Holmes, part 3

His friend's mention of a legend about a demonic hound in the misty bogs of Dartmoor prompted Doyle to explore the moor. The story that came to him at first was not a Holmes story. But the plot began to demand a prominent figure, and Holmes stepped forward. Thus, Doyle wrote "The Hound of the Baskervilles" starring Holmes and Watson, set in a time earlier than The Final Problem.

The story appeared in serial form in The Strand in late 1901 through Spring 1902. Then in 1903 Doyle gave in and agreed to resurrect Holmes. The newspapers went wild with joy, and printed stories about Doyle possibly going to New York to write about Holmes in American cases (a premise for the CBS show "Elementary" that ran 2012-19, a contemporary treatment with a disgraced Holmes going to New York following drug rehab and under the supervision of a surgeon, Joan Watson, played by Lucy Liu).

But Doyle never did this. The cesspool of London held plenty of possibilities.

When "The Adventure of the Empty House" appeared in the October 1903 Strand, the company could not print copies fast enough. Long lines of people waited for them, not at newsstands, but at the printer's.

Doyle produced 33 more stories and another novel, "The Valley of Fear." The last story appeared in 1927, just three years before his death in 1930. Holmes' career lasted 40 years, from the height of British power in the gaslight era to the age of the automobile. Curiously, Doyle gave Holmes little interest in the scientific progress of the period. The Russian Revolution, World War I, flight, movies, radio, and so on, never happened in Holmes' world. He stayed in the 1890s, and detective fiction for a long while remained in this idealized, make-believe world of country estates, compliant servants, elegant trains and foggy streets. The time had been right in the 1890s for a British hero who exemplified all that the British admired. More on that next time.