Sherlock Holmes | |
---|---|
Artist | John Doubleday |
Year | 1999 |
Type | Pedestrian statue |
Medium | Bronze |
Subject | Sherlock Holmes |
Location | London, NW1 United Kingdom |
51°31′21″N0°09′24″W / 51.52250°N 0.15659°W |
A statue of Sherlock Holmes by the sculptor John Doubleday stands near the supposed site of 221B Baker Street, the fictional detective's address in London. Unveiled on 23 September 1999, the sculpture was funded by the Abbey National building society, whose headquarters were on the purported site of the famous address. As no site was available on Baker Street itself the statue was installed outside Baker Street tube station, on Marylebone Road. Doubleday had previously produced a statue of Holmes for the town of Meiringen in Switzerland, below the Reichenbach Falls whence the detective fell to his apparent death in the 1893 story "The Final Problem".
The 3-metre-high (9.8 ft) statue depicts Holmes wearing an Inverness cape and a deerstalker, attributes first given to him by Sidney Paget, the illustrator of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories for The Strand Magazine , [1] and holding a calabash pipe (which appears to be a later addition).
It is located outside Baker Street tube station on Marylebone Road, two blocks from the detective's fictional home at 221B Baker Street, [2] and near the Sherlock Holmes Museum between numbers 237 and 241.
In 1927 G. K. Chesterton was the first person to suggest that a statue of Holmes be sited in London, but his efforts came to nothing. [3] A new campaign was begun by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 1996. [3] Before then the society had, according to its president Anthony Howlett, spent "a decade or two debating whether we should put a statue smack in the middle of Baker Street, and the traffic be damned". [2] The Sherlock Holmes Statue Company Limited was set up to manage the project. In 1998, Abbey National agreed to fund the statue because of their connection with Holmes. (Their headquarters were at 215−229 Baker Street and they employed a member of staff to respond to any letters addressed to Holmes at 221B.) [3]
John Doubleday, the sculptor of the first statue of Holmes at Meiringen, was given the commission for the London statue on 31 March 1998. [3] After the plans to install the statue were announced some local residents and the St Marylebone Society spoke out against the work, saying that it was "not very appropriate. It should have been in Baker Street itself, which is much quieter." [1] The statue was unveiled by Lord Tugendhat, the chairman of Abbey National, on 23 September 1999. [3]
Since 2014, Doubleday's sculpture has been one of a series of "Talking Statues" across London where passers-by can receive a simulated telephone call from the statue's subject by scanning a QR code or visiting a link. The Holmes statue is voiced by the actor Ed Stoppard with a script written by the English novelist Anthony Horowitz which humorously gives details relating to the statue's appearance. [4]
Before London received its statue of Sherlock Holmes examples had already been installed in 1988 in Meiringen, also in 1988 in Karuizawa (Japan) [5] and in 1991 on the site of Conan-Doyle's birthplace in Edinburgh. [6] In 2007, a statue of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson was erected in Moscow near the British embassy. [7]
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard.
A Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in English literature. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet": "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."
The Baker Street Irregulars are fictional characters who appear in three Sherlock Holmes stories, specifically two novels and one short story, by Arthur Conan Doyle. They are street boys who are employed by Holmes as intelligence agents. The name has subsequently been adopted by other organizations, most notably a prestigious and exclusive literary society founded in the United States by Christopher Morley in 1934.
"The Final Problem" is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom, and McClure's in the United States, under the title "The Adventure of the Final Problem" in December 1893. It appears in book form as part of the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
221B Baker Street is the London address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the United Kingdom, postal addresses with a number followed by a letter may indicate a separate address within a larger, often residential building. Baker Street in the late 19th century was a high-class residential district, and Holmes's apartment would probably have been part of a Georgian terrace.
Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid out the street in the 18th century. The area was originally high class residential, but now is mainly occupied by commercial premises.
Detective Inspector G. Lestrade is a fictional character appearing in the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Lestrade's first appearance was in the first Sherlock Holmes story, the 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet. His last appearance is in the 1924 short story "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", which is included in the collection The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels is an interactive fiction game designed by Bob Bates and published by Infocom in 1987. It was released for the Apple II, MS-DOS Commodore 64, Amiga, and Mac. Sherlock is based on the legendary fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is Infocom's thirty-first game and is the first of two Infocom games developed by Challenge, Inc. using Infocom's development tools.
Sherlockiana encompasses various categories of materials and content related to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle. The word "Sherlockiana" has been used for literary studies and scholarship concerning Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes pastiches in print and other media such as films, and memorabilia associated with Sherlock Holmes. Sherlockiana may be "anything about, inspired by, or tangentially concerning" Sherlock Holmes.
Without a Clue is a 1988 British comedy film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. It is based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters from the Sherlock Holmes stories but, in this version, the roles are reversed: Dr. John Watson is the brilliant detective, while "Sherlock Holmes" is an actor hired to pose as the detective so that Watson can protect his reputation as a physician.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum is a privately run museum in London, England, dedicated to the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It is the world's first museum dedicated to the literary character Sherlock Holmes. It opened in 1990 and is situated on Baker Street, bearing the number 221B by permission of the City of Westminster, although it lies between numbers 237 and 241, near the north end of Baker Street in central London close to Regent's Park.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for pastiche, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than Arthur Conan Doyle. Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
221B Baker Street is a 1986 video game published by Datasoft, based on an earlier board game of the same name. The game was inspired by the exploits of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and derives its title from the detective's residence at 221B Baker Street in London. The original board game was created and copyrighted by American writer Jay Moriarty in 1975.
The Sherlock Holmes is a Victorian-themed public house in Northumberland Street near Charing Cross railway station and Trafalgar Square which contains a large collection of memorabilia related to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. The original collection was put together for display in Baker Street in London during the Festival of Britain in 1951.
John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" (1927) is the last work of Doyle featuring Watson and Holmes, although their last appearance in the canonical timeline is in "His Last Bow" (1917).
The Speckled Band is a 1931 British mystery film directed by Jack Raymond and starring Lyn Harding, Raymond Massey and Angela Baddeley. It is an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's original 1892 story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and the 1910 play he adapted from it, The Speckled Band.
Sherlock Holmes fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. The fans are known as Sherlockians or Holmesians. Many fans of Sherlock Holmes participate in societies around the world, and engage in a variety of activities such as discussion, tourism, and collecting.
The Three Garridebs is a 1937 television presentation that aired on NBC, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1924 story "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs". Louis Hector played Sherlock Holmes, the first actor to do so on television.
"The Field Bazaar" is a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on November 20, 1896 in a special "Bazaar Number" of The Student, a publication of the students' representative council at Edinburgh University. It is a Sherlock Holmes story, published under Conan Doyle's byline and featuring both Holmes and his partner, Dr. John Watson. It is, however, treated by most experts as a parody or pastiche not suitable for inclusion in the traditional 60-story canon of Sherlock Holmes, though there are dissenters.