Holmes, part 2

We should remember that the short story made a slow appearance as a distinct literary form in England, where the 3-volume novel had been the only type of fiction from the beginning of the 19th Century. However, with the rise of successful magazines for the newly-literate middle class, short stories found favor with the public.

The short story, Poe had said, had to be read in one sitting and achieve a 'unity of effect.' The detective story was the perfect form for the short story, as it strove to proceed inevitably to a pre-determined denoument with the added effect of celebrating reason and science in the Victorian age of progress.

Still, Arthur Conan Doyle (pictured above) was committed to the novel form, and to keep himself busy during a slow medical practice, he cranked out a historical novel that never found a publisher. Then, in imitation of Poe (who he admired), he wrote "A Study in Scarlet." It's a long short story, really, with a bloated historical section in the middle about the Mormons -- just what you'd expect of a historical novelist trying to write in a new genre. This appeared in a Christmas Annual in 1887 and was dismissed.

Then an American firm, Lippencott Magazine, noticed it and asked Doyle for another. "The Sign of Four" was published in 1889.

English reviewers were unimpressed.

Doyle believed Holmes obscured his higher work, that is, his historical novels. But his so-called higher work wasn't bringing in money. So he offered The Strand Magazine a series of detective stories which would be based on his childhood hero, Dupin, and his medical school hero, Dr. Bell, a diagnostician who could tell much about a person by carefully observing details (as in Holmes saying to Watson, "I perceive you have been in Afghanistan.").

Doyle conceived of a series of self-contained episodes, not a continuing serial. This was a breakthrough in itself, something Poe had attempted but not quite carried off. Like Poe, Doyle found newspaper reports helpful for plot ideas, as well as brief news items in The Strand where his Holmes stories appeared. At first he wrote only 6 stories for The Strand, hoping to return to his 'serious' fiction. The editors and the public insisted on more tales so strongly by the time the 4th story appeared that Doyle set a price so high that he expected it to be refused. But The Strand agreed immediately, to Doyle's consternation, and he was obliged to produce 6 more 'adventures.' At this point he thought of killing off Holmes. He told his mom, and she wrote back: "You won't! You can't! You mustn't!"

Doyle believed 12 stories were plenty and he tried again to return to his 'serious' work. But The Strand begged him for more. In 1892 he offered to do a dozen more for L 1,000, a price so high he figured they would turn him down. The Strand accepted, and "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" was produced. This time, though, Doyle carried out his earlier threat, and in "The Final Problem," a heavy-hearted Watson tells of Holmes' death in Switzerland's Reichenbach Falls with his arch-enemy, master criminal Professor Moriarty.

Doyle was deluged with letters from grief-stricken readers. People wept openly in the streets. Women wore veils and men wore black armbands in public. The Strand lost 20,000 subscribers. No wonder they said to readers: "There will be a temporary interval in the Sherlock Holmes stories. A new series will commence in an early number. Meanwhile, powerful detective stories will be contributed by other eminent writers."

Despite an international protest, Doyle refused to change his mind for ten years. He worked on dismal historical novels, visited America, and served in a British hospital during the Boer War (his book about this experience got him knighted in 1902).

Then, in 1901, a friend mentioned a legend about a demonic hound in the misty bogs of Dartmoor. And a story took shape.

Doyle and Holmes, Part 1

The following was voted by a group of scholars to be 'the funniest joke ever':

Sherlock Holmes and Watson go on a fishing trip. As they bed down for the night, Holmes says, "Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see." Watson replies, "I see millions of stars." Holmes asks, "And what does that tell you?" Watson: "Astronomically, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

"Watson, you idiot," Holmes says. "Somebody stole our tent."

* * *

In 1888, a series of gruesome murders rocked the Whitechapel District of London. At least 7 killings were attributed to the unknown assailant who was called "Jack the Ripper." All of the victims were prostitutes, and all except one killed while plying their trade on public streets. The methods of killing were not in every case identical, but in each case the throat was slit and in most the bodies were mutilated by someone possessing considerable knowledge of human anatomy. Unusual -- though futile -- efforts were made to trap the killer. Hundreds of suspects were interviewed. Bloodhounds were put into service. Even the eyes of one of the victims were photographed on the theory (not yet discredited) that the image of the murderer might be recorded on the retinas of the murdered woman.

Throughout the investigation, the authorities received taunting notes from someone purporting to be the murderer. On one occasion, half a human kidney, which may have been removed from the body of a victim, was mailed to the police. Few cases have so captured the attention and imagination of the public both in England and America. "Jack the Ripper" has provided themes for many literary and theatrical productions.

The identity of "Jack" and the motivation for his (her?) crimes have proved tempting subjects for speculation. Many hypotheses have been advanced but none generally accepted. Mystery writer Patricia Cornwell famously attempted it in 2002, accusing Walter Sickert, a painter, something Jean Overton Fuller also did in 1990. But these conclusions were criticized, and other theories emerged that a crazy midwife and abortionist -- Jill the Ripper -- was responsible. But I digress.

With Jack the Ripper painting Whitechapel red, and Irish nationalists planting bombs in Scotland Yard, the public no longer asked "why do we need cops?" but "Why aren't the cops doing anything?" The public was ready for a new detective hero, someone who would stand for justice and reason in an age of incompetence and chaos, and someone who would do it with pluck and flair.

The public was ready for Sherlock Holmes.

One Singular Sensation

Wilkie Collins, Dickens' friend and travel pal for 15 years, was a "sensation" novelist, specializing in that form of emotional, melodramatic fiction that liked startling surprises, sudden reversals, and sentimental revelations. Like Dickens, Collins condemned social evils, showed concern for the poor, and developed an interest in police work made necessary by the urban realities of late Victorian society.

Unlike Dickens, Collins -- like Poe -- owed much to French sources. He read reference books about French criminal trials of the 18th Century and wrote articles about them for Dickens' magazines. Some are just lurid crime stories, while others feature police who make deductions based on observations to clear the wrongly accused and to identify the real criminal, in a pattern set by Vidocq.

In one story, "A Terribly Strange Bed," a Vidocq tale is re-told in which a lodging house is reputed to be a 'murder inn.' A lodger tries to find out how this happens, and lying awake one night from restlessness (and the wrong dose of a narcotic), he sees the canopy of the bed descending silently to suffocate the sleeper. He escapes, and helps a conveniently-placed cop arrest the bad guys. Thus, Collins' first 'detective' story is told from the point-of-view of the (near) victim, with mounting terror and suspense, not unlike Poe's horror stories.

Collins' second detective story is "The Stolen Letter" which sounds like?? Yup, Poe's "Purloined Letter." A rich young man who is being blackmailed by a compromising letter on the eve of his wedding hires a lawyer (the narrator) who recovers the letter and replaces it with another to postpone the blackmailer's discovery of his loss, and to insult him. The letter is cleverly hidden, though not out in the open as in Poe's story.

Collins' real skill was in long, complex novels, some of which had detective themes. They involve favorite Victorian subjects of rival brothers and sisters, relatives presumed dead but who show up later, relatives drugged and put into insane asylums against their will, detectives helping to establish the legal identities of those presumed dead or exposing false doubles, last minute rescues, and of course, terrible consequences for the villains.

Crowds of people waited outside stores to buy the magazines containing the latest installment of Collins' work, and possible solutions were discussed at work and over dinner. Bets were made.

In "The Woman in White" (1860), a plot of detection is set against a gothic background of romance and horror. The novel consists of reports by witnesses to a case, drawn from Mejan's "Recuiel des Causes Celebres" ("A Collection of Famous Cases"), a book he picked up on a trip to Paris with Dickens. The importance of the novel is in the way it investigates criminal and family mysteries in detail right up to a conclusion of the case in which everything is explained. The villain emerges not a true gentleman but an illegitimate son of a noble family, which further exposes other family secrets, and he dies in a church fire just as he is about to destroy an old birth register. This act of God's justice, combined with the detective's logical solution of the riddles, satisfied Victorian values of reason and moral order.

Collins' most famous novel, "The Moonstone" (1868), first serialized in Dickens' magazine 'All the Year Round,' is arguably the first true detective novel. Dorothy Sayers praised it, saying, "Taking everything into consideration, 'The Moonstone' is probably the finest detective story ever written." In the book, readers know all the facts from the start, narrated in parts by the plot's protagonists in turn. Each character gives a separate account from his or her point of view. The reader must be attentive and decide what the facts are, and whether anyone is embellishing or withholding the truth.

In the novel, Collins introduces a police detective, Sgt. Cuff. Cuff is based on Inspector Whicher of Scotland Yard, who Dickens had also written about. Whicher's career had taken a dive in 1860 when his evidence in a murder case was rejected by a court. But 5 years later, in 1865, a confession vindicated his deductions. He was suddenly a celebrity. When 'The Moonstone' appeared in 1868, everyone recognized Whicher in Sgt. Cuff. Like Inspector Bucket, Cuff takes calm control of situations, interviews people in turn, and examines places carefully. He is an older man, gray and hatchet-faced, and he looks a bit like a stereotypical undertaker. Collins gives him a sense of humor and the charming hobby of growing roses.

Other features in the novel continued in the genre: the country house by the sea, red herrings (misleading clues), and lots, I mean lots, of dialog as part of the investigation. Nearly all detective novels since have been 'talky.' Mine surely are.

Above all those features, however, is the devising of the plot as a game between reader and writer. Different characters relate various episodes in turn, and some of them, of course, lie and mislead. But all the clues are there, and this convention of 'fair play' -- inviting the reader to guess the puzzle and providing the means to do so -- carried well into the next century.

Collins had already experimented with a story told through the eyes of several characters. Ten years earlier, his story "Who Is The Thief?" appeared in 'The Atlantic Monthly' (and as 'The Biter Bit' in 'Queen of Hearts' magazine). The story consists of a series of letters between Inspector Theakstone, Sgt. Bulmer, and a cocky novice named Matthew Sharpin (who is dull-witted and not 'sharp' at all). Collins used humor, false clues, and a 'most unlikely suspect' formula which would become common later.

Collins tried other detectives, including an elderly man fond of pipes, smoking jackets and French novels. But Sgt. Cuff (along with Bucket) form the prototype for the English police detective. They are sound, dependable, loyal, hard-working middle class men who pay attention to detail and who are persistent. They have good home lives, pursue hobbies, and are like-able.

In other words, they identify with, idealize, and affirm the values and beliefs of the readers, the English middle class. They offered comfort and assurance for those who had the most to lose by any disturbance of the established social order. In the later Victorian period, public sympathy (that is, middle class sympathy), turned to support the police, since the middle class needed them -- men like themselves-- to protect them personally and to preserve the class structure and social order of Victorian society.