Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for
pastiche
A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it ...
, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than
Arthur Conan Doyle.
Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
*New Sherlock Holmes stories
*Stories in which Holmes appears in a cameo role
*Stories about imagined descendants of Sherlock Holmes
*Stories inspired by Sherlock Holmes but which do not include Holmes himself
Sherlock Holmes stories
New Sherlock Holmes stories fall into many categories, including:
* Additional Sherlock Holmes stories in the conventional mould
* Holmes placed in settings of contemporary interest (such as World War II or the future)
* Crossover stories in which Holmes is pitted against other fictional characters (for example, vampires)
* Explorations of unusual aspects of Holmes' character which are hinted at in Conan Doyle's works (e.g., drug use)
Print
In 1913, the Greek novel ''Sherlock Holmes saving Mr. Venizelos'' (''Ο Σέρλοκ Χολμς σώζων τον κ. Βενιζέλον'') was serialized in the magazine ''Hellas''. Written by an anonymous author, it describes Holmes' attempts to save
Eleftherios Venizelos
Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos ( el, Ελευθέριος Κυριάκου Βενιζέλος, translit=Elefthérios Kyriákou Venizélos, ; – 18 March 1936) was a Greeks, Greek statesman and a prominent leader of the Greek national liberati ...
from a Bulgarian organization's assassination plot during the
London Conference of 1912–13. It is considered the first
detective novel of
Greek literature
Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today.
Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...
.
In January 1928, the short story "My Dear Holmes" was published in
''Punch, or the London Charivari''. The sub-title of the story was: "His positively last appearance on earth." Written from the point of view of Holmes, it starts out in the usual way, and then ends rather lamely with no mystery presented or solved, but Holmes dead of incautiously (and improbably) sniffing excessively at a bottle of an anesthetic ("A.C.E.") he has asked Watson to bring with them on an errand.
In 1942, a short story entitled
"The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted" was discovered by a Conan Doyle biographer, Hesketh Pearson, while searching through a trunk full of Doyle family papers. It was published in 1947 as a "lost" story written by Conan Doyle, but it was eventually discovered by Pearson that the story was originally written in 1914 by Arthur Whitaker, who had sent it to Doyle in hope of a collaboration. Doyle had bought the story from the author, in case he might use the ingenious plot at a later date, but never did.
Arthur Conan Doyle's son,
Adrian Conan Doyle, wrote—in a joint effort with
John Dickson Carr—12 Sherlock Holmes short stories that were published under the title ''
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
''The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes'' is a short story collection of twelve Sherlock Holmes pastiches, first published in 1954. It was written by Adrian Conan Doyle, who was the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes), and by ...
'' in 1954.
Using his alternate name of H.F. Heard,
Gerald Heard wrote three novels about a reclusive beekeeper in the English countryside who goes by the name of Mycroft; he is clearly intended to be Sherlock Holmes, but the books were written before the Doyle estate gave permission for other writers to use the name. The three stories are ''
A Taste for Honey'', ''Reply Paid'' and ''The Notched Hairpin''. ''A Taste for Honey'' was adapted for American TV in 1955 as "Sting of Death," with
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established ...
as Mr. Mycroft.
American novelist and filmmaker
Nicholas Meyer has written five Holmes novels: ''
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'' (1974), ''
The West End Horror'' (1976), ''
The Canary Trainer'' (1993), ''
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols'' (2019), and ''
The Return of the Pharaoh'' (2021).
In 1977, the novel ''Exit Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective's Final Days'' by Robert Lee Hall was published and featured an exploration of Holmes' origins with a science fiction twist. In this account Holmes and Moriarty are revealed to be from the future.
Randall Collins published in 1978 ''The Case of the Philosophers' Ring'', under the pseudonym Dr. John H. Watson, with Holmes' services requested at Cambridge, around 1914, by
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ar ...
, and meeting the
Cambridge Apostles (Moore, Hardy,
Keynes...)
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born ...
,
Lytton Strachey,
Annie Besant and of course,
Aleisteir Crowley as a perfect villain.
Michael Dibdin's novel ''
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story'' (1979) confronts a somewhat psychopathic Sherlock Holmes with the crimes of
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...
, whom Holmes suspects to be none other than
James Moriarty.
Raymond Smullyan wrote ''The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes'' (1979), in which Holmes (with Watson) applies retrograde analysis to solve chess problems.
The detective novelist
Loren D. Estleman wrote several short stories and two novels featuring Holmes; the novels pit the detective against
Count Dracula and
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, respectively. The former was adapted for radio by the
BBC.
Cay Van Ash wrote the novel ''Ten Years Beyond Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes matches wits with the diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu'' (1984), set in 1914, in which the apparently retired detective comes into conflict with Sax Rohmer's villainous master criminal.
Canadian writer
Ron Weyman published three novels between 1989 and 1994 which imagined Sherlock Holmes as being sent to
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
at the behest of
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and investigating crimes there.
["RON WEYMAN, 91 SAILOR, PRODUCER, PAINTER AND NOVELIST: Pioneer filmmaker turned hard-hitting social issues into popular television". '' The Globe and Mail'', 7 July 2007.]
Holmes aficionado
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starrin ...
wrote a short story featuring Holmes, "The Adventure of the Laughing Jarvey", in which Holmes and Watson encounter a great Victorian writer and are engaged on a mission to recover a lost manuscript. It includes introductory text claiming the tale itself to be a long-lost manuscript, which modern analysis has shown to use linguistic style and grammar typical of Watson. The story appears in Fry's collection of journalism and early writings, ''
Paperweight
A paperweight is a small solid object heavy enough, when placed on top of papers, to keep them from blowing away in a breeze or from moving under the strokes of a painting brush (as with Chinese calligraphy). While any object, such as a stone, ...
'' (1992). In
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high ...
's short story "
The Doctor's Case
"The Doctor's Case" is a short story by American author Stephen King, originally published in ''The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'', a 1987 centennial collection, and reprinted in his collection ''Nightmares & Dreamscapes''.
This story is K ...
" (1993), Holmes's alleged allergy to cats prevents him for once from solving the problem quicker than Watson.
Barrie Roberts penned a series of Holmes pastiches, including ''
Sherlock Holmes and the Man from Hell'' and ''
Sherlock Holmes and the Railway Maniac'' from 1994 until his death in 2007. ''
O Xangô de Baker Street
''O Xangô de Baker Street'' (English title: ''A Samba for Sherlock'') is 2001 Brazilian-Portuguese film directed by Miguel Faria, Jr., based on the novel of the same name by Jô Soares. The film was first announced in 1996, but filming only sta ...
'' (1995) tells the comic story of Sherlock Holmes's visit to Brazil, invited by the Emperor Dom Pedro II, to solve the disappearance of a Stradivarius violin which becomes a hunt for a serial killer.
Larry Millett has written six books and a short story featuring Holmes solving mysteries in
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minne ...
.
Michael Mallory has written more than two dozen short stories and two novels featuring "Amelia Watson," the second wife of
Dr. Watson. These are not pastiches so much as original detective stories that view Holmes and Watson from a different and somewhat humorous point of view. Colin Bruce's ''
The Strange Case of Mrs. Hudson's Cat: And Other Science Mysteries Solved by Sherlock Holmes'' (1997) and ''Conned Again, Watson!: Cautionary Tales of Logic, Maths and Probability'' (2001) are books of Sherlock Holmes stories in which Holmes uses scientific and mathematical approaches respectively to solve mysteries. ''
The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years'' (1999), by
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
an author
Jamyang Norbu
Jamyang Norbu (Tibetan: འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་, Wylie: 'jam-dbyangs nor-bu) is a Tibetan political activist and writer, currently living in the United States, having previously lived for over 40 years as a Tibetan exil ...
is an account of Holmes's adventures in India and Tibet where, posing as Sigerson, he meets the
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...
and
Huree Chunder Mookerjee, a character from
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much o ...
's novel ''
Kim
Kim or KIM may refer to:
Names
* Kim (given name)
* Kim (surname)
** Kim (Korean surname)
*** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties
**** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948
** Kim, Vietnamese ...
''.
Vithal Rajan's ''Holmes of the Raj'' (2011) is again set in India, in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson sail to India in 1888 on a secret mission in the service of Empire, their adventures taking them from
Madras
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Tamil Nadu, the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and territories of India, Indian state. The largest city ...
, to the princely courts of
Hyderabad
Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...
, jungles of the
Central Provinces, and the bustling metropolis of
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...
. While Holmes is engaged in unraveling the central mystery, Watson busies himself helping
Ronald Ross track the
malaria parasite and advising
Dhyan Chand, a schoolboy on the finer points of
hockey. The book has vignettes of life and politics in
colonial India, wherein Holmes and Watson meet
Lord Ripon,
Madame Blavatsky,
Francis Younghusband
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, (31 May 1863 – 31 July 1942) was a British Army officer, explorer, and spiritual writer. He is remembered for his travels in the Far East and Central Asia; especially the 1904 British ...
,
Kipling and Kim himself,
Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda (; ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introd ...
,
Aurobindo,
Ramanujan,
Motilal Nehru,
Tagore,
Jinnah and many others.
Italian conservative Catholic author Rino Cammilleri published in 2000 a novel with the title ''Sherlock Holmes e il misterioso caso di Ippolito Nievo'' ("Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Case of
Ippolito Nievo") set in London,
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...
and
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
.
The collection ''
Shadows Over Baker Street'' (2003) contains 14 stories by 20 authors pitting Holmes against the forces of the
Cthulhu Mythos. Among them is
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
's "
A Study in Emerald", which won the 2004
Hugo Award for Best Short Story. The title is a play on ''A Study in Scarlet''. The narrator, never named (but whose initials in the end point him to be the criminal henchman of James Moriarty,
Sebastian Moran; his tour in Afghanistan point to this as well), meets the protagonist (who is also never named, but likely
James Moriarty himself, in a surprising role-reversal, making him the detective and Holmes the criminal) under similar circumstances to the meeting of Holmes and Watson in ''A Study in Scarlet'', even down to the deduction that the narrator has recently been in Afghanistan. The protagonist is tall and thin, a detective, chemist, and master of disguise. However, as the narrator and his friend investigate a murder of one of the Royal Family (shown to be the
Great Old One
American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) created a number of fictional deities throughout the course of his literary career. These entities are usually depicted as immensely powerful and utterly indifferent to humans who can barely begin to ...
s of the
Cthulhu Mythos) the murderer is revealed to be a tall, thin, pipe-smoking man, going by the name Sherry Vernet (a reference to the first name Sherlock, or possibly Conan Doyle's earlier "Sherrinford", and the last name of Holmes' grandmother). He is assisted by a "limping doctor", later tentatively identified as John (or possibly James) Watson. "Vernet" also had gone by the name Sigerson.
Inspector Lestrade also appears in the story. Gaiman has also written a short story called "The Case of Death and Honey", which was featured in "A Study in Sherlock" and "Trigger Warning."
Michael Chabon wrote ''
The Final Solution'' in 2004. This book, which received favorable reviews,
deals with an elderly Sherlock Holmes, referred to only as 'the old man,' solving the case of the missing parrot belonging to a nine-year-old Jewish refugee boy from Germany. While readily solving the mystery, 'the old man' and the rest of the characters in the novella fail to see what the parrot's incessant muttering of random German numbers really means.
Caleb Carr was approached to pen a tale for the anthology ''
Ghosts of Baker Street
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to ...
''.
Carr's short story grew to become a full length novel
which became 2005's ''
The Italian Secretary''.
An example of a Sherlock Holmes pastiche is found in ''The Curse of the Nibelung: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery'' (2005) by
Sam North, which is currently in reprint. It finds Holmes at the very end of his career, together with a geriatric Watson, sent by Winston Churchill to
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
to help uncover a terrible secret. ''
Elemental, querido Chaplin'', by
Rafael Marín (2005, Minotauro, Barcelona, ), is presented as an
unpublished manuscript in which
Charles Chaplin tells how, as a London poor child, he helped Sherlock Holmes in an adventure against Dr. Fu Manchu.
Nick Rennison's 2006 ''
Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography'' is a "biography" of the detective much like
William S. Baring-Gould's earlier ''
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective''.
Mitch Cullin's novel ''
A Slight Trick of the Mind'' (2005) takes place two years after the end of the Second World War and explores the character of Sherlock Holmes (now 93) as he comes to terms with a life spent in emotionless logic. Now old and frail, his once-steel trap mind begins to fail him as he loses items and forgets whole parts of his day. The story follows Holmes both at his home where he now tends bees in quiet retirement, as well as a vacation in Japan where he observes their post-war society first-hand. The novel is also interspersed with chapters from Holmes's's own book that reveal a fleeting moment of love that even he does not yet realise. It was adapted into the film ''
Mr. Holmes'' starring
Ian McKellen. The film released in 2015.
Manly W. Wellman's ''
Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds
''Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds'' is a sequel to H. G. Wells's science fiction novel '' The War of the Worlds'', written by Manly Wade Wellman and his son Wade Wellman, and published in 1975. It is a pastiche crossover which combines H ...
'' combined the elements of Holmes canon with
H.G. Wells's
science fiction classic and describes Holmes' and Watson's adventures in the Martian-occupied London (in passing, the book also asserts that Holmes had a long-lasting romantic relationship with Mrs. Hudson, but the puritanical Dr. Watson never noticed it).
Laurie R. King
Laurie R. King (born September 19, 1952) is an American author best known for her detective fiction.
Life and career
Born in Oakland, California, King earned a degree in comparative religion from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1977 ...
recreates Sherlock Holmes in her
Mary Russell series (starting with ''
The Beekeeper's Apprentice''), set during World War I and the 1920s. Her Holmes is (semi-)retired in Sussex, where he gradually trains a teenage Russell as his apprentice. The series includes 11 full length novels and a short story tie-in with a book from her Kate Martinelli series, ''
The Art of Detection''.
''Repercussions'' is a short comic story by Dwight Baldwin and J. M. DeSantis in the literary trade paperback ''Iconic'' (Summer 2009) by members of the Comicbook Artists Guild. In it, Holmes and Watson are on the trail of the legendary
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...
.
Another story which pits Holmes and Watson against Jack the Ripper is Lyndsay Faye's ''
Dust and Shadow
''Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson'' is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Lyndsay Faye which pits Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. '' (2009).
In
Robert Wilton's 'The Adventure of the Distracted Thane', Holmes investigates the assassination of King
Duncan I of Scotland, previously explored by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
in ''
Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...
'' (which itself, according to this interpretation, featured Dr. Watson).
For younger readers,
Shane Peacock Shane Peacock may refer to:
* Shane Peacock (writer) (born 1957), Canadian novelist
* Shane Peacock (ice hockey) (born 1973), Canadian ice hockey player
* Shane Peacock (fashion designer), Indian fashion designer and judge of the Femina Miss India ...
has written ''
The Boy Sherlock Holmes
The Boy Sherlock Holmes series of novels, by Shane Peacock, are the childhood exploits of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. All are published by Tundra Books simultaneously in Canada and the U.S. (and appear in other countries and lan ...
'' series.
Andy Lane
Andrew Lane (born 17 April 1963), as Andy Lane, is a British author and journalist best known for the Young Sherlock Holmes series of Young Adult novels.
He has written novels in the Virgin New Adventures range and audio dramas for Big Fini ...
begun a
young adult series of Sherlock Holmes adventures with the publication of ''
Death Cloud'' in 2010. This series is the first authorized series of teenage adventures.
Alberto López Aroca wrote "El problema de la pequeña cliente", a short story included in the book ''Nadie lo sabrá nunca'' (2004), where Sherlock Holmes meets
Mary Poppins.
The Conan Doyle estate commissioned
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony John Horowitz, (born 5 April 1955) is an English novelist and screenwriter specialising in mystery and suspense.
His works for children and young adult readers include '' The Diamond Brothers'' series, the '' Alex Rider'' series, and ...
, author of the
Alex Rider novels ''
The Power of Five'' and TV's ''
Foyle's War'', to write a new, uniquely ''authorised'' Sherlock Holmes novel. Published by
Orion Books in 2011 under the title ''
The House of Silk'', the content and title were a "closely guarded secret" before publication.
[Anthony Horowitz to Write New Sherlock Holmes Novel]
" News release, Orion Publishing Group, 17 January 2011. ''(Retrieved 20 January 2011.)''[Rider Author, Anthony Horowitz to write new Sherlock Holmes novel]
" News release, AnthonyHorowitz.com, 17 January 2011.''(Retrieved 20 January 2011.)''
Japanese mystery author
Keisuke Matsuoka published ''Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Japan'' in 2017, exploring the
time between Holmes' alleged death at Reichenbach Falls and his reappearance three years later.
TV
The Granada TV series 1984 – 1994 ''
Sherlock Holmes'' (
Jeremy Brett) Dr. John H. Watson (
David Burke) (
Edward Hardwicke
Edward Cedric Hardwicke (7 August 1932 – 16 May 2011) was an English actor, who had a distinguished career on the stage and on-screen. He was best known for playing Captain Pat Grant in '' Colditz'' (1972-73), and Dr. Watson in Granada T ...
). So far the only film or TV series to accurately feature Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories and words. Jeremy Brett proved that Doyle's words could be spoken dramatically and as written on film. His Sherlock Holmes is still considered definitive by most if not all of the world's Sherlock Holmes Societies.
The
BBC's TV series ''
Sherlock'' re-imagines Holmes and Watson (played by
Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Benedict Cumberbatch, various accolades, including a British Aca ...
and
Martin Freeman) as contemporary figures, with Watson publishing his accounts of Holmes' exploits online.
The US TV series ''
Elementary'' features a modern Holmes (
Jonny Lee Miller) who lives in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, where he is assisted by Dr. Joan Watson (
Lucy Liu).
The 2014
NHK puppetry ''
Sherlock Holmes'' is set in a fictional boarding school "
Beeton School
is a fictional coeducational boarding school in which the NHK puppetry Sherlock Holmes is set. It is named after Beeton's Christmas Annual and Eton College.
Summary
The school setting is the first case in the screening history of the Series ...
" and Holmes and Watson are pupils who live in 221B of
Baker House. There is no murder and the same characters appear many times.
HBO Asia's 2018 series ''
Miss Sherlock'' is set in modern-day Japan, starring
Yuko Takeuchi
was a Japanese actress. She is known for her roles in television series ''Asuka'' (1999), ''Pride'' (2004), ''FlashForward'' (2009), and ''Miss Sherlock'' (2018) as well as films such as ''Ring'' (1998), ''Yomigaeri'' (2003), and ''Dog in a Si ...
as the titular character, with
Shihori Kanjiya as 'Wato'.
Radio
Bert Coules penned ''
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''
starring
Clive Merrison as Holmes
[The Further Adventures](_blank)
and
Michael Williams/
Andrew Sachs as Watson.
The episodes of ''The Further Adventures'' were based on throwaway references in Doyle's short stories and novels.
He also produced original scripts for this series, which was also issued on CD. Coules had previously dramatised the entire Holmes canon for Radio Four.
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content ...
also broadcast in 1999 a more ribald six-episode
spoof series featuring Holmes and Watson titled ''
The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes'' starring
Roy Hudd as Holmes ("the brilliant detective, master of disguise and toffee-nosed ponce"),
Chris Emmett as Watson ("contributor to the
British Medical Journal
''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origin ...
, ''Which Stethescope Magazine'' and inventor of the self-raising
thermometer
A thermometer is a device that measures temperature or a temperature gradient (the degree of hotness or coldness of an object). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb of a mercury-in-glass thermomete ...
") and
June Whitfield as Mrs. Hudson. Titles in this series included "The Case of the Clockwork Fiend", "The Mystery of the Obese Escapologist", "The Case of the Deranged Botanist", "Sherlock Holmes and the Glorious Doppelganger", "Holmes Strikes a Happy Medium" and "The Demon Cobbler of Greek Street", and usually turned out to have Holmes' mortal enemy Moriarty (
Geoffrey Whitehead) behind each mystery. This series has since been re-broadcast on
BBC Radio 7, later
BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Starting in 1998, U.S. radio producer
Jim French was given permission from the Conan Doyle estate to produce new, original Sherlock Holmes stories for radio in North America.
[Jim French Productions](_blank)
These are presented within the ''
Imagination Theatre
''Imagination Theatre'' is an American syndicated radio drama program airing on FM and AM radio stations across the United States. It features modern radio dramas. The program first aired in 1996. Originally produced by Jim French Productions, t ...
'' program on radio stations and XM satellite radio. The new stories are also broadcast under the banner ''The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''. John Gilbert played Holmes until 2000, when
John Patrick Lowrie took over the role.
Watson is played in all shows by Lawrence Albert.
Scripts are by Jim French,
M. J. Elliott, Matthew Booth, John Hall, Gareth Tilley, J R Campbell and Lawrence Albert. In 2005, with adaptations written by
M. J. Elliott, French and his company began a new series based on Conan Doyle's original tales called ''The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''. Many episodes are available on CD as well as downloadable from the ''Imagination Theatre'' website.
Film
Holmes has been an inspiration of both serious and comedy films.
Serious films
A series of
fourteen Sherlock Holmes films starring
Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and
Nigel Bruce as Dr. John Watson were released between 1939 and 1946. Many are loosely based on the original stories by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle and some are original stories. Those that pit Holmes and Watson against the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
s, made during the Second World War, were in the spirit of Conan Doyle's patriotism, and indeed the quintessential "
His Last Bow" describes Holmes and his connections with
British Intelligence on the eve of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...
.
''
A Study in Terror
''A Study in Terror'' is a 1965 British thriller film directed by James Hill and starring John Neville as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Houston as Dr. Watson. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios, London, with some location work at Osterley Hou ...
'' (1965), directed by
James Hill starring
John Neville as Holmes and
Donald Houston
Donald Daniel Houston (6 November 1923 – 13 October 1991) was a Welsh actor whose first two films—'' The Blue Lagoon'' (1949) with Jean Simmons, and '' A Run for Your Money'' (1949) with Alec Guinness—were highly successful. Later i ...
as Watson, connected Holmes with the
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...
case, and was later novelised by
Ellery Queen.
''
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes'' (1970) was directed by
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
and stars
Robert Stephens as the famous sleuth. In this film, Holmes travels to
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
in search of
the Loch Ness Monster
The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...
.
''
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'' (1976), based on
Nicholas Meyer's very successful novel, concentrates on Holmes' cocaine addiction and stars
Nicol Williamson and
Robert Duvall as Holmes and Watson, respectively. Professor Moriarty (
Laurence Olivier) is characterised here as an inoffensive mathematics tutor, his villainy a fantasy of Holmes's drug habit.
''
Sherlock Holmes in New York
''Sherlock Holmes in New York'' is a 1976 American made-for-television mystery film about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, played by Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee respectively.
Despite the film's title the production was shot entirely in S ...
'' (1976 TV movie) starred
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore (14 October 192723 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 1 ...
as Holmes and
Patrick Macnee
Daniel Patrick Macnee (6 February 1922 – 25 June 2015) was a British film and television actor. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, he began his acting career in Canada. Despite having some small film roles, Macnee spent much ...
as Watson.
''
Murder by Decree'' (1979) portrays Holmes (played by
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...
) and Watson (played by
James Mason) tracking down
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...
, and dealing with the violent political situation of the day. The theory of the Ripper murders presented in that film is similar to that portrayed in the comic book and film ''
From Hell''. Both are derived from
Stephen Knight's book ''
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1977)''.
In 1985, director
Barry Levinson made a film called ''
Young Sherlock Holmes'' (a.k.a. ''Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear'') with a story about the youth of Holmes and Watson as
Secondary School student
A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution.
In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementa ...
s and their first great adventure, even before ''A Study in Scarlet''. There are a lot of references about Holmes canon such as the
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
, the
pipe, "elementary, my dear...", the clothes and the reason why Holmes never married, and it includes the first meeting of Holmes and
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
. The film was produced by
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spi ...
and written by
Chris Columbus Christopher Columbus was an explorer born in Genoa, Italy.
Christopher Columbus or Chris Columbus may also refer to:
People
* Chris Columbus (musician) (1902–2002), American jazz drummer
* Chris Columbus (filmmaker) (born 1958), American dire ...
; the novelization was written by Alan Arnold.
In both ''
The Return of Sherlock Holmes'' (1987 TV movie) and ''
Sherlock Holmes Returns'' (1993 TV movie) a cryogenically frozen Holmes is awakened in the present day.
''Hands of a Murderer'' (1990 TV movie) sees
Edward Woodward
Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE (1 June 1930 – 16 November 2009) was an English actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career on stage. Throughout his career, he appeared in productions ...
playing Holmes and
John Hillerman (of
Magnum, P.I. fame) as Watson, in a plot involving Mycroft (
Peter Jeffrey
Peter Jeffrey (18 April 1929 – 25 December 1999) was an English character actor. Starting his performing career on stage, he would later have many roles in television and film.
Early life
Jeffrey was born in Bristol, the son of Florence ...
) and Moriarty (
Anthony Andrews) battling for control of government secrets.
''
Sherlock: Case of Evil'' (2002 TV movie) has
James D'Arcy as a youthful, bed-hopping Holmes, meeting Roger Morlidge's Watson for the first time while pursuing
Vincent D'Onofrio's Moriarty, whose
opium
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which ...
-trading schemes have left Mycroft (
Richard E. Grant
Richard E. Grant (born Richard Grant Esterhuysen; 5 May 1957) is a Swazi-English actor and presenter. He made his film debut as Withnail in the comedy ''Withnail and I'' (1987). Grant received critical acclaim for his role as Jack Hock in Marie ...
) physically and mentally scarred.
''
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire
''The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire'' is a non-canonical Sherlock Holmes film. The film was produced in 2002 for The Hallmark Channel as the last installment in a series of Hallmark Sherlock Holmes films.
Plot
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson a ...
'' (2002 TV movie) stars
Matt Frewer and
Kenneth Welsh as Holmes and Watson investigating reports of
vampire attacks in
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed a c ...
,
East London. The film was preceded by adaptations of ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (2000 TV movie) and ''
The Sign of Four'' (2001 TV movie).
''
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking'' (2004 TV movie), has Holmes (
Rupert Everett) and Watson (
Ian Hart) searching for a killer with a foot fetish. The production was an original story written by
Allan Cubitt. This was preceded by ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (2002 TV movie) with Holmes now played by
Richard Roxburgh and
Ian Hart returning as Watson.
''
Sherlock Holmes'' (2009) was directed by
Guy Ritchie for
Warner Bros. and stars
Robert Downey Jr. and
Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. It also features
Rachel McAdams as
Irene Adler. The film explores Holmes and Watson's most complex adventure in which the antagonist Lord Blackwood (
Mark Strong
Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963), is a British actor, best known for his film roles such as Prince Septimus in '' Stardust'' (2007), Archibald in ''RocknRolla'' (2008), Lord Henry Blackwood in ''Sherlock Holmes'' (20 ...
) seemingly rises from his grave after being executed and draws plans to control the British Empire. The sequel, ''
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'' (2011) pits the original cast against
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
(played by
Jared Harris).
''
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes'' (2010) was directed by Rachel Lee Gondenberg and produced by low-budget direct-to-DVD film company
The Asylum
The Asylum is an American independent film company and distributor that focuses on producing low-budget, direct-to-video films. It is notorious for producing titles that capitalize on productions by major studios, often using film titles and s ...
. It stars
Gareth David Lloyd as Watson and new actor Ben Syder as Holmes. The film placed a younger Holmes and Watson in a
steampunk science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...
story set in 1881, in which Holmes and Watson investigate the crimes of a mechanical genius known as
Spring Heeled Jack, who creates mechanical monsters to terrorise London.
Comedy films
Holmes' talents have sometimes been inverted for comic effect, as in
Gene Wilder
Jerome Silberman (June 11, 1933 – August 29, 2016), known professionally as Gene Wilder, was an American actor, comedian, writer and filmmaker. He is known mainly for his comedic roles, but also for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in '' Willy W ...
's 1975 film ''
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother''. Here Holmes' younger brother Sigurson (Wilder), who is jealous of 'Sheer Luck' as he calls him, is manipulated by Holmes into solving one of his cases.
1988 brought
Thom Eberhardt's role-reversal comedy ''
Without a Clue''. The film depicts Dr. Watson (
Ben Kingsley) as the real detective genius and Holmes (
Michael Caine) as a bumbling idiot who is merely an actor and a front man for Watson, with a plot which cleverly mirrors the real life circumstance of Conan Doyle (also a physician) who eventually tired of his creation, Sherlock Holmes.
Will Ferrell and
John C. Reilly starred as the eponymous characters in the 2018 mystery comedy film ''
Holmes & Watson''.
Animation
The 1999 animated series ''
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century'' was set in the year 2103 and involved Beth Lestrade, a direct descendant of Holmes's associate
Inspector Lestrade, reanimating the cryogenically preserved corpse of Holmes to battle Moriarty-later revealed to be a clone of the original-who was believed to be responsible for a series of crimes in New London. Watson was long dead, but a robotic counterpart was made to physically resemble him after downloading Watson's stories-and essentially his personality-into his databanks by accident, and the three solved a number of cases patterned on the original Holmes stories; for instance, a retelling of ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles'' took place on the moon and involved werewolves. The series was created by DIC and Scottish Television, and ran for approximately two seasons. It was unique in Sherlockiana for a number of reasons, including the fact that Holmes, who is canonically described as having black hair and grey eyes, was depicted with blond hair and blue eyes.
''
Sherlock Hound'' (名探偵ホームズ Meitantei Hōmuzu?, lit. "Detective Holmes") is a 1984 anime television series based on Conan Doyle's work where almost all the characters are depicted as anthropomorphic dogs. The show featured regular appearances of Jules Verne-steampunk style technology, adding a 19th-century science-fiction atmosphere to the series. It was coproduced by Japanese and Italian companies and animated by
TMS. Some episodes were directed by
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...
.
''
Batman: The Brave and the Bold'' featured an episode in which Holmes and Watson are acquaintances of
Jason Blood
Etrigan the Demon is an antihero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Jack Kirby, Etrigan is a demon from Hell who, despite his violent tendencies, usually finds himself allied with the forces of good, mainly beca ...
and end up summoning
Batman
Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book '' Detective Comics'' on March 30, 1939 ...
back through time in order to aid him when he is framed for the crimes of the future
Gentleman Ghost
Gentleman Ghost is a supervillain appearing in books published by DC Comics publications. Created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert, the character first appeared in ''Flash Comics'' #88 (October 1947).
Fictional character biography ...
. Upon encountering Batman, Holmes is able to deduce much about his nature, but is then baffled when Batman recognizes him immediately; he comes to see the Caped Crusader as something of a rival as they attempt to unravel the plot of Gentleman Ghost. After the villain's defeat, Holmes and his Victorian era allies see Batman off, and as Batman departs he acknowledges Holmes as "the World's Greatest Detective."
The 2015 anime film, ''
The Empire of Corpses'', features a younger, re-imagined Holmes and Watson, the latter actually the protagonist, in a steampunk world where the dead are reanimated and used as a labor force.
Comics
In the
Italian comic book ''
Martin Mystère'' and spin-off series ''Storie di Altrove/Stories from Elsewhere'' Holmes is a historical character. In the late 1880s, he worked on the case of
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...
and met Professor
Richard Van Helsing, a
vampire who destroyed
Count Dracula. Along with Professor Challenger, Holmes visited a secret valley of dinosaurs in South America in 1896, which became the basis for Doyle's novel ''
The Lost World''. The same year he worked with the American Secret Service "Elsewhere" to stop paranormal threats from another dimension. In 1910, he discovered a life extension serum. At the beginning of World War I, he had a final confrontation with Professor Moriarty. After the war, he moved to Ukraine, giving Arthur Conan Doyle the task to convince everyone that he was just an imaginary character. With the help of his serum, Holmes prolonged his life for several decades. In the 1990s, he indirectly helped Martin Mystère to capture a villain who found a formula of his serum.
Leah Moore and
John Reppion's ''
The Trial of Sherlock Holmes
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
'' (2009) and
Scott Beatty's ''Sherlock Holmes: Year One'' (2011) published by
Dynamite Entertainment.
Ian Edginton wrote the 2010
Wildstorm comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...
limited series Limited series may refer to:
*Limited series, individual storylines within an anthology series
*Limited series, a particular run of collectables, usually individually numbered
* Limited series (comics), a comics series with a predetermined number ...
''
Victorian Undead
''Victorian Undead'' is a series of comics about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson dealing with the supernatural. The first series ''Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Zombies'' is a six-issue American comic book limited series published by W ...
'' which pitted Holmes against zombies.
New Paradigm Studios in August 2012 debuted "Watson and Holmes" digital comic on digital app. "Watson and Holmes" is a modern re-interpretation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson as African-Americans in present day Harlem, NY. "Watson and Holmes" is in limited print black and white comics of the first three issues. Issue #1 will be in wide release July 2013.
The Korean
manhwa
(; ) is the general Korean term for comics and print cartoons. Outside Korea, the term usually refers to South Korean comics. is greatly influenced by Japanese Manga comics. Modern Manhwa has extended its reach to many other countries. T ...
series, ''
Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries'', is set in the Sherlock Holmes universe, but in an earlier period in history. Set in the year 1864, it features younger versions of characters in the series. These include
Inspector Lestrade as a junior police officer and Professor Moriarty as a student.
Video games
Sherlock Holmes has taken the starring roles in a number of video games, officially licensed or not.
Text only
*
Melbourne House released an
interactive fiction adventure game for
Commodore 64 and
ZX Spectrum called ''
Sherlock'' in 1984.
*
Peter Allen Golden
Peter Allen Golden is an American author, historian, journalist, and blogger. He is the author of 9 full-length works of non-fiction and fiction, and five books of interactive fiction. He is best known for his writings on the Cold War and his inte ...
in 1984 published a Sherlock Holmes computer interactive novel ''Another Bow''.
* Ellicott Creek Software in 1986 published ''Sherlock Holmes: The Vatican Cameos'' for ZX Spectrum and
Apple II
The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...
.
*
Infocom released a text adventure game, ''
Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels'', in 1987. The plot revolves around Moriarty's theft of the Crown Jewels days before the celebration of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee; Holmes rightly senses that a trap has been set for him and allows Watson to investigate the case.
*
Pack-in-Video released in 1987 ''
Young Sherlock: The Legacy of Doyle'' for the
MSX
MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...
, mostly a text adventure with some graphics. It is based on the 1985 film ''
Young Sherlock Holmes'', but the plot is different.
* Slovakian Sybilasoft (Michal Hlavac) created a text adventure for ZX Spectrum called ''Traja Garridebovia'' in 1987.
* British Creative Juices (David Court) in 1988 created a text adventure for ZX Spectrum called ''Sherlock Holmes: a Matter of Evil''.
* British 8th Day Software in 1988 published a text adventure with some additional graphics created by Stephen Kee and Alan Bolger called ''The Raven'' for ZX Spectrum.
*
Zenobi
Zenobi was a video game company that was known for its interactive fiction. The company was started by John Wilson in 1986 and continued in various forms until 2013. The company produced and published adventure games for the ZX Spectrum (along wi ...
Software released two text-only adventure games for the ZX Spectrum: ''Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler'' in 1988 and ''Sherlock Holmes: The Lamberley Mystery'' in 1990.
* Mycroft Systems published a text-only adventure for
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...
in 1990 called ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' set in London and featuring Dr. Watson, Mrs. Baker and Inspector Lestrade.
* Yestersoft in 1991 published ''PC-Sherlock: a Game of Logic and Deduction'', with very little graphics and focusing on logic aspects.
Graphic adventures
* Datasoft released a
graphic adventure game called ''
221B Baker St'' in 1986.
*
Towa Chiki
is a Japanese toy company responsible for many Famicom games in the late 1980s and 1990s. They were responsible for the critical and commercial bomb ''A Week of Garfield''.
Products
* TC-280 Transceiver (2,800 yen)
* TC-330 Transceiver
* T ...
released three action-adventure games called ''
Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijō Yūkai Jiken'' in 1986, ''Meitantei Holmes: Kiri no London Satsujin Jiken'' in 1988, and ''
Meitantei Holmes: M-Kara no Chousenjou'' in 1989 only in Japan for the
Nintendo Entertainment System.
*
Sega in 1987 published a graphic adventure called ''Loretta no Shouzou: Sherlock Holmes'' ("The Portrait of Loretta") exclusively in
Japan.
*
ICOM Simulations released ''
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective'', a multimedia
CD-ROM adventure game for PCs in 1991 and later for the
Sega CD system 1992,
TurboGrafx-16 and Apple computers. One of the earliest multimedia titles, it was to become a series of three games, each with three cases. Each game in the series uses full motion video clips. A collected edition followed in 1993. A re-mastered version for
iOS,
Microsoft Windows, and
OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
was released in 2012.
** ''
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II'', ICOM, 1992.
** ''
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. III'', ICOM, 1993.
*
Electronic Arts released a series of original
computer games for
DOS called ''
The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes'': ''
The Case of the Serrated Scalpel'' was released in 1992, ''
The Case of the Rose Tattoo'' in 1996.
* Game developer
Frogwares created the titles ''
Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy'', ''
Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring'' and ''
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened'', both marketed as "inspired by ''
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''", and released in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Frogwares also created ''
Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis'', released in 2008 and ''
Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper'', released in 2009 and converted to play in the Xbox 360. In September 2012, Frogwares released ''
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes'' for the
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...
,
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
, and
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
. Also in September 2014, Frogwares released ''
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments'' and in 2016 ''
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter''. These eight games comprises the ''
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes video game series''. In addition to them, Frogwares released also four
casual games: ''Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet'', ''
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House'', ''Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles'', and ''Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Frozen City''.
* Three games have been inspired by movies ''
Sherlock Holmes'' and ''
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'' directed by
Guy Ritchie: Gameloft S. A. published in 2009 ''Sherlock Holmes: The Official Movie Game'' for Java,
Warner Bros. developed ''Sherlock Holmes Mysteries'' for
iOS, and Sticky Game Studios released in 2011 an online game called ''Sherlock Holmes 2: Checkmate''.
*''
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures'', a video game on the
Nintendo 3DS
The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generati ...
and a spin-off of the ''
Ace Attorney'' series, features Sherlock Holmes as a major supporting character, aided by protagonist Ryunosuke Naruhodo to solve a mysterious case. He is accompanied by Iris Watson, a 10-year-old girl genius sharing the same last name as Dr. Watson. Holmes and Iris also appear in the game's sequel, ''
The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve''. Due to copyright concerns, the characters' names are localized in international releases to
Herlock Sholmes and Iris Wilson, in homage to Holmes' renaming in the Arsène Lupin stories.
*''The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes'' and ''The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes 2'' (also called ''The Lost Cases of 221B Baker St.''), two casual games by Legacy Interactive with 16 new cases each (mostly hidden objects scenes) with Holmes and Watson. The cases of the first games are "The Zouch Emerald", "The Assassinated Aerialist", "Murder in the Third Act", "The Purloined Painting", "The Suspicious Sting", "The Death Card Devil", "The Wayward Will", "The Curse of Anan Thotep", "The Mystery of the Billiard Blackmailer", "A Duchess' Diamonds", "The Maestro's Violin", "The Porcelain Dragon", "The Docklands Spy", "The Vanishing Actress", "King Arthur's Arrow", and "The Eight Clocks Assassin", plus a bonus game in Holmes' chemistry laboratory. The cases of the second game are "Slaying at the Standing Stones", "The Harbor Pirates Prisoner", "The Curious Chrononaut", "The Return of Jack the Ripper", "The Lost Blade of Calcutta", "The Murdered Musician", "The Vulnerable Pugilist", "The Haunting at Marlsbury Castle", "The Pups of Baskerville", "The Tainted Truffle", "The Case of the Unwanted Suitor", "The Secret of the Father Christmas Club", "The Sticky-Fingered Dinner Guest", "The Disappearing Doomsday Formula", "The Mystery of the Millionaire's Daughter", and "The Bohemian Crown Heist", plus four bonus stories.
*''Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Time Machine'' (also released as ''Cerebral Sherlock'') and ''Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Vanishing Thief'', two comedy adventures for children by Green Street, Anuman Interactive, gameX and Compedia. The playing character here is Watson, but Holmes is also present, as well as Sergeant Plymouth. Watson has to catch "the biggest criminal of all time", Jailhouse Jimmy. No clear license on the packaging.
Apps
*SecretBuilders Games has released in 2013 a game called ''Sherlock Holmes: The Blue Diamond''; the same year another game was released called ''Sherlock Holmes: The Norwood Mystery'' and in 2014 two games for iOS and Android were released called ''Hidden Object Valley of Fear 1'' and ''Valley of Fear Mystery 2'', featuring Holmes and Watson.
*Hidden Object World has released an app called ''Hidden Object – Sherlock'', basically a casual game with hidden objects search.
*Another plain hidden object app has been released in 2017 by Lory Hidden Object Games and called ''Hidden Objects Sherlock Holmes''.
*In recent times, Crisp App Studio has released two apps inspired by Sherlock Holmes: ''Detective Holmes: Hidden Objects'' and ''Sherlock Holmes: Trap for the Hunter''. Although mainly targeted at smartphones and tablets, they have been released also on Steam.
*DikobrazGames has released an app ''Sherlock Holmes Adventure Free'' inspired by
Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Benedict Cumberbatch, various accolades, including a British Aca ...
's ''
Sherlock''.
Sherlock Holmes cameos
Print
According to ''The Alternative Sherlock Holmes: Pastiches, Parodies, and Copies'' by Peter Ridgway Watt and Joseph Green, the first known period pastiche dates from 1893. Titled "
The Late Sherlock Holmes", it came from the pen of Doyle's close friend,
J. M. Barrie, who was to create
Peter Pan a decade later. The police are apprised of the death of Holmes and believe that Dr. Watson has killed him because of a disagreement about money. However, Holmes turns out to be alive and, although it is not made clear, Watson is presumably released.
In 1902
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
painted an unflattering portrait of Holmes and his methods of deduction in his ''
A Double Barrelled Detective Story
''A Double Barreled Detective Story'' is a short story/novelette by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), in which Sherlock Holmes finds himself in the American west.
Summary
The story contains two arcs of revenges. In the primary arc, a rich young wom ...
''. In the short story, set at a mining camp in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...
, Fetlock Jones, a nephew of Sherlock Holmes, kills his master, a silver-miner, by blowing up his cabin. Since this occurs when Holmes happens to be visiting, he brings his skills to bear upon the case and arrives at logically worked conclusions that are proved abysmally wrong by an amateur detective with an extremely keen sense of smell which he employs in solving the case. Perhaps this ought to be seen as yet another piece where Twain tries to prove that life does not quite follow logic.
In 1905 the French writer
Maurice Leblanc pitted his gentleman burglar
Arsène Lupin against Holmes in a story called ''Sherlock Holmes arrive trop tard'' (Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late), the first of four in the Lupin series. Copyright concerns at the time forced Holmes to be renamed "Herlock Sholmes" or "Holmlock Shears", and Watson to be renamed "Wilson", in subsequent appearances. However, in many modern editions, the names have reverted to the original.
In 1910, the French writer
Arnould Galopin teamed up his detective Allan Dickson, the ''Australian Sherlock Holmes'' with an aging Holmes renamed ''Herlokolms'' who had been much impressed by the young man's early exploits in ''L'Homme au Complet Gris'' (The Man in Grey).
Allan Dickson may have been the prototype for ''
Harry Dickson'' (see
#Successors of Sherlock Holmes, below).
Another French writer,
Théodore Botrel, wrote the play ''Le Mystère de Kéravel'' in 1932 in which Holmes, travelling incognito in Brittany, solves a murder at the request of local police, who know his true identity. He is referred to as ''L'étranger'' in the list of characters, but named in the text.
In 1967, a
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. novel, "The Rainbow Affair" by
David McDaniel, features a cameo by an elderly bee-keeper named William Escott (Holmes in his retired identity).
Several characters from the canon appear in
Alan Moore's
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...
series ''
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'', in which various characters from Victorian fiction are recruited to serve the interests of an alternate-history
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading post ...
. Holmes himself appears only in a
flashback during the first series, as he is still presumed dead. Mycroft has a more substantial role in the second series. References in the series suggest Sherlock was a member of an earlier iteration of the League. Moriarty also figures into the first series and the film adaptation. Holmes also makes a minor but significant appearance in
Warren Ellis
Warren Girard Ellis (born 16 February 1968) is a British comic book writer, novelist, and screenwriter. He is best known as the co-creator of several original comics series, including '' Transmetropolitan'' (1997–2002), '' Global Frequency'' ...
and
John Cassaday's comic book series ''
Planetary''.
Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright presented a mystery-adventure ''Enter the Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes'' (1979) in which Sherlock's older brother prevents a conspiracy involving a return of the American "colonies" to Great Britain. Sherlock makes appearances with
Victor Trevor (from
"The Adventure of the ''Gloria Scott''"),
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
and Moriarty's father.
Carole Nelson Douglas
Carole Nelson Douglas (November 15, 1944 – October 20, 2021) was an American writer of sixty novels and many short stories. She has written in many genres, but is best known for two popular mystery series, the ''Irene Adler'' Sherlockian suspe ...
has written a spin-off series centring upon Holmes' nemesis
Irene Adler. The first book is titled ''Good Night, Mr. Holmes'' and takes place concurrently with ''
A Scandal in Bohemia''. While Irene Adler is the main character, Sherlock Holmes plays a role in every book in the series.
Michael Mallory has written a series of short stories and one novel (''Murder in the Bath'') about the second wife of
Doctor Watson, here named "Amelia Watson." Holmes appears in several of the stories as a semi-antagonistic foil for Amelia—a detective who is in reality slightly less than infallible, but who has been made to appear so to the public through Watson's writings.
In
Kim Newman
Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's '' Dracula'' ...
's
alternate history novel ''
Anno Dracula'', set in a world where
Dracula becomes the monarch of Britain, Holmes is one of the prominent "warms" to protest against the new order. The vampire government of
Lord Ruthven in turn imprisons him in a
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
in
Devil's Dyke, Sussex.
Holmes and Watson appear briefly in
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser (2 April 1925 – 2 January 2008) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman.
Biography
Fraser was born to Scottish parents in Carlisle, England, ...
's short story ''
Flashman and the Tiger'' (1999), which appears in the collection of that name. The events there are consistent with those of the canonical story ''
The Adventure of the Empty House'', which takes place in 1894. Holmes sees Flashman disguised as a tramp and draws a series of conclusions about him which are all wrong.
Holmes and Watson also appear in
Alan Coren's children's books, ''Arthur and the Great Detective'' and ''Arthur and the Bellybutton Diamond''. The titular Arthur is an erstwhile Baker Street Irregular.
In 1993 the psychologist
Keith Oatley wrote ''The Case of Emily V.'', a novel in which
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
, Watson and Sherlock Holmes turn out to be investigating the same person. This book won the 1994 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel. In Oatley's book the reader finds out the "real truth" behind Freud's case notes on Emily V.
In the ''
Doctor Who''
Virgin New Adventures
The ''Virgin New Adventures'' (NA series, or NAs) are a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British Science fiction on television, science-fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. They continued the story of the Doctor from th ...
novel ''
All-Consuming Fire'' by
Andy Lane
Andrew Lane (born 17 April 1963), as Andy Lane, is a British author and journalist best known for the Young Sherlock Holmes series of Young Adult novels.
He has written novels in the Virgin New Adventures range and audio dramas for Big Fini ...
the Time Lord meets Holmes and Watson while investigating a recent theft from the Library of St. John the Beheaded, revealed to be the work of Holmes's unknown eldest brother Sherringford (sic), Holmes in the end being forced to kill Sherringford (sic) to save Watson. They are later amongst numerous characters from the series who attend
Bernice Summerfield's wedding in ''
Happy Endings
A happy ending is a type of plot conclusion.
Happy Ending or Happy Endings may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''Happy Ending'' (film), a 2014 Bollywood film
* ''Winter Passing'', a 2005 American film released in the UK in 2013 as ''Happy ...
'' by
Paul Cornell. Holmes also features in the ''
Faction Paradox'' novel ''
Erasing Sherlock'' by Kelly Hale and in the novelette ''The Shape of Things'' by
Stuart Douglas in the
Iris Wildthyme collection
Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate.
Mycroft Holmes, Dr John Watson and Professor George Challenger also appear in the same book.
Boris Akunin's short story ''The Prisoner of the Tower, or A Short But Beautiful Journey of Three Wise Men'' in the ''
Jade Rosary Beads
Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
'' compilation describes Holmes and Erast Fandorin's race to thwart a devious
extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
plan by
Arsène Lupin.
Author
Nancy Springer has written a
series of novels of the adventures of Enola Holmes, the much younger teenage sister of Sherlock and Mycroft. Upon their mother's disappearance, Enola discovers that she in fact left of her own volition according to a carefully devised plan to live independently and raised her daughter with the skills to do the same if she chose to. Finding the resources her mother carefully hid for her, Enola decides to run away rather than be forced into
boarding school by Mycroft. She eventually comes to London where she secretly sets herself up in business as a private investigator when she realises she is equally as talented at the profession as her older brother even as she is determined to elude his notice.
Holmes cameos at the end of ''
Detective Comics'' #572, the comic series' 50th anniversary issue, helping
Batman
Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book '' Detective Comics'' on March 30, 1939 ...
,
Robin
Robin may refer to:
Animals
* Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae
* Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), including:
**European robin (''Erithacus rubecula'')
**Bush-robin
**Forest rob ...
,
The Elongated Man, and
Slam Bradley tie up a case involving the descendants of both Dr. Watson and Professor Moriarty. Well over a century old now, Holmes attributes his longevity to "a proper diet, a certain distillation of royal jelly, developed in my beekeeping days, and the rarified (sic) atmosphere of Tibet, where I keep my primary residence." He apparently gave up tobacco, too, indicating that his pipe was now "purely for show these days."
Mercedes Lackey's
Elemental Masters
''Elemental Masters'' is a fantasy series by American writer Mercedes Lackey, taking place on an alternate Earth where magic exists. The series largely focuses on Elemental Masters, people who have magical control over air, water, fire, or earth ...
series is set in a world in which magic and psychic powers are real. Holmes and the Watsons appear in three of the books; Dr Watson is a Water Master, Mary is an Air Master, and Holmes is at first skeptical, dismissing their talk of magic as superstitious twaddle.
In
Theodora Goss' 2017 novel, ''
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter
''The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter'' is a 2017 novel by Theodora Goss. It is her debut novel, though she is an author of many short works. ''Strange Case ''is the first installment of ''The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club' ...
'', the protagonist Mary Jekyll meets Holmes and Watson, and they help each other solve their respective mysteries, which happen to converge.
TV
In ''
Star Trek: The Next Generation'', a Sherlock Holmes mystery was one of the programmes on the
''Enterprise''-D's
holodeck. In the episode ''
Elementary, Dear Data
"Elementary, Dear Data" is the third episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', the 29th episode overall. It was written by Brian Alan Lane and directed by Rob Bowman. It ...
'',
Data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...
, after memorising all of the Sherlock Holmes books, is challenged to use deduction in an original mystery created by
Dr. Pulaski. However, the programme goes awry when
Geordi La Forge, in response to Pulaski's challenge, asks the computer to create an adversary capable of defeating ''Data'', resulting in the hologram of Professor Moriarty (played by
Daniel Davis) gaining full sentience, kidnapping Dr. Pulaski and taking over the ship's computer. In a later episode, ''
Ship in a Bottle'', the holodeck Moriarty again takes control of the ship, insisting that a way be found for him to experience life beyond the confines of the holodeck, until the crew manage to trap him in a permanent simulation. The first Holmes-based episode was produced with the understanding that Sherlock Holmes was
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
, but a protest from the Doyle estate indicated otherwise (and, it is rumoured, prevented a plan for Data-as-Holmes to become a recurring character).
An elderly Holmes and Watson appear in a sketch of comedy show ''
That Mitchell and Webb Look'', where Holmes is portrayed as an increasingly senile old man whose flawed deductions are merely humoured by Watson to try to make his old friend feel better; the sketch ends on a tearful note as Holmes, his mind briefly clear, admits to Watson that he knows that his powers are failing him but simply cannot think clearly enough to get past his age.
Animation
* Disney's ''
The Great Mouse Detective'' (1986), also known as ''Basil of Baker Street'', was a relatively successful theatrical feature
animated film based on the
books
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physica ...
of
Eve Titus, featuring a miniature subworld of London with mice, rats and cats in the lead roles. The title character is a mouse who lives in 221B Baker St and models his own detective career on Holmes, who lives at the same address and makes a cameo appearance.
* In one episode of The Fairly Oddparents Holmes is portrayed in stereotypical attire; he starts every sentence with "elementary, my dear (whomever he is addressing)" and will always know the answer to every single question posed to him about the asker.
* In the ''
VeggieTales
''VeggieTales'' is an American Christian media, computer generated musical children's animation, and book franchise created by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki under Big Idea Entertainment. The series sees fruit and vegetable characters retel ...
'' episode, ''
Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler'', Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato portray vegetable versions of Holmes and Watson, respectively, in order to teach a lesson on friendship.
Video games
Everett Kaser has published a series of free reflection games (puzzles) with names referring to Sherlock Holmes stories: ''Sherlock: The Game of Logic'', ''Dinner with Moriarty'', ''Watson
's Map'', ''Baker Street'', ''Scotland Yard'' ''Inspector Lestrade'', ''Mrs. Hudson'', ''Reichenbach Falls'', ''Queen's Gambit'', ''Mycroft
's Map''. Sherlock Holmes, however, does not appear in the games, except some very small icons.
In ''Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini'' a hidden-object/puzzle video game released in 2012 by
MumboJumbo, Sherlock Holmes is on the suspects list.
In ''
Fate/Grand Order'', released in
Japan in 2015, Holmes briefly appears in the Camelot singularity. Then he appears in the Shinjuku singularity as an ally. He is a Ruler class servant.
In ''
There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension'', the second chapter sees the player trapped in a fictional
adventure game based on Sherlock Holmes. The player must alter the game's user interface and environment in order to manipulate Holmes and Watson into solving specific puzzles so that they might escape.
Successors of Sherlock Holmes
These stories treat Sherlock Holmes as an historical character but concern themselves with one of his successors — biological or spiritual — who usually take after him in some way, e.g. being good detectives.
Film
In the 1977 spoof ''
The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It'',
John Cleese plays Arthur Sherlock Holmes, grandson of the famous sleuth, alongside Watson's grandson, played by
Arthur Lowe.
TV
''
The Adventures of Shirley Holmes'' is the story of the teenage Anglo-Canadian grandniece of Sherlock Holmes, Shirley, who after discovering some of Sherlock Holmes' effects (which he had concealed to ensure that only a fitting successor of similar intellect would find them), goes on to solve many crimes and mysteries with the assistance of her male Watson-like friend, Bo Sawchuk. She also has a Moriarty-like arch-enemy in the form of Molly Hardy.
Manga/anime
In ''
Hidan no Aria'' series, the character Aria Holmes Kanzake is the descendant of Sherlock Holmes. ''
Tantei Opera Milky Holmes'' has four protagonists named after famous literary detectives, and they even adopt the iconic deerstalker into their uniform.
Holmes-inspired characters
Print
The future King of Thailand, Crown Prince
Vajiravudh, published 15 stories featuring a detective Mr.
Thong-in, and his assistant Mr. Wat, which were published in 1904-1905. The stories are widely recognised as containing elements from both Arthur Conan Doyle's
Sherlock Holmes stories, and
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
's "
The Murders in the Rue Morgue".
August Derleth's Holmes-inspired sleuth
Solar Pons is an obvious and early homage to Holmes. Derleth began to write the stories in 1928 after asking permission of
Arthur Conan Doyle to continue the series of Sherlock Holmes stories (it was denied). The first collection of Pons stories was published in 1948, and Derleth's stories are contained in 13 additional books, several published after his death in 1971.
Basil Copper
Basil Frederick Albert Copper (5 February 1924 – 3 April 2013) was an English writer and former journalist and newspaper editor. Mike Ashley, "Basil Copper", in David Pringle, ed., ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers.''(London ...
continued the Pons series with an additional eight books, the most recent published in 2005.
The protagonist of
Umberto Eco's novel ''
The Name of the Rose'', Friar William of
Baskerville
Baskerville is a serif typeface designed in the 1750s by John Baskerville (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England, and cut into metal by punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville is classified as a transitional typeface, intended as a refinement of what ...
, and his novice Adso (who, like Watson, is the narrator), are patterned on Holmes and Watson. William of Baskerville is physically similar to Holmes, has the habit of addressing his companion with "My dear Adso" and the story itself is about a strictly rational brain following a path of investigation of a seemingly inexplicable chain of violent deaths.
Poul Anderson wrote several stories in which characters modelled themselves on Holmes, including "The Martian Crown Jewels", "The Queen of Air and Darkness", and "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound".
In
Robert A. Heinlein's ''
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' (1966) one of the characters is a computer, a model "HOLMES IV", which adopts the name Mycroft, after Sherlock Holmes' brother.
Julian Symons created a character named Sheridan Haynes, an actor immersed in the role of Holmes for an epic project to adapt the entire canon for television (almost ten years before
Jeremy Brett took up a similar challenge), in the 1975 novel ''
A Three Pipe Problem''. Haynes finds himself confusing his own identity with Holmes', and becomes involved in a mystery. The character returned for a 1988 sequel, ''
The Kentish Manor Murders
''The Kentish Manor Murders'' is a 1988 mystery detective novel by the British writer Julian Symons. A pastiche of the traditional Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, it is a sequel to the 1975 novel '' A Three-Pipe Problem''.Mason, ...
'', and Symons also wrote a Holmes short story pastiche.
Thomas Brace Haughey wrote a series of six novels "in the best tradition of Holmes and Watson" from 1978–1986, with Geoffrey Weston as the Sherlock character (and a descendant of Mycroft Holmes) and John Taylor as his Watson, living at 31 Baker Street. These stories, ''The Case of the Invisible Thief'', ''The Case of the Frozen Scream'', ''The Case of the Maltese Treasure'', ''The Case of the Kidnapped Shadow'', ''The Case of the Hijacked Moon'', and ''The Case of the Unbolted Lightning'', are all deeply imbued with an Evangelical Christian outlook.
Charles Hamilton Charles Hamilton may refer to:
People in Canada
* Charles Hamilton (bishop) (1834–1919), Anglican bishop of Ottawa
* Charles Edward Hamilton (1844–1919), Canadian politician
* Sir Charles Hamilton, 2nd Baronet, of Marlborough House (1767–184 ...
, under the pseudonym Peter Todd, wrote almost 100 short parodies of the Holmes short stories from 1915 onwards. The characters became Herlock Sholmes and Dr Jotson, living in a Shaker Street apartment; and the sophisticated deductive reasoning of the original became absurdity in the spoofs, which were mainly published in a range of boys' comics of the period (''The Greyfriars Herald'', ''
The Magnet'', ''
The Gem'', etc.). Although satirical and often mocking contemporary mores (and World War I shortages), the stories had a real feel for the dialogue and structure of the originals. They were all reprinted in ''The Complete Casebook of Herlock Sholmes'' (Hawk Books 1989).
Michael Chabon's novella ''
The Final Solution'' (2004) features an unnamed protagonist who is likely a retired Holmes. The story takes place during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, and features the Holmes character investigating the appearance of a mute boy with a
parrot
Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittaco ...
who repeatedly calls a string of seemingly random numbers in German. References to Holmes are plentiful: the protagonist is a
bee keeper, is familiar with detectives in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, and smokes a pipe. The title simultaneously refers to the Nazi plan for genocide hinted at in the book and mirrors one of Doyle's own shorts, "
The Final Problem".
Sarah Monette's ''
The Angel of the Crows'' (2020), transposed to an alternative London with angels and werewolves, portrays Dr Watson as a field surgeon injured in the
Second Anglo-Afghan War instead of India, and Sherlock Holmes as an angel. The work tries to be an anthology of several Holmes cases.
Leilehua Yuen, under the pen name of
Fevronia H. Watkins
''The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom'' (russian: Повесть о Петре и Февронии Муромских, ''Povest o Petre i Fevronii Muromskikh'') is a 16th-century Russian tale by Hermolaus-Erasmus, often referred to as a hagio ...
, began a series of novellas, ''
The Adventures of Kamaka Holmes'', in late 2020. It begins with ''He Huli ʻUlaʻula—A Study in Scarlet''. The first books are set in Hilo, Hawaiʻi in the final years of the Hawaiian Monarchy. It features two teenage cousins of Sherlock Holmes (3rd cousins once removed), Kamaka Holmes and Fevronia Watkins. To date, there are no plans for a Sherlock Holmes cameo, though the girls are avid readers of Dr. Watson's writings on the great detective. The mysteries are written as historical fiction.
In the
O. Henry
William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. His works include "The Gift of the M ...
short stories "The Sleuths", "The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes" and "The Detective Detector" — story collections: ''Sixes and Sevens (1911)'', and ''
Waifs and Strays
''Waifs and Strays'' is a short story collection by O. Henry, released posthumously in 1917. It was published by Doubleday, Page & Company
Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in ...
'' (1917)'' —
the character Shamrock Jolnes parodies Sherlock Holmes' deductive methods and disguises.
In
Bret Harte's collection of
burlesques of contemporaneous writers, ''Condensed Novels: New Burlesques'', the character ''Hemlock Jones'' in the story "The Stolen Cigar Case By A. Co—n D—le" has been praised by
Ellery Queen as "probably the best parody of Sherlock Holmes ever written".
In the first novel of
Joyce Ballou Gregorian's Tredana Trilogy, ''The Broken Citadel'', a young girl is transported from our world to a fantasy world called Tredana. She learns that the only previous traveller there from our world is a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson, who was taught how to get there by the Dalai Lama. In Conan Doyle's stories, during the period in which Holmes is presumed dead between the events of ''
The Final Problem'' and ''
The Empty House'', one identity Holmes adopts is a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson who meets with the Dalai Lama.
Film
Douglas Fairbanks played a cocaine-addicted Holmes spoof named "Coke Enneday" in ''
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
''The Mystery of the Leaping Fish'' is a 1916 American short silent comedy film starring Douglas Fairbanks, Bessie Love, and Alma Rubens. Directed by John Emerson, the story was written by Tod Browning with intertitles by Anita Loos.
A 35&nb ...
'' (1916). Many of this "scientific" detective's possessions are checkered in the Holmes manner, including his detective hat, jacket, and even his car, and whenever he feels momentarily dejected, he nonchalantly extracts yet another syringe from a bandolier on his chest and quickly injects himself with
cocaine, laughing in merriment as an immediate result.
In 1924, comedian
Buster Keaton made ''
Sherlock Jr.'', about a film projectionist who dreams of becoming a great detective.
The 1971 film ''
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a dr ...
'', adapted from
James Goldman's 1961 British stage play of the same name, featured
George C. Scott as a widowed judge named Justin Playfair who imagines himself to be Holmes. When his brother seeks to have him committed, he is brought to Dr. Mildred Watson (
Joanne Woodward).
In ''
The Return of the World's Greatest Detective'' (1976 TV movie), a rather ineffectual
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...
cop, and avid fan of Sherlock Holmes, named ''Sherman Holmes'' (played by American actor
Larry Hagman) suffers a brain injury when his parked
motorcycle
A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruisin ...
tips over and falls onto his
head (he was lying beside it, reading). He wakes with both the unshakeable delusion that he is Sherlock Holmes and that he possesses all of Holmes' incredible deductive abilities. His friend and case-worker, Dr. Joan Watson (
Jenny O'Hara), moves him to Apartment B of 221 Baker Street, where he becomes involved in the murder of an embezzler.
Nicholas Colasanto also stars as Lt. Tinker, Holmes' former superior, who is in charge of the murder investigation. Reviewers of the day pointed out parallels to ''
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a dr ...
.''
The 1986 Soviet comedy ''
My Dearly Beloved Detective'' features two women (Shirley Holmes and Jane Watson) opening a private detective agency in London, to the displeasure of Scotland Yard at the competitors. Sherlock Holmes is fictional in the setting.
''
Zero Effect'', loosely based on the Sherlock Holmes story "
A Scandal in Bohemia", features
Bill Pullman as Daryl Zero, a neurotic detective who is only in his element when on a case, and
Ben Stiller as Watson-like assistant Steve Arlo. Set in modern
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...
, the search for a shady businessman's lost keys reveals a plot involving murder, blackmail, and secret identities. Instead of
cocaine, Zero's occasional need for mental stimulation leads to experimentation with the drug
Mescaline. In the film, Zero indicates that he has mastered his technique of "Observation and Objectivity" – or as he calls them, "The Two Obs".
Sherlock Holmes also inspired
Satyajit Ray, an
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
n film maker, to create the character Pradosh Mitter. Mitter, affectionately called
Feluda
Feluda, or Prodosh Chandra Mitra itter is a fictional detective, Private investigator created by famous Indian director and writer Satyajit Ray. Feluda resides at 21 Rajani Sen Road, Ballygunge, Calcutta, West Bengal. Feluda first made his a ...
, was immensely popular in Bengal. Feluda used the method of deduction to solve his cases, most of which were set in Calcutta. Ray even made some movies with Feluda as hero, including ''
Sonar Kella'' (''The Golden Fortress''). Additionally, the
Bengali writer Saradindu Bandyopadhyay also had a detective named
Byomkesh Bakshi, which had some resemblance to Doyle's Holmes. In many ways Bakshi was different from the "drug-addict" bachelor image that Holmes had. Bakshi was married and had few addictions except that of a cigarette. In many ways, Byomkesh's character was distinctly different from that of Holmes. However both used deductions and were astute observers. In their character portrayal though the biggest difference lies. The frequently brooding trait in Holmes' character was not found in the cheerful portrayal of Byomkesh Bakshi. The adventures of Bakshi was later developed into a television series that was aired in
Doordarshan
Doordarshan (abbreviated as DD; Hindi: , ) is an Indian public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and one of Prasar Bharati's two divisions. One of India's largest b ...
, India's premier TV channel during those times, in the early 1990s. The series featuring Rajit Kapoor as Byomkesh Bakshi, telecast on the Doordarshan, inspired a lot of Indians to read the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and re-read the works of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay.
TV
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The highly popular ''
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' featured an entire episode circling around the death of a man who held 'mystery nights' with a group of friends in which they roleplayed as Holmes characters and solved invented crimes; his basement was an exact replica of Sherlock Holmes' 221B Baker Street parlour, and he emulated everything Holmes did in the books – from his smoking to his cocaine addiction. The episode was called "Who Shot Sherlock?". CSI is also notable for the lead character,
Gil Grissom (
William Petersen), has more than a passing similarity to Sherlock Holmes. Like Holmes, Grissom is dispassionate with a fierce devotion to logic and little regard for societal norms of behaviour; Grissom once smashed mustard jars in a grocery store to illustrate a theory, much as Holmes once practiced spearing a pig in a butchers shop to determine how strong a man would have to be to transfix a man with a harpoon. Grissom also possesses a Moriarty-like nemesis,
Paul Millander
''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' featured an extensive range of minor characters in addition to its main cast. The American procedural forensics crime drama television series ran on CBS from October 6, 2000, to September 27, 2015. Spanning 15 s ...
(
Matt O'Toole
Matt O'Toole is an actor who is best known for his role as Paul Millander in the television series ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', also referred to as ''CSI'' and ''CSI: Las Vegas'', is an American pr ...
), whom he pursues in several episodes. Coincidentally, "Paul Millander" has the same initials as "
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
." There's also a woman,
Lady Heather Kessler (
Melinda Clarke), in whom he takes an unusual interest. Their relationship is similar to that of
Irene Adler and Holmes. Both Irene and Lady Heather enchant Holmes and Grissom with their beauty, their wit and their resolution. Lady Heather often wears Victorian-style dresses, referencing Holmes's era. Whilst Grisoms replacement
D.B. Russell
''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony E. Zuiker and executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Carol Mendelsohn, Ann Donahue, William Petersen, Cynthia Chavtel, Naren Shanker, and Don Mc ...
's (
Ted Danson) official character sheet was described as "A west coast Sherlock Holmes who devours crime novels and looks at every crime scene as if it were a story waiting to be told". Both Grissom and Russell work with their CSI partners
Catherine Willows
Catherine Willows is a fictional character, portrayed by Marg Helgenberger, from the CBS crime drama ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' and its sequel, '' CSI: Vegas''. Helgenberger made her franchise debut in the first-season episode "Pilot". H ...
(
Marg Helgenberger) and
Julie Finlay
Julie "Finn" Finlay is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', portrayed by Elisabeth Shue. She made her first appearance in the 14th episode of season 12, entitled "Seeing Red", and appeared in every epis ...
(
Elisabeth Shue), respectively (both the equivalent of
Dr. John Watson) whilst both working under the
Las Vegas Police Department's Homicide Captain
Jim Brass (
Paul Guilfoyle) (the equivalent of
Inspector Lestrade).
House MD
According to series creator
David Shore,
Gregory House was inspired by the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, particularly about drug use and his desire (and capacity) to solve the unsolvable. House uses Holmesian deductive techniques to diagnose his patients' problems. For example, references to Sherlock Holmes range from the obvious (House's apartment number is 221B) to the subtle (his friendship with Dr.
James Wilson and the similarities between House and Holmes, and Wilson and Watson). In the pilot episode, the patient's last name was Adler, and in the last episode of season two, the man who shot House was Moriarty. House's act of faking cancer in season three, episode fifteen, "Half-Wit," is similar to the Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Dying Detective," Holmes fakes a deadly eastern disease to catch a criminal. The character of Holmes, was in turn, based on a Doctor that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew while studying medicine, Dr.
Joseph Bell, whose specialty was diagnosis. In season five, episode eleven, "Joy to the World," Wilson presents House with
Joseph Bell's Manual of the Operations of Surgery as a Christmas gift. When House's staff begins to wonder why he would throw away the expensive gift, an amused Wilson begins making up a story about House having a closeted infatuation with a patient named Irene Adler, who he will always consider to be "the one who got away." One character, Irene Adler, was wrongly characterized as Sherlock Holmes' love interest in several adaptations. Here, the one who got away parallels her was the one woman who defeated Sherlock Holmes, making Sherlock Holmes respect her. But he was never in love with her. The false story of Wilson about Irene Adler pays tribute to both of these facts. House also believed that his biological father was a family friend named Thomas Bell.
The resemblance is evident in House's reliance on
deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false ...
and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
, even where it might not seem obviously applicable and his reluctance to accept cases he finds uninteresting.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
The character of Detective
Robert Goren (
Vincent D'Onofrio) is based on the popular fictional character of Sherlock Holmes, but instead of relying upon physical evidence like Holmes, Goren focuses on psychology to identify the perpetrators, whom he often draws into confessing or yielding condemning evidence. Goren also works with a John Watson like partner in Detective
Alexandra Eames (
Kathryn Erbe
Kathryn Elsbeth Erbe is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Alexandra Eames on ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent'', a spin-off of ''Law & Order'', and Shirley Bellinger in the HBO series '' Oz''.
Early life
Erbe was born in New ...
) and works for
Inspector Lestrade type commanding officers Captain
James Deakins (
Jamey Sheridan) and Captain
Danny Ross (
Eric Bogosian). The character of
Nicole Wallace
''Law & Order: Criminal Intent'', a spin-off of the crime drama ''Law & Order'', follows the detectives who work in the "Major Case Squad" of the New York City Police Department, a unit that focuses on high-profile cases (in most cases murder, jus ...
(
Olivia d'Abo) is a direct attempt to play on the part of Sherlock Holmes' female antagonist
Irene Adler, also known as "The Woman". Wallace is employed as a "Professor of Literature" during her first appearance, which could be a parallel to Holmes' nemesis
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
.
Monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
Andy Breckman, head writer of ''
Monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
'', admitted to copying
Adrian Monk from Conan Doyle "almost as if I used a
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...
machine".The characters and basic structure of the series were inspired by the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. The character name "
Adrian Monk" was intended to be unusual like that of Sherlock Holmes. Other characters correspond to Holmes characters:
Sharona Fleming (a nurse) and
Dr. John Watson; Captain
Leland Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant
Randall Disher (named Randall Deacon in the pilot) served much the same function on this show as did
Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes stories. This relationship may have inspired these characters' names: taking the first two letters of each name in order – LE from "Leland", ST from "Stottlemeyer", RA from "Randall" and DE from "Deacon" – spells out "Lestrade". (However, after the show's pilot episode, Randy Deacon's last name was changed to Disher.) There's also Monk's brother Ambrose and
Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother) and Harold Krenshaw and James Moriarty (Holmes' nemesis), (JM) initials shifted two characters to the left in the alphabet (HK). Also, on another side note, Monk's second psychiatrist was called Dr. Bell. Sherlock Holmes was modeled on Dr Joseph Bell, a surgeon with outstanding deductive powers.
Others
Sherlock Hemlock is a
muppet character based on Sherlock Holmes, who appears on the American children's programme ''
Sesame Street''.
The pilot episode of the well-remembered series, ''
Murder, She Wrote
''Murder, She Wrote'' is an American crime drama television series, created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link, starring Angela Lansbury, and produced and distributed by Universal Television for the CBS network. The ser ...
'', starring
Angela Lansbury, aired on 30 September 1984. The story had to do with her character, mystery writer
Jessica Fletcher
Jessica Beatrice "J. B." Fletcher (born Jessica Beatrice MacGill) is a detective show character and the protagonist on the American television series ''Murder, She Wrote''.
Portrayed by award-winning actress Angela Lansbury, Fletcher is a bes ...
, searching out the murderer of Caleb McCallum (played by
Brian Keith) who is killed at a masquerade party where he is dressed in deerstalker cap and cape-coat. It was titled "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes".
Although never directly stated, ''
Psych'' is said to have been based on, or at least a parody of, Sherlock Holmes, with
Shawn Spencer being Sherlock Holmes,
Burton "Gus" Guster being
John Watson,
Henry Spencer being
Mycroft Holmes, Police Chief
Karen Vick being
Inspector Lestrade, and "
Mr. Yang
This is a list of characters in the USA Network original comedy-drama TV series '' Psych'' and subsequent movies that were released on Peacock. The principal cast of the series has remained the same throughout the series. However, various rec ...
" being Moriarty. When
BBC's
Sherlock (2010) premiered, parallels were also drawn between Detective
Juliet O'Hara and
Molly Hooper, and between Detective
Carlton Lassiter and
Phillip Anderson and
Sally Donovan.
Many fans of the series ''
The Mentalist'' believe that the series' main character
Patrick Jane is inspired by the Sherlock Holmes. Jane can read a crime scene with his observation skills and uses his team as his own version of
John Watson/
Inspector Lestrade and has an enemy with
Red John being Patrick's own version of Professor James Moriarty.
Animation
In
Warner Bros. long-running ''
Looney Tunes
''Looney Tunes'' is an American animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series '' Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation.[ ...]
'' cartoon show,
Daffy Duck did a turn as "Dorlock Holmes" in the episode "Deduce, You Say", first shown in 1956. In this episode, Dorlock Holmes (festooned in deerstalker cap and residing on Beeker Street) and his assistant Watkins (played by
Porky Pig
Porky Pig is an animated character in the Warner Bros. '' Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many crit ...
) must track down the Shropshire Slasher.
Several
Dick Tracy animated cartoons centre around a white bulldog, helmeted like a London bobby, named Hemlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes is extremely popular in
Japan, and was an inspiration for the
Japanese
anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
and
manga
Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...
, ''
Case Closed'' (''Detective Conan'' in Japan), where the main character,
Jimmy Kudo (Shin'ichi Kudo), takes his pseudonym, Conan Edogawa, from two detective fiction authors,
Edogawa Rampo and
Arthur Conan Doyle. Incidentally
Edogawa Rampo took his name from
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
, the American writer known as the 'Father' of detective fiction. In addition, many of the characters of Detective Conan are inspired by characters from Doyle's original canon. Most notably is that Kudo himself is a take on Sherlock Holmes. This connection is made even more obvious by the naming of some of its fictional locations like Beika City and Haido City named after Baker Street and Hyde Park respectively. The Kudo family residence is even located at no. 21 of the second block in Beika Town.
Video games
The Other Guys has released in 2016 an app called ''Sherlock Holmes: Lost Detective''. Divided into two seasons, the main character is a young Scotland Yard agent; in this game there is a professor of English literature claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. Originally for iOS and Android, at present time can be found only on iTunes.
''Doctor Watson: Mystery Cases'' (also ''Doctor Watson: Treasure Island'') and ''Doctor Watson 2: The Riddle of the Catacombs'' are two casual games (hidden object games with 3D capabilities) released by German software house UIG in which the main character is loosely inspired by the original Watson. Holmes himself, however, does not appear.
SecretBuilders Games has released in 2018 a casual game, ''Dr. Watson Mysteries – Hidden Objects Game'', where the protagonist is Dr. Watson, not Sherlock Holmes, but it features many Conan Doyle's stories such as ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', ''The Valley of Fear'', ''The Speckled Band'', ''The Silver Blaze'', ''The Musgrave Ritual'', ''The Gloria Scott'', and ''The Copper Beeches''.
Crisp App Studios has developed a crime-comedy casual game named ''Sherlock Pug'' where the main character is an anthropomorphic dog who is also a police officer, assisted by a superhero (Super Al) to defeat the evil Skindiver who has seized Oddopolis; mainly targeted to a children audience, it is available on Steam and, freely, on Microsoft website.
Big Fish Games and Elephant Games have released three games with a main character named "Ms. Holmes", a female detective so called in honour of Holmes himself, who investigates in England during the absence of Sherlock Holmes after his disappearance at Reichenbach Falls. Some recurring Holmes' characters such as Professor Moriarty and the Baskervilles are cited in the games.
Manga
Throughout ''
Gender-Swap at the Delinquent Academy'', the main character Torao Kadoki occasionally dons a
fake moustache
A fake moustache or false moustache is an item of prosthetic make-up used in dressing-up, acting, espionage and crime. Fake moustaches are made in different ways, but usually require the wearer to use adhesive to affix the moustache to their fac ...
and deerstalker hat to investigate mysteries as "Herlock Sholmes".
Audio
''
The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
''The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra'' is the seventh comedy album produced by the Firesign Theatre and released in January 1974 by Columbia Records. It is a send-up of a Sherlock Holmes adventure, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra", which was not writ ...
'' is a comedy album created by
The Firesign Theatre
The Firesign Theatre (also known as the Firesigns) was an American surreal comedy troupe who first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program ''Radio Free Oz'' on station KPFK FM. They continued a ...
featuring Hemlock Stones and Flotsam.
See also
*
Fan fiction
*
Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd.
''Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd.'' was a 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ''(755 F.3d 496''.'')'', in response to an appeal filed by the defendants against the 2013 ruling of the U.S. District Court for No ...
References
Bibliography
*

Text was copied fro
Influence of Sherlock Holmesat the Baker Street Wiki, which is released under
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license
* Peter Ridgway Watt, Joseph Green, ''The alternative Sherlock Holmes: pastiches, parodies, and copies'',
Ashgate Publishing
Ashgate Publishing was an academic book and journal publisher based in Farnham ( Surrey, United Kingdom). It was established in 1967 and specialised in the social sciences, arts, humanities and professional practice. It had an American office i ...
, 2003,
* Bernard A. Drew, ''Literary afterlife: the posthumous continuations of 325 authors' fictional characters'', McFarland, 2009, , pp. 110–117
External links
*A Thoroughgoing Listing of Sherlockian Pastiche Novels: http://home.earthlink.net/~glennbranca/unclubables/id12.html
''Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol'' a play by John Longenbaugh, world premiered at Taproot Theatre Company in Seattle in 2010
{{Sherlock Holmes by others
Pastiches