# Did Sherlock Holmes have a son? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 26, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683 "2008-05-26T20:47:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/21 "2016-04-07T17:19:13Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Yes. Holmes never married, and to an upright Victorian like Doyle, that meant he had no son. There is no mention of a son in any of the Doyle stories, or even a wife. And IIRC, he was never even alone with Irene Adler. On the other hand, we do know that Sherlock was amazing when in disguise at both looking but also playing the part of those he was emulating. Frequently, he would spend time in disguise in places of ill repute. And, without pause, he would partake of any drugs that were being passed around at the location. Any other goings-on at these locations, beyond the drugs, are never mentioned, but it’s entirely plausible that, for the sake of his disguise or in order to talk with a witness, Sherlock could have done the do with a number of women across a number of brothels and opium dens. He would never know that he had a son, nor would the mother know that the father was Sherlock Holmes, but it is possible. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/22 "2016-04-07T17:33:43Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Capt. Spock, in _Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country_, refers to Holmes (or perhaps it was Conan Doyle) as an ancestor in quoting the axiom, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” And supposedly a Trekker complained, “But Sherlock Holmes isn’t _real_!” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/23 "2016-04-07T18:12:43Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I think Holmes came off (IMO) as asexual or possibly even somewhat closeted. I do see non-sexual, but not somewhat closeted. I think for Holmes, romantic relationships of any kind(even just erotic feelings) is not something that he is disposed to feel. It happens in real life, maybe even similar to him. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/24 "2016-04-07T20:28:51Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I do see non-sexual, but not somewhat closeted. I think for Holmes, romantic relationships of any kind(even just erotic feelings) is not something that he is disposed to feel. It happens in real life, maybe even similar to him. Isn’t Watson married? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/25 "2016-04-07T20:49:21Z")
Watson was married at least twice. [Possibly more](http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Who_is_Sherlock/WatsonsWives.html). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/26 "2016-04-08T01:58:51Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Watson was married at least twice. [Possibly more](http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Who_is_Sherlock/WatsonsWives.html). These things were damned awkward during the Victorian period. I would imagine they were somewhat easier under Albert, Edward VII. What with the chair and all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/27 "2016-04-08T02:14:44Z")
Holmes might have had something resembling romantic thoughts towards Irene (resembling, I say: There’s no way to know what was going on in his heart, and his feelings were not entirely like those of most men). Certainly, he held her in a sort of unique regard. But there’s no indication in the canon whatsoever that she held any sort of special feelings towards him. Had he the time, opportunity, and inclination, he might (again, might, I say) have been able to eventually woo her. But he certainly did not have all three of those, and might not have had any. Thus, whatever feelings he had towards her cannot have resulted in consummation. If Holmes had any offspring at all, it would surely be a result, as **Sage Rat** said, of his time in places of ill repute. And if he did have such offspring, I find it highly likely both that he would have discovered that fact, and that he would have felt a paternal obligation towards him or her. It would not, however, be the sort of matter which would be discussed in polite company, perhaps not even with as intimate an associate as Watson. And even if he had told Watson, he would have enjoined him not to record the matter in his records. Thus, it is still possible to posit descendants of Holmes, despite the lack of mention and even explicit denial of such in the canon. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/28 "2016-04-08T02:23:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Yes. Holmes never married, and to an upright Victorian like Doyle, that meant he had no son. There is no mention of a son in any of the Doyle stories, or even a wife. And IIRC, he was never even alone with Irene Adler. Well, he was alone with her…for a few moments, pretending to be injured, in a room with an open window! No chance for slap-and-tickle in those circumstances! > [@Hometownboy](#): > > Ah, but Arthur Conan Doyle had a son bearing the same initials, Adrian Conan Doyle. In “The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes,” there are 12 stories of cases referred to in passing in The Canon. Half of the stories in this volume are listed as by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr (master of the ‘locked room mystery’) and half are credited to Adrian Conan Doyle alone. > > I submit they are worthy to stand alongside The Canon. Yes! Most definitely! Superb stories, very worthy indeed. “Watson. It had a mate.” Shivers! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/29 "2016-04-08T02:43:47Z")
In the theories of those who claim that Nero Wolfe is the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, he wasn’t conceived during the time of the story “A Scandal in Bohemia”. That happened several years later, during the period when Holmes was faking his death and traveling around the world. He met Adler again in Montenegro and had a one-night stand with her. She had the baby and arranged for him to be adopted by a family there. In the Wolfe stories, he’s supposed to have been born in Montenegro. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/30 "2016-04-08T02:54:39Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Watson was married at least twice. [Possibly more](http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Who_is_Sherlock/WatsonsWives.html). If you read the writing on Holmes from the beginning - I have shelves of the stuff - you find that what’s obvious to us now had to be discovered. I don’t remember who was the first to point out that Watson manifestly had two wives, but that shocked people and it took time for some of the old guard to accept it. That was back in the first flush of serious Sherlockiana, in the 30s or 40s, a decade or more after the last story. Baring-Gould gave Watson five wives. This was around 1960. He made a fairly decent case, but nobody took him seriously. At the time. I don’t know what the consensus is today. However, compared to the absolute drivel in that link he is a Supreme Court justice in the depth of his reasoning. I never could figure out whether he meant the stuff he wrote about Watson having five wives or Nero Wolfe being Holmes’ son. I suspect not, but he’s absolutely deadpan about it. This was before irony, remember. He opened the doors and Farmer knocked down the barn. Making a case is long gone. Robert Frost famously dismissed some contemporaries by saying “I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.” This removes the rackets and balls as well. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/31 "2016-04-09T21:47:48Z")
It’s remarkable how much cruft has been built around Irene Adler over the years. She only appeared in one short story! She was the only woman who bested him. (Maybe. Watson kept screwing up dates.) Holmes’ later fond memories could easily be based on that fact than anything else. And the story has her getting married with Holmes present. If she did have a kid, how could anyone in those times ascribe the child to Holmes rather than the other guy? (Let alone any of the other many men she had dalliances with.) One brief non-sexual adventure with her and yet she becomes a regular major character in other adaptations. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/32 "2016-04-09T22:17:35Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > It’s remarkable how much cruft has been built around Irene Adler over the years. > > She only appeared in one short story! She was the only woman who bested him. (Maybe. Watson kept screwing up dates.) Holmes’ later fond memories could easily be based on that fact than anything else. > > And the story has her getting married with Holmes present. If she did have a kid, how could anyone in those times ascribe the child to Holmes rather than the other guy? (Let alone any of the other many men she had dalliances with.) > > One brief non-sexual adventure with her and yet she becomes a regular major character in other adaptations. Moriarty actually isn’t very well represented in the stories either. He never existed at all until the Reichenbach Falls episode, we never really see him accomplish much since Sherlock is already on his tail by that story, and after that he’s just famous for being dead. There’s one further story, with an air-powered rifle, that ties back to Moriarty, but that’s the sum of it. From reading the books, one almost thinks that Moriarty was invented, spur of the moment, as an excuse to kill off Sherlock Holmes and end the stories, rather than to devise a perfect, immortal enemy for our famous detective… In a sense, Irene earned her place in history more. Doyle at least showed her kicking Sherlock’s butt. Moriarty’s abilities exist purely as exposition. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/33 "2016-04-09T22:35:35Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Isn’t Watson married? Yes. I can not wrap my mind around what you are asking this for. I have obviously suggested otherwise or made a typo in my post that makes this relevant. What am I missing? I wasn’t suggesting Watson does not feel romantic/erotic feelings. I was suggesting Holmes may not. Again, I do think it is me who has missed something above my post or something. Where did I misread? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/34 "2016-04-09T22:54:30Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Yes. I can not wrap my mind around what you are asking this for. I have obviously suggested otherwise or made a typo in my post that makes this relevant. What am I missing? > > I wasn’t suggesting Watson does not feel romantic/erotic feelings. I was suggesting Holmes may not. > > Again, I do think it is me who has missed something above my post or something. Where did I misread? > [@Mahaloth](#): > > I do see non-sexual, but not somewhat closeted. I thought you were speaking of Holmes _and_ Watson. My apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/35 "2016-04-09T23:14:13Z")
> [@Lissla\_Lissar](#): > > I’m addicted to the Laurie R. King Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell mysteries, even though I’m not very familiar with the original stories. In _A Monstrous Regiment of Women_, Mary says something like, “If he was your son, wouldn’t you want someone to try to help him?” about a young man with a drug addiction. It’s followed by, _“Of course, he had a son. And someone had tried”_ Was anything more ever said about this within the Laurie King books? I’ve only read the first two (it’s the second that’s quoted here) and don’t remember that particular line, but King does continue the story of Holmes past the time covered by the canonical Arthur Conan Doyle stories. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/36 "2016-04-10T00:36:35Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Moriarty actually isn’t very well represented in the stories either. He never existed at all until the Reichenbach Falls episode, we never really see him accomplish much since Sherlock is already on his tail by that story, and after that he’s just famous for being dead. There’s one further story, with an air-powered rifle, that ties back to Moriarty, but that’s the sum of it. In _The Valley of Fear_ Holmes battles Moriarty’s gang. The air rifle is from “The Adventure of the Empty House,” his return story, and is used by Col. Sebastian Moran, who is also talked about in VoF. That one story kills all chronologies. Watson has never heard of Moriarty in “The Adventure of the Final Problem,” but knows how famous he is in VoF. So that has to be later. But Moriarty dies in the Final Problem. Did he come back too? Moran is arrested for murder in the Empty House. Was he let go? A million issues arise. > [@](#): > > From reading the books, one almost thinks that Moriarty was invented, spur of the moment, as an excuse to kill off Sherlock Holmes and end the stories, rather than to devise a perfect, immortal enemy for our famous detective… _Almost_? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683/37 "2016-04-10T01:12:59Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > _Almost_? 😃 G-d bless queen bee honey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sherlock-holmes-have-a-son/450683.md?page=1)