Today we have two stories by Arthur Conan Doyle dealing with the “death” and “rebirth” of Sherlock Holmes. In The Final Problem, Holmes has his first and last encounter with master criminal and his intellectual equal, Professor James Moriarty. After a pursuit across Europe, the pair are believed to have perished when they tumbled off the Reichenbach Falls during a struggle. In the Adventure of the Empty House, Holmes miraculously returns to bring three remaining members of Moriarty’s criminal network to justice. In capturing the first, he solves an important murder investigation. Themes include justice, pursuit, deception, courage, sacrifice, death. More…
Archives
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
This story, considered by Arthur Conan Doyle to be his best Sherlock Holmes mystery, features one of his most creative (and unlikeliest) murder plots. Thirty-year-old Helen, Holmes’s client, is a victim of Victorian attitudes towards women. Fearing for their future, her dead mother had decided that she and twin sister Julia would not receive their inheritances until they married. Their violent stepfather, who manages the money, will become destitute should either of them wed. After announcing her engagement, Julia dies under mysterious circumstances. Helen fears that she will be next. Themes: decay, isolation, fear, murder, class, greed, hasty judgement, justice. More…
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
In this mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, an English squire from a highly respected family asks Sherlock Holmes for help. His new bride has been receiving messages written in a strange code that appear to terrify her. The woman, an American, refuses to discuss her past, and a condition of her marrying him was that he must promise never to ask about it. Holmes takes on the case and easily cracks the code, but doesn’t move quickly enough to prevent a murder. Themes include honor, shame, secretiveness, fear, unrequited love, obsession, crime and justice. More…
The Red-Headed League
A common theme in most detective stories is superior observation skills and deductive reasoning. A defining feature of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Red-Headed League is the way the facts presented by the gullible Wilson appear so bizarre to Watson as to defy interpretation. This prompts Holmes’s to quip: Omne ignotum pro magnifico [we exaggerate the importance of the unknown]. Once he dismisses the Red-Headed League as a distraction, identifying the crime in progress becomes a straightforward matter for the great detective. Other themes include deception (appearance vs. reality), gullibility, greed (of both the criminals and Wilson), crime and justice. More…
A Scandal in Bohemia
This is the first of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short stories. The hereditary King of Bohemia hires Holmes to retrieve (steal!) photographic evidence of a scandalous affair. Uncharacteristically, the great detective underestimates the jilted woman and is unable to complete the assignment. Rather than displaying frustration or anger, Holmes is smitten… not with love, but with admiration for her intellect. Themes: philandering, class, sexism, deception, underestimating one’s foe, respect. Some say that Holmes’s esteem for Adler suggests a feminist theme. However, as Watson says, she is the woman; the only one he ever regards so highly. More…