A Fictional Detective

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his mastery with observation, judgment, forensic science, and analytical perception that boundaries on the fantastic, which he utilizes when scrutinizing cases for a broad category of clients, including Scotland Yard.

First appearing in picture in 1887's a study in scarlet, the character's vogue became widespread with the initial series of short tales in The Strand Magazine, starting up with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in 1891; following stories appeared from then until 1927, ultimately evaluating four novels and 56 short stories. All but one are put in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, between about 1880 and 1914. Most are described by the character of Holmes's friend and biographer Dr. John H. Watson, who usually supports Holmes during his researches and often shares quarters with him at the address of 221B Baker Street, London, where many of the stories begin.

However, not the first fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes is arguably the best known. By the 1990s, there were already over 25,000 stage transformations, movies, television presentations, and volumes starring the detective, and Guinness World Records lists him as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television narrative. Holmes's popularity and success are such that many have acknowledged him to be not a fictional personality but a real person; multiple literary and fan federations have been based on this superiority. Avid readers of the Holmes fictions helped create the contemporary strategy of fandom. The character and stories have had a genuine and enduring impact on mystery writing and outstanding culture as a whole, with the authentic anecdotes as well as thousands composed by novelists other than Conan Doyle being modified into theater and radio plays, television, films, video games, and other media for over one hundred years.

Details of Sherlock Holmes's life in Conan Doyle's stories are scarce and often vague. Nevertheless, remarks of his earlier life and extended family paint a flexible biographical portrait of the detective.

A statement of Holmes's age in "His Last Bow" places his year of birth at 1854; the story, set in August 1914, characterizes him as sixty years of age.

His parents are not mentioned, although Holmes indicates that his "ancestors" were "country squires". In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", he declares that his grandmother was sister to the French artist Vernet, without explaining whether this was Claude Joseph, Carle, or Horace Vernet. Holmes's brother Mycroft, seven years his elder, is a government officer. Mycroft has an extraordinary social service status as a kind of human database for all factors of government strategy. Sherlock portrays his brother as the more intelligent of the two but remarks that Mycroft lacks any interest in the corporal investigation, desiring to consume his time at the Diogenes Club.

Holmes says that he first formulated his techniques of determination as an undergraduate; his earlier cases, which he maintained as an amateur, came from fellow university students. A conference with a classmate's father directed him to adopt detection as a career.

Monetary complications lead Holmes and Dr. Watson to share cabins together at 221B Baker Street, London. Their housing is maintained by their landlady, Mrs. Hudson. Holmes worked as a detective for twenty-three years, with Watson helping him for seventeen of those years. Most of the stories are frame descriptions written from Watson's sense of view, as overviews of the detective's most fascinating cases.

Nevertheless, Holmes's friendship with Watson is his most meaningful connection. When Watson is stabbed by a bullet, although the injury turns out to be "quite superficial", Watson is moved by Holmes's reaction:

It was worth a wound; it was worth many wounds; to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.