Sherlock
Holmes

Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887 in A Study in Scarlet and never really left. He is the most portrayed fictional character in history — over 250 actors across film, television, and stage. He is more real to more people than most historical figures. That is not an accident. Conan Doyle created something that answered a need.

Holmes was based on Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon Conan Doyle studied under at Edinburgh, who could diagnose patients from their appearance before they spoke a word. The deductive method was real. Holmes simply applied it to crime rather than medicine, and with considerably less patience for human error.

Conan Doyle killed Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls in 1893, pushed there by Moriarty. Public outcry was so severe — people wore black armbands in the street — that Conan Doyle brought him back ten years later. He resented Holmes for crowding out his other work. Holmes did not care.

What makes Holmes endure is not the pipe or the deerstalker — both largely invented by illustrators and actors. It is the mind. The absolute refusal to be fooled. The contempt for sloppy thinking. And beneath the cold exterior, a ferocious commitment to justice that he would never admit to feeling.