusion
Sherlock Holmes occupies a unique status in popular culture, largely due to a combination of public domain accessibility, iconic archetypal traits, and cultural adaptability. This legal and cultural freedom ensures his immortality as a figure endlessly reshaped into vastly different portrayals.
He is comparable with Count Dracula, Santa Claus, Agent 007, or characters from folklore and mythology, in that his skills and methods are iconic, but his background and origin is free for reimagining. Due to his original setting being set in mundane Victorian London, adaptation have room to place him in many various settings, including having supernatural elements. Authors of adaptations also take note of changing audience expectations and success of modern media, integrating Sherlock stories into dramatic high-action scenarios.
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