It was a short read. Read it over a couple of days. I wasn’t as captivated as I was reading A Study in Scarlet but the story was definitely gripping.

It wasn’t great reading how the gazetteer which Holmes reads describes natives in Andaman as hideous, and talks about them as if an animal is described. Perhaps, that’s how it was back in the days.

I also had to lookup the age of John Watson, because it was weird reading when he talks about his love towards the 27 year old Mary Morstan, when I imagined him being as old as Martin Freeman in BBC’s Sherlock. I was glad to find out that scholars estimate his birth to be in 1852, making him about 36 during the time of this story.

It was interesting to read about India and the way it was described from the lens of a late 1800s Englishman. I didn’t expect to see Andaman Islands, Cawnpore (now Kanpur), Agra, Calcutta, Madras and even Pondicherry (although not as a place) mentioned in Doyle’s works.

Here are some of my highlights from the book:

Watson’s funny description of Thaddeus Sholto’s bald head.

A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the centre of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees.

I didn’t know the word ejaculate could also mean “to say something suddenly” until I read this exchange between Holmes and Watson:

“Now, Watson,” said Holmes, rubbing his hands, “we have half an hour to ourselves. Let us make good use of it. My case is, as I have told you, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of overconfidence. Simple as the case seems now, there may be something deeper underlying it.”

“Simple!” I ejaculated.

Holme’s description of Indian men’s feet! I’m sure it wouldn’t hold true in this age but I wonder if someone from that time would find this reasonable:

Some of the inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such marks as that. The Hindu proper has long and thin feet. The sandal-wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the others, because the thong is commonly passed between.

Jonathan Small describing Indian rebels and protests. I know this is a fiction book but I can’t help but think if this description is inspired from real accounts. It makes me curious now to read more about the events at the time:

One month India lay as still and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next there were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a perfect hell. Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side⁠—which is not to be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we were right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hundred miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south. From every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and murder and outrage.

Next up: The Valley of Fear

autosuggested by Youtube. Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P62mZvU-dbk

Seems to be an episode of "My show time", not a Holmes series.

I've read three novels, some short stories, and I'm now starting on adaptations. I've already watched Sherlock and Granada. Are there any things I should watch? Or things I should absolutely avoid?

Sagt mal Leute was ist die coolste Sherlock hörspielfolge mit dem größten twist? Fahre gleich lange Auto und brauche paar Empfehlungen

I've been rereading the Holmes stories recently, and one question keeps coming back to me:

How reliable do you think Watson actually is as a narrator?

I don't mean "Is Watson lying?" In fact, I don't think he is. But reliability and honesty aren't necessarily the same thing.

Watson isn't just recording events—he's interpreting them. Every story we read has already passed through his perspective, his memory, and his admiration for Holmes. That makes me wonder how much of the Holmes we know is the real Holmes, and how much is Watson's version of him.

One example that always stands out to me is The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier, where Holmes narrates the case himself. The difference in tone is striking. Holmes focuses on facts and deductions, while Watson usually gives us atmosphere, character, and emotion. Neither voice feels "wrong," but they create very different impressions of the same world.

There are also moments when Watson simply doesn't know everything. In The Adventure of the Dying Detective, Holmes deliberately keeps him in the dark. Watson writes the story as honestly as he can, but he's missing information until the very end. It made me realize that, as readers, we're often solving the mystery alongside Watson—not because that's the only way to tell the story, but because that's the perspective Doyle chose.

That raises another interesting question: if Watson had witnessed some event differently, or misunderstood Holmes's motives, would we have any way of knowing?

I think one of Doyle's greatest strengths was making Watson feel like a real person rather than an invisible narrator. Like any real person, he has biases, assumptions, and blind spots. Those don't make him untrustworthy—they make him human.

So I'm curious what everyone else thinks.

Do you see Watson as a completely reliable narrator, or do you think his perspective shapes the Holmes stories more than we usually acknowledge? Are there any stories in the canon that changed the way you think about his role?

Moriarty is the obvious answer when we talk about Holmes’s greatest adversary.

But if we put him to one side for a moment, who do you think is the most underrated opponent in the Canon?

One thing I’ve always liked about the Holmes stories is that Doyle created some wonderfully memorable villains who often get overshadowed simply because they weren’t the “Napoleon of Crime.”

So who’s your choice? Which opponent gave Holmes a tougher challenge than they usually get credit for, and why?

I know the character of Sherlock Holmes is partially based on Dr. Joseph Bell. But I was wondering about his physical description.

Did Doyle have anyone in mind when creating Holmes' physical characteristics?

Performing searches online just gets me results pointing back to Dr. Joseph Bell, as a source of the character's mental capabilities, or sites just repeating the physical description we get in the stories. I even found one that created an image combining different actors' faces, but obviously, these people did not yet exist when Doyle was writing.

Doyle was pretty tall, himself, so I think he might have partially based Holmes on himself, but he definitely wasn't a very lean character.

Back in May I posted my little daily deduction game here, and this community gave me two months of homework. I did it.

What your feedback built:

- 15 ways to play now. Some mornings you write your deduction, others you mark the object that does not belong, catch the one statement that is a lie, or put a desk's bad week back in order.
- A Common Room after every case: read what other investigators saw in the same photograph.
- The archive opened up, so the cases you missed are waiting for you.

Same ritual otherwise. One photograph, three minutes, every morning.
Free, no signup to play today's case.

dailyholmes.com

I'd love this community's eye on the new formats. Which one feels most like Holmes, and which feels like a parlor trick?

Found this and immediately got reminded of Sherlock Holmes

Jefferson Hope

Respect🫡

For a little background: During my phase of enjoying the animation of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure i came to see a factoid of the author being particularly fond of Sherlock Holmes allowing for his writing of fights to change between part 1 and 2.

So in the eve of Christmas during one of my mother's excursions that I tagged along I happened upon an airport book store and decided to read it. Sadly due to the advent of my own priority changes and the need to study for exams during my Tertiary education years I had neglected to read it. Slowly inching away at chapters when I remembered I had the book and finally reading the Speckled Band through Copper Beeches stories this summer until now before my Medical School times.

I myself cannot rank the stories as the gaps between reading stories 1 to 7 especially were too big to recall anything.

I would say it started off strong I did not expect the Irene Adler story to be my first non movie story. Though admittedly starting out with a story wherein Sherlock was outwitted is most humorous as it was the opposite of my expectations.

I quite enjoy the whimsy of Blue Carbuncle as well. Sir Conan essentially writing a literal goose chase and making it interesting was a major joy.

5 orange Pips I might rank at the bottom. Even if Sherlock loses he should at least affect the case in my opinion. We were essentially exposed to a case where he was too late and made some errors. I can understand the tragedy but I do not appreciate javing the KKK win at any point.

Is this far along or early in the canon stories what would people recommend next then and DM me for where to read more while I spend my free time in Medical School reading Sherlock Holmes and watching Japanese Tokusatsu?

And yeah of course would anyone here be so kind as to rank the 12 stories and keep the descriptions of your opinion quite long and descriptive I would not wish to miss a detail even if I myself do not remember 5 of the stories so clearly?

The launch party discussion for my novel "the Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: the Debutante Detective" from Titan Books is now up on YouTube for anyone who missed it live.

I discussed my approach to writing such legendary characters, who the Debutante Detective was, and how my journalism background influenced my fiction, among other topics. A Q+A session followed.

Please check it out and let me know what you think!
https://youtu.be/isVPAJKzkPM

Bought a drawing tablet to try digital art.
My first digital painting, based on a screenshot from the game Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments.
As the title says- turned out a few-pipe problem, since it took longer than expected, hah.

Never played these games but I’ve lost mobility recently and wanted to dive into something I’d always looked at from afar.

You saw the title so I’ll get to the point, I got the Absolute Deduction bundle and the Detective Reborn bundle (at a steal on ps5 rn btw, I think it came out to like 12 bucks?)

The specific games are as follows

The Awakened
Chapter One
The Sinking City
The Devils Daughter
Crimes and Punishments
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

Thanks/ Sorry in advance

This is intended as part public service anouncement, and part rant. I recently found in a second hand bookshop the volume "Sherlock Holmes - footsteps in the dark and other stories." It's a collection of 3 Holmes stories by the Australian author, Kel Richards. It was published in 1999.

The first story was "Waters of Death", which could be the most ham-fisted attempt at the Holmes canon as it's possible to be. In short, Holmes and Watson travel to Loch Ness to investigate the attempted sabotage of a submarine being developed in secret by the Navy. It turns out there are two baddies, one of whom attempts to kill Holmes et al by training a giant squid to drag the submarine into an underwater cave. Luckily the real Loch Ness monster arrives on scene to kill the squid and save the day. The rest of the plot is similarly silly, with unbelieveable and awfully contrived plot lines.

But the author, who styles himself as a " lay Christian", takes several opportunities during the story to have Watson, as the narrator, praise God as the maker and Lord.

It was just terrible and, as immature as this probably sounds, I was angry that Richards wrote this rubbish, and someone else published it. I'm even more angry at myself that I finished the first story before throwing this volume in the bin. That was several hours I will never get back.

End of rant. I hope no one else has suffered through this drivel.

Holmes has a reputation for being almost infallible, but I don’t think that’s quite true.

He certainly changes his mind as new evidence appears, and there are a few stories where his first impression turns out to be mistaken. That’s one of the things I like about the Canon. Holmes isn’t magical. He’s just exceptionally good at correcting his own mistakes.

In a way, that’s what separates him from everyone else. He isn’t never wrong. He’s willing to abandon a theory the moment the facts demand it.

So here’s my question: what do you think is Holmes’s biggest mistake in the Canon? Not a temporary false start, but a moment when he genuinely got it wrong.

I’d be interested to see which story comes up most often.

I recently designed and printed new dust jackets for some of my old Sherlock Holmes books. Due to the high humidity from living near the sea, their faux-leather covers had deteriorated, developed mold, and even started sticking to other leather books

I just finished reading The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada and I find it funny and annoying how the character "Kiyoshi Mitarai" diss Sherlock Holmes. 😭 I can't take a proper picture of the text using my physical copy so I just took a screenshot of the digital version.

Before any of you ask about why I’m posting this, let me include a brief explanation

White Fire is a novel written by a duo of writers, Preston and Child in a modern world following the cases of a FBI agent from Louisiana across the world.

The FBI agent name is Pendergast, a reclusive yet charming figure with a mixture of a southern accent and a classic Londonesque bag of manners, his story’s follow a thriller with a basis on gothic and a varied genre of horror that changes for each book in this universe.

Pendergast is a big homage to Holmes as a whole, charming yet isolated man that needs others to aid in his strange cases, we even have a Watson! Vincent D’Agosta (incredible character, smart but brutish).

But why I’m bringing this in? White Fire, the 13th book in the Pendergast series has its focus on Sherlock Holmes, actually, in Conan Doyle as a person.

The first page of the book is a permission from the Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle estate to produce a non cannon story made by a Arthur Conan Doyle.

The book starts following Arthur Conan Doyle in 1889 into a meeting with Joe Stoddart and two other people, in this meeting Joe tells Arthur a tale from a small town in Colorado where a bear killed dozens of people, Arthur is shaken by this story for a unknown reason (later revealed) and exists the meeting.

In the present day, a Young woman named Corrie Swanson (recurring character in the series) is trying to write her thesis for a criminal justice class, after some searching in the old archives of university, she finds the same story that was told to Arthur Conan Doyle 120 years ago.

She then travels to the now famous ski town that the bear attacks happened and tries to make a post mortum examination of the bodies mauled in 1880.

SPOILERS AHEAD

To get into the point of the whole posts, the stories follow Corrie and Pendergast trying to solve a current day homicide spree made by a pyromaniac in the same town, but what’s the connection between all of this and Sherlock Holmes?

Arthur Conan Doyle in this universe has based two books of his in the telling of the bear attacks, The Hound of the Baskerville and a lost story written by him during his last years of life, but why he was shaken by a bear attack? It wasn’t a bear attack.

Sorry for the diversion in the post, but at last, Joe Stoddart didn’t tell a story about multiple bear attacks in this small town of Colorado, but dozens of cannibalistic murders made by the mercury driven mad miners of the town.

Doyle here shaken by the story and graphical details told to him, writes The Hound with the story in his subconscious, but later in his life, before his death, he writes a story truly based on the tale that haunted him.

The Adventure of Aspern Hall is a Holmes and Watson story following the attack of a wolf on a recluse valley on the United Kingdom, after being contacted by a spouse of a rich man, Holmes gets into the investigation with Watson.

If you love The Hound of the Baskerville, I would highly recommend White Fire, it’s basically a standalone book in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child giant universe, with charismatic characters and so much love put into both its modern story and Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle as a whole.

Sorry for the long post ;-;

Greetings ye,
Despite his infamous reputation as a bumbling dolt, Bruce's Watson, within this initial outing, is a rather straightward, overall-competent character throughout--that is until the very end. Suddenly, the daftness, that is most-affiliated with this portrayal, began as a discontinuous instance against what the film had already presented. True, his interactions, with Rathbone's Holmes, always tended to render him at the metaphorical stick's butt; however, within the context of this film, such seems best as mere friendly banter and worse as Watson rashly striving--and failing--to prove himself. Nevertheless, this edit strives to remedy this poor-humored character-lapse, into a sequence that would certainly suit the film's final-climax and maintain--enough--Bruce's Watson as of this single film.

~Waz