ONAN DOYLE WAS NO STRANGER to controversy, and in fact seemed to enjoy churning up his fair share every now and then. For example, he was a prolific letter-writer to the papers, he publically challenged what he saw as miscarriages of justice, and his latter-day lectures and articles on fairies and Spiritualism, replete with sensational photographic “evidence,” were obviously meant to stir his audiences to action. However, there were several controversies attaching themselves to him which weren’t of his own accord. Case in point: the Piltdown Man, one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century.

It was a tumultuous time in the scientific world. The turn of the century brought with it a questioning of the established theories in almost every area of science. Medical researchers were delving into the true causes of diseases, physicists were plumbing the origins of matter, astronomers were shaping a new view of the cosmos, and biologists were hotly debating Darwin’s theory of Evolution, often finding themselves at odds with religious institutions, funders, and the fervoured opinions expounded daily in the papers. The one argument that continually broke apart the so-called scientific proof of the Evolutionists was the absence of the evolutionary bridge between the lesser primates and mankind, the Missing Link.

And then, in 1912, it was found.

The specimen, dubbed The Piltdown Man, caused an immediate sensation, providing seemingly verifiable evidence of Darwin’s theories. Science yet again asserted its superiority over religion and superstition, and the Piltdown Man became a rallying point for the much-berated scientific community. Unfortunately, it was eventually found to be a fraud. Scotsman.com presents an article entitled Conan Doyle and the hoax of the 20th century:

Forty years later when JS Weiner discovered that this so-called Piltdown Man was a fake made out of a 500-year-old skull and an orang-utan jawbone, the hunt began to find out who had perpetrated the fraud.

The main suspect has always been Dawson, possibly with the aid of his colleagues Sir Arthur Smith Woodward and Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit who had also assisted at the dig. But there is someone else in the frame. According to one theory this man had the means, motive and opportunity. He is none other than the Scottish creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I wish to draw your careful attention to the first comment, left by author Doug Elliott, who produced what I’m told is a remarkable book called The Curious Incident of the Missing Link. It apparently does an excellent job at debunking the claims that Sir Arthur was involved in this hoax.

For more information about the Piltdown hoax, see the Wikipedia entry and the many links at its page bottom, including the Piltdown Plot site.

N AN ARTICLE IDEALLY WRITTEN for newcomers to the Sherlockian mythos, the Crime Library site presents All about Sherlock Holmes by Anthony Bruno:

Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and presented through the narration of the fictional Dr. Watson, Holmes is the most brilliant detective ever. His powers of observation seem supernatural until he utters the famous phrase, “Elementary, my dear Watson,” and proceeds to enumerate the logical steps that have brought him to a prescient conclusion. The most innocuous detail can lead Holmes to profound revelations. But where did these amazing powers of deduction originate? Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle make up Sherlock Holmes out of whole cloth, or did he have a model in mind when he created the great detective?

Bruno seems to come at the topic as an outsider, but he has done due diligence with his homework here. The article covers a lot of ground and facts without getting bogged down in scholarly issues of debate, and although it barely skims the surface of Conan Doyle and Sherlockian matters, it may inspire readers to learn more. (Yes, there are a few small factual errors, but I think we can forgive him for those.)

HEN I READ A NOVEL like Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, a vivid setting is often constructed in my head, an environment that not only facilitates the story and offers milieu to the characters, but that also lives and breathes on its own. As I have the habit of reading in bed, I usually drift off to sleep clinging to fleeting fragments that I want –oh so much– to make real.

And then, someone lets me know that they are real.

From The Seoul Times: An Unearthly Plateau in Venezuela, which presents a unique travelogue with ACD’s The Lost World as an ever-present point of reference:

Seven years later, Everard Im Thurn and Harry Perkins made a successful ascent of Roraima, an ancient 9,219-foot sandstone mesa towering above the tropical rain forest and savanna. Im Thurn’s colorful account is believed to have partly inspired Conan Doyle’s 1912 sci-fi novel “The Lost World,” about a Jurassic Park-like plateau roiling with prehistoric beasts.

ANY people consider Holmes’ Victorian era as a time when exceedingly rigid guidelines were in place for almost any social situation, a time when gentlemen were real gentlemen, ladies were real ladies, and de’il-may-care rogues were real de’il-may-care rogues (in other words, not gentlemen). Myself, I frequently shame and disgrace my dinner companions through the use of an inappropriate fork, an ill-timed request for passing the salt, the occasional elbow upon the table, and –if the meal encourages it– a deafening belch.

Yes, I’m kidding (I do keep my elbows to myself), but it was still with no slight trepidation that I took a few minutes to play the Victorian Manners Game at the Québecois Musée McCord, in which you may “Adopt the role of a late 19th century character, and try to earn your place in a world where every move is governed by the rules of etiquette.”

For those even mildly curious, I did score the full 500 points (as a man — I have yet to play the woman), but it was mainly through textual clues rather than any inherent gentlemanliness I might accidentally possess. The game proved to be quite a lot of fun, although I did expect the giant Monty Python foot to come hurtling down to squash me at any moment.

This link was mentioned in the Conan Doyle Yahoo! Group by the inestimable Bert Coules, whom I suspect actually is a proper gentleman.

OME of the most intriguing bits in the biographies of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concern the strange relationship he had with the great escape artist and magician Harry Houdini. The latter needs no introduction, I’m sure: the tales of his death-defying stunts still amaze and astonish today. But what fewer people realise is that Houdini took it upon himself to expose those tricksters and charlatans working as so-called “mediums,” who were swindling gullible and grief-stricken people seeking only to hear from their dearly departed relatives and friends once more. Of course, one may contrast this to Sir Arthur, one of the greatest champions of the Spiritualist cause, and consider the two an unlikely pairing. Yet, the two were friends, though a falling-out seemed inevitable.

One of my favourite online essays delves into this relationship, and how it began and ended. The fascinating piece called Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship is by Massimo Polidoro, and appears courtesy of Uno Studio in Holmes, the Florentine Holmes website.

They were both profoundly interested in the subject of Spiritualism; however, their views differed completely. Houdini was the skeptic, the exposer of psychic frauds; Doyle the believer, the St. Paul of Spiritualism. How could these two persons have become affectionated friends and then bitter enemies is a fascinating tale which deserves telling.

Curl up with a nice cup of tea or cocoa and read the rest. More information can be found at Doyle, Houdini and The Strand Magazine (BakerStreetDozen.com), and Polidoro’s own acclaimed book on the subject, Final Seance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle.

OW that E. J. Wagner’s The Science of Sherlock Holmes : From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, The Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective’s Greatest Cases has been released to an eager public, the reviews have started to appear, the first I could find being CSI: Sherlock Holmes? at the Christian Science Monitor:

Yet, this revelation about Holmes only scratches the surface. E.J. Wagner, a well-known crime historian and lecturer, has taken it one step further.

In her fascinating book, The Science of Sherlock Holmes, Wagner juxtaposes some of Holmes’s famous cases with a number of real mysteries, and finds some surprising similarities. She sets Holmes’s work in the context of the forensics of his time and proves that the detective’s scientific mind was more than a mere work of fiction.

Read the full review.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy, and I must say that it’s quite a fascinating read, combining history, forensics and Sherlock Holmes in a way that I’ll be unlikely to forget. I’ll be posting a review of my own here soon.

HERE comes a time in the life of every Sherlock Holmes fan that I call “the Grand Disillusionment,” coinciding with that moment when one learns about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his pursuit of Spiritualism. How could the creator of the world’s greatest thinking and reasoning machine –the one whose mottos include the need for data before theory, and “no ghosts need apply”– be taken in by a faddish movement dedicated to the discovery of what lay beyond the visible world, which proposed that knowledge was passed from the dead to the living via seances, and which was populated by charlatans and hucksters of every variety, employing gimmicks, fake photography, ingenious mechanical devices and scary voices in the dark to hook those eager to believe (and to pay)? How could this manly model of chivalry and good sense spend the last decades of his life –a time when most writers’ skills are keenist– championing such flaky ideas and promises using “evidence” such as photographs of spirits and fairies that a modern, more cynical eye can easily perceive as simplistic hoaxes?

It is at this point that many Holmes fans lose respect for Doyle and even walk away from the stories, for many readers have a deep-seated need to link the author with the work that they enjoy, and in this case, it can be difficult to reconcile the two. Even at the time, many readers grew tired and disillusioned by Doyle’s vehement championship of his cause.

This illustration by Bernard Partridge originally appeared in Punch Magazine, May 12, 1926. Doyle had mentioned more than once that he believed the popularity of Holmes was taking away from his more “serious” work. (Although in the latter years of his life, he reconsidered this opinion.) Here is the author, head in the clouds and shackled to the Great Detective. The accompanying poem reads (in part):

Your own creation, that great sleuth
Who spent his life in chasing Truth –
How does he view your late defiance
(O Arthur!) of the laws of science?

He disapproves your strange vagaries,
Your spooks and photographs of fairies;
And holds you foot-cuffed when you’re fain
To navigate the vast inane.

But, like many of the cases of his detective, what seems readily apparent at first can be quite deceiving in the bright light of the the full story.

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HILE many people are familiar with the good Dr. John H. Watson, the beginning of A Study in Scarlet, in which he (briefly) relates some of his war experiences, can leave a number of readers confused. What were in fact quite current events in 1887 are nowadays relegated to historians, and so it was of no little pleasure to come across a site discussing Watson and The Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878-1880:

Watson’s participation in the war follows his being attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as an Assistant Surgeon and finding, by the time he landed at Bombay, the regiment had already been sent to Afghanistan at the outbreak of war. He was packed off to join them at Kandahar and afterwards attached to the Berkshires, accompanying them into the chaos of Maiwand and being wounded there by the bullet from a jezail. Watson’s orderly, ‘Murray’, managed to pull him out of danger to join the retreat, and he was soon recovering at Peshawar before he was able to get home and up to London, looking for lodgings and employment of some kind.

The explanations include a number of interesting tidbits that give a decent background to Watson’s experiences, and also examine whether Watson and his orderly Murray did in fact take part in the battle. Also on the site are timelines, maps, articles, and more, for those interested in what was really happening behind the scenes.

ELOW is one of the most oft-used depictions of Holmes and Watson. This beautiful illustration by Sidney Paget adorned the original Strand publication of Silver Blaze, and is captioned “Holmes gave me a sketch of the events.”

This is the signature image of Sherlock Holmes burnt indelibly into our minds by popular culture. Anyone wearing a deerstalker is therefore automatically assumed to be playing the role of the great detective, applying logic and observation to the unravelling of some crime.

The problem –and this is one of the most basic “secrets” that an initiate into the world of Holmes must learn– is that the Master rarely wore such a hat, if ever. Why? Well, simply put, a deerstalker (or “fore-and-aft cap”) is something used for country excursions. In Silver Blaze, Holmes and Watson went into the countryside where horses were being bred and trained, and hence it’s appropriate in this illustration. The text actually reads:

And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the corner of a first-class carriage flying along en route for Exeter, while Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his ear-flapped travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh papers which he had procured at Paddington.

Paget interpretted this cap as a deerstalker. The image of Holmes in deerstalker was further spread through the famous play by –and the popular depictions of– the reknowned Holmes actor William Gillette. Eventually, it became synonomous with the character.

But, since it’s meant for country outings, you’d no more wear such a cap in the middle of London than you would wear a top hat climbing a mountain, or a jester’s cap while on safari. Sorry if this leads to any degree of disallusionment, but look at the bright side: you can now impress your friends with your vast knowledge of Victorian headwear. You’ll be the hit of the party, to be sure.

(And don’t forget that you can read Silver Blaze (SILV), replete with the original illustrations, at the incomparable Camden House.)

‘ve spent most of my life immersed in either Sherlock Holmes, or books about criminology and forensics (all quite relaxing late-night reading material, you understand). I’ve read the occasional account of the emergence of forensic science around the turn of the last century, and –while fascinating– it’s barely been enough to whet my appetite. And so I was thrilled to hear of a new book by E.J. Wagner called The Science of Sherlock Holmes. From the dust jacket:

The Science of Sherlock Holmes is a wild ride in a hansom cab through medicine, law, pathology, toxicology, anatomy, blood chemistry and the emergence of real-life forensic science during the 19th and 20th centuries along the road paved by Sherlock Holmes.

From a “well-marked print of a thumb” on a whitewashed wall in “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,” to the trajectory and impact of a bullet in the “The Reigate Squires,” author E. J. Wagner uses the Great Detective’s remarkable adventures as springboards into the real-life forensics behind them.

You’ll meet scientists, investigators, and medical experts, such as the larger-than-life Eugène Vidocq of the Paris Sûreté, the determined detective Henry Goddard of London’s Bow Street Runners, the fingerprint expert Sir Francis Galton, and the brilliant but arrogant pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury. You’ll explore the ancient myths and bizarre folklore that were challenged by the evolving field of forensics—including the belief that hair and nails grow after death, and the idea that the skull’s size and shape determine personality—and examine the role that brain fever, Black Dogs, and vampires played in criminal history.

[…] Through numerous cases, including celebrated ones such as those of Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden, the author traces the influence of the coolly analytical Holmes on the gradual emergence of forensic science from the grip of superstition. You’ll find yourself turning pages of The Science of Sherlock Holmes as eagerly as you would of any Holmes mystery.

The advance praise seems to be quite flattering (which, one guesses, is why it’s called “praise” to begin with), even from noted Sherlockians, and the description on Wagner’s website has truly piqued my interest.

Coming this April to a bookstore near you, or order from Amazon.

Update: Her publisher Wiley has posted chapter one, the index and the table of contents on its website page for the book, if you’d like to read more.

received a few email asking me the origin of the somewhat familiar phrase “where it is always 1895″ in my welcome post. The line actually comes from a classic and oft-reprinted poem by one of the first –and most eminent– Sherlockians, Vincent Starrett, who wrote (among other things) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933) and 221 B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes (1940). This poem was first published in 1942 by Edwin B. Hill in a now very rare pamphlet called Two Sonnets. I’ve found some three dozen copies of this poem on the web already, and so I hope I’m not being too remiss in offering yet another.

t seems as though every civilisation in history has turning points that push its people into conjuring a hero who may lead them through difficult transitional times, and the hundreds of generations laying claim to the green isle of England are no exception. After the inexorable plunge into the Dark Ages, wherein barbarians ransacked what remained of culture and forced all people –whether they were peasants or nobility– to shiver with the uncertainties of a world without hope, a time without order, the legends of a king called Arthur and his Knights of the Table Round held aloft a banner to rally those who sought an ideal to lead them into an enlightened era. During the rampant corruption of king and clergy, the bugle call of Robin Hood was sounded amongst the forests, glens and dales, and the tales of a noble outlaw who demonstrated compassion to the poor and made fools of those in authority spread like fire in a dry hayfield.

Several revolutions of the wheel later, the late nineteenth century proved no different. The promises of prosperity following the Industrial Revolution brought the teeming hordes from the farmlands to pursue a better life in the cities, only to find themselves facing starvation in the squalour of cramped quarters filthy with sewage and rotten with thievery, prostitution and wanton murder. Still, the late Victorian and Edwardian eras brought new life-changing advances in science and technology every day –electricity, motorcars and telephones, to name but a few– and a new age of reason and scientific thought was dawning amongst the more learned classes of society. It was into this time, the temporal juxtaposition of rampant crime and intellectual potential, that was borne a new hero who embodied a sense of hope that seemed to transcend all class and geographical boundaries: the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes.

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