http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msherlock.html
Of course he still lives. So do Watson (John or James[?]) and Mrs. Hutson (Hudson?). Holmes, being also a great chemist, concocted a special elixir providing for a long life. They live in Sussex and Holmes continues to maintain his beehives.
Since the article discusses some of the inconsistencies in his adventures, I wonder why it did not mention two of the most egregious: (1) Is it Hutson or Hudson, as both versions have appeared. Unfortunately, I no longer have the annotated version, so cannot handily pinpoint the discrepancy. (2) Watson’s wound, sustained in the *Boer * campaign, mysteriously migrated from his shoulder to his leg, or was it vice versa? Memory fails.
barb, there were only so many of the inconsistencies that I could mention. I figure anyone that’s really interested already knows, and I wanted to provide a brief (hah!) intro for anyone who doesn’t know about it.
Yes, Watson’s wound starts out in his leg, but in at least one reference is in his shoulder (or perhaps the other way around.) In some stories, he runs like the dickens, and in other stories he hobbles because of the wound in his leg.
And the Mrs Watson question is annoying too, because he clearly marries Mary Morstan after The Sign of Four, but then in some later adventures he seems to be married and in others not, so it’s not clear whether Mary died and he remarried (perhaps twice!) or what. Depends on how you set the chronologies.
It’s a complicated world if you want to delve into it. The Baring-Gould ANNOTATED is wonderful, and the new Klinger REFERENCE LIBRARY is a great companion piece if you want to get started.
For those of you on AOL, there’s a Sherlock Holmes chat room every Sunday night at 8 PM Eastern, in the Mystery Chat Room.
One might also mention the recent series of novels by Laurie R. King, in which we learn that Watson fudged Holmes’ age (he feared that if he did not make Holmes a more mature man, people would find him unbelievable), so that he was still only middle-aged when he “retired” to the south downs. During that period, he gained a new partner, a young Jewish-American woman named Mary Russell.
The series to date:[ul][]The Beekeeper’s Apprentice[]A Monstrous Regiment of Women[]A Letter of Mary[]The Moor: A Mary Russell Novel[]O Jerusalem: A Mary Russell Novel[]Justice Hall[/ul]
In most of the stories, yes, but as the article points out Watson was once referred to as James Watson. In one of the stories, Mrs. Hudson became Mrs. Hutson. I don’t remember which one, and although I still have all the stories, I don’t have the annotated edition and I’m not going to look it up.
Dex did a wonderful thumbnail of the mystique of the Canon, as far as it went–This seems like a lovely thread; shouldn’t we move it to CS or MPSIMS? There’s plenty of Holmesian things to talk about.
I’ve been away for awhile, pardon me if I’ve forgotten the protocol!
Dex, if you’re watching out, please advise–should I start a new thread elsewhere?
—Alan Q
Alan, this is one of those cases where threads can justifiably appear in more than one forum. Thanks for asking, but no big deal.
If you want to start a new thread on some particular Sherlockiana, then probably CS or GQ or whatever. Let’s keep this one sort of vaguely tied to the Staff Report.
But no one is going to get their knickers in a twist over it.
There is no reference to James Watson anywhere in the stories. What happens is that in one story Watson has his wife refer to him as “James.” This lead to Dorothy Sayers’ wonderful suggestion that the H. in John H. Watson stands for “Hamish,” the scottish form of James.
(While I’m at it, is the name “John” ever actually used except in the reference at the beginning of “Thor Bridge” to the tin dispatch-box bearing the name John H. Watson? It may be that he is only referred to as Watson or Dr. Watson and no first name ever given. Can somebody confirm or refute this with an actual reference?)
I don’t remember any reference either in the stories or in the Annotated Holmes to a Mrs. “Hutson.” It’s possible, but as a typo it’s far outweighed by the 55 billion bigger errors that the world’s greatest hack - a man who was so careless in his work that he wouldn’t bother to read the beginning of a story before writing the ending - was capable of.
No, the very first words of “A Study in Scarlet” are the subhead: “BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT”
Thanks, Dex, just wanted to make sure I was coloring in the lines, as it were.
The nice thing about being among the Dopers is that even though there are lines to color within, nobody is too worried about which crayon you use!
I read first Doyle when I was about 10 or 11; our small-town grammar school library had a (badly edited) collection called “The Boy’s Sherlock Holmes”. It didn’t take me long to dig deeper. Holmes is such an icon that most people have an idea of who he is–right or wrong. They think of a meerschaum pipe and deerstalker cloak; blame it on Hollywood, I suppose.
Besides Doyle’s wonderful storytelling talent, the thing that grabbed me, and still does, is the fact that he was writing for a contemporary audience–things like gasogenes that he took for granted forced me to do some independent research of the times. Baring-Gould was wonderful, but he was still of a time that things he didn’t feel needed explaining are still a bit of a mystery to us!
Alas, Holmes couldn’t make much of a living in these automated days–how many people have hands that belie their professions? How many people who have tell-tale work clothes wear them through the course of an entire day?
One can still, however, observe a lot of little things if one takes the time!
–Alan Q
JWK, correct, to be sure, but I really meant used in the text itself. An instance in which Watson is introduced as John Watson, or called John by someone.
The Preface to His Last Bow is signed by John H. Waton, M.D.
The Problem of Thor Bridge begins
Victorian social convention made it unusual for a professional man to be addressed by his first name, and, of course, nearly all the stories are in Watson’s voice, so that he calls himself “I”.
I’ve always liked the changes in staff at 221b: Somewhere along the line, Mrs. Hudson managed to retain, variously, a “girl” and a “boy in buttons”.
Also, what about “Mr.” Hudson; one would assume she was a widow, but it’s tickled me for years to think she had her own little mystery, and was the estranged wife of the butler in “Upstairs, Downstairs”!
–Alan Q
This may be off-topic in an on-topic sort of way, but I was curious what Doyle’s pay (for the two stories Dex mentions) would be equivalent to in today’s dollars.
I’ve made the assumption that Dex’s implicit 1:5 exchange rate during that time period for £ to $ is relatively accurate.
Doyle’s $125 income for “A Study in Scarlet” in 1887 would be equivalent to about $2,315 in 2003. ($125 / 0.054)
Doyle’s $5,000 income for “Silver Blaze” in 1892 would be equivalent to about $98,000 in 2003. ($5,000 / 0.051)
$98,000 is pretty respectable for an average citizen these days - but not so impressive when compared to modern successful Pop-lit author’s deals. Then again, if “a single lady [could] get on very nicely upon an [annual] income of about sixty pounds,” his £1,000 payment was probably a king’s ransom.
Ah well, this information is likely to be wildly inaccurate and needlessly focused on minutiae, anyway. (But that just seems to fit in with the spirit of the Game.)
quote:
Many authors bring Holmes into contact with real-life contemporary people, such as Sigmund Freud or Oscar Wilde or Jack the Ripper or Harry Flashman
Harry Flashman? Would Cecil care to defend this statement?
Yep, I’m aware of this convention, although it obviously doesn’t apply to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I’m aware of “Thor Bridge”, since I quoted it myself.
But that the only instance in all the stories in which Watson is called by his given name is by his wife, and that she gets it wrong is the dog that didn’t bark in this case.
I originally posted this in a different thread, but it looks like it was meant to go here.
Sherlock Holmes and the Seven Percent Solution - Straight Dope Style
While I simply loved the recent staff article on Sherlock Holmes
I did notice that Dex left out one glaring argument for why The Seven Percent Solution should be completely disregarded.
As anyone who has read the book or Dex’s column knows, the book takes place in 1891 and explains the mysterious disappearance of Holmes claiming he was recovering from his cocaine addiction with the aid of the esteemed Sigmund Freud. What they may have missed, however, is that one of the characters instrumental in Holmes’ recovery is Freud’s dear daughter Anna, a girl of seven or eight. Unfortunately our dear Anna was born in 1895, which would make it a little difficult to listen to Holmes play the violin in 1891, as she was wont to do in the book. According to the timeline given us, Holmes was off solving more mysteries before Anna was even a glimmer in Sigmund’s eye. While some time discrepancies can be attributed to Watson’s notoriously bad memory (if you pay attention, he often forget’s which body part he injured in the war), a four year difference is a little difficult to swallow. Therefore, The Seven Percent Solution must be purely fictitious, and moreover, complete hogwash.
