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The Game Is Afoot: Holiday Season Tributes to Sherlock Holmes
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10299 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1993 |
3,383 Words |
| Author
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John C. Tibbetts
John C. Tibbetts, an associate professor of theater and film
at the University of Kansas, contributes regularly to national
music publications and is editor of the recently published
Dvorak in America.
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One hundred years ago, readers of the December issue of the Strand received a cruel Christmas gift. Sherlock Holmes, the world's first consulting private detective, who had been delighting readers since his initial appearance in 1887's A Study in Scarlet, was facing his greatest challenge. "The Final Problem" opened with Watson's ominous words: "It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these, the last words . . . ." Sure enough, in the unexpected climax, Holmes, locked in combat with his formidable foe, Moriarty, plunged to his death at Reichenbach Falls.
Public outcry was swift and loud from the half million subscribers in Britain and America. Women wept, men wore crepe mourning bands in their hats, and a reader summed it all up in the opening words to a letter penned to author Conan Doyle: "You brute!" Although Doyle's decision to kill off his most popular character was sincere and unregretted, motivated by a desire to proceed with other writing endeavors, it seemed to readers an unforgivable act. As commentator Michael Hardwick has written, "His had been the most extraordinary killing-off in all fiction: willful, ruthless, and, to some readers' minds, callous, not only towards them, but to poor Watson who was left to grieve."
Holmes, like Marley's ghost, would come back, but it would take ten years before Doyle relented to public pressure and financial enticements and resurrected the great detective. Appearing in Collier's in September 1903 (and a month later in the Strand), "The Empty House" revealed that Holmes had indeed survived the catastrophe at Reichenbach Falls. "You will find that Holmes was never dead," wrote Doyle prophetically to his mother, "and that he is now very much alive."
Today, Holmes' life, not his death, is celebrated at Christmastime. Hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts traditionally meet to toast Holmes during the season--either on December 27, the date of events in one of his stories, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," or on January 6, the date established long ago as his birthday. Chief among the American celebrants are two very exclusive organizations, the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (ASH).
The Baker Street Irregulars' avowed purpose is to affirm the reality of Sherlock Holmes. As Vincent Starrett, one of the most renowned of all Sherlockians, wrote in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933): "That he emerged from the pages of a book may be matter for scholarly inquiry; but it can scarcely be denied that he has taken his place in the
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