When you join us on one of our Sherlock Holmes London walks, you will find that we provide you with a great deal of information, as well giving you an insight into the life and times of the great detective’s creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In our last installment we left Doyle deciding that he must “kill” Sherlock Holmes once and for all. In this installment we explore how Conan Doyle carried out the “murder” and detail the reaction from a horrified and distraught general public.
Sherlock Holmes London walks - The Death of Holmes
Despite his mother’s warning the impulsive Conan Doyle decided that Holmes’s days were numbered and in The Final Problem, published in The Strand in December 1893, he sent his famous creation tumbling to his death over the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, in the company of Holmes’s arch-enemy Professor Moriarty.
His mother’s fears were soon realised as 20,000 people canceled their subscriptions to The Strand magazine upon reading of the death of the great detective. “I was amazed,” wrote Conan Doyle, “at the concern expressed by the public.”
He was inundated with letters of protest. “You Brute!” began one of them “how could you do such a thing!” Members of the Royal family were said to be distraught, whilst city workers wore black armbands to mourn Holmes’s passing. According to one famous anecdote Conan Doyle was even set upon by a handbag wielding matron who was irate at his “killing” of Holmes.
Conan Doyle may have been surprised by the furor, but he was convinced that he had done the right thing. Freed from the influence and the shadow of Holmes, he threw himself wholeheartedly into, what he considered to be, more worthwhile and serious projects.
But tragedy struck around this time when his wife, Louisa, was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and given just a few months to live. Conan Doyle opted to nurse her himself and his dedication and devotion kept her alive into the 20th century.
However, Conan Doyle now suffered a second blow with the death of his father, Charles. It may have been the combined stresses of his wife’s terminal illness and his father’s passing that sowed the seeds for Conan Doyle’s interest in the occult and spiritualism or, as he termed it, “life beyond the veil.”
On March 15th 1897 he met and fell deeply in love with the strikingly beautiful Jean Leckie, the woman who would ultimately become his second wife. Their relationship had to remain clandestine on account of the ailing Louisa, but that the couple were devoted to each other was more than apparent. Indeed, for the rest of his life, Conan Doyle would mark the anniversary of their meeting by presenting Jean with a white snowdrop.
In 1899 he decided that Holmes might make a return of sorts, albeit in a play which he set about penning.
The American actor William Gillette expressed an interest in playing the part of the immortal sleuth. However, Gillette was a little concerned by the fact that Holmes was not a traditional matinee idol. So he wrote to Conan Doyle suggesting some changes, most notably would Conan Doyle allow Holmes to marry for the sake of the play.
Conan Doyle, who had grown weary of the entire enterprise, telegraphed back with the famous riposte: “You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him.”
In May 1899 Gillette arrived in England and met with Doyle to read the almost completely revised play to him. Conan Doyle gave him his full attention and, as the reading drew to a close, spent a moment in thought and then pronounced: “It’s good to see the old chap again.”
Gillette would go on to play Holmes over thirteen hundred times on the stage, not to mention in many radio adaptations and in a 1916 film version. He is also believed to have been the originator of Holmes’s best known riposte “Elementary, my dear Watson,” a phrase that never appears in any of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.
Indeed to a generation of theatre-goers he became the very embodiment of the great detective and many of our most abiding images and perceptions of Holmes originated with Gillette’s portrayal of him.
In our next installment we explain how Holmes returned from the dead and how the general public reacted to the glad tidings of his miraculous escape from the jaws of death!
However, you can also find details of the various Sherlock Holmes London walks that we conduct on the section of our website dedicated to the greatest of all detectives.
