Author | Nicholas Meyer |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Mystery novels |
Publisher | E. P. Dutton |
Publication date | 1974 [1] |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
ISBN | 0-525-20015-0 (first edition, hardback) |
Followed by | The West End Horror |
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. is a 1974 novel by American writer Nicholas Meyer. It is written as a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure, and was made into a film of the same name in 1976. [2]
Published as a "lost manuscript" of the late Dr. John H. Watson, the book recounts Holmes' recovery from cocaine addiction (with the help of Sigmund Freud) and his subsequent prevention of a European war through the unravelling of a sinister kidnapping plot. It was followed by four other Holmes pastiches by Meyer, The West End Horror (1976), The Canary Trainer (1993), The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019) and The Return of the Pharaoh (2021) [2] none of which have been adapted to film.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was ranked ninth in the Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels from 1974 and made The New York Times Best Seller list for forty weeks between September 15, 1974, and June 22, 1975. [3] [4]
An introduction states that two canonical Holmes adventures were fabrications. These are "The Final Problem", in which Holmes apparently died along with Prof. James Moriarty, and "The Empty House", wherein Holmes reappeared after a three-year absence and revealed that he had not been killed after all. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution's Watson explains that they were published to conceal the truth concerning Holmes' "Great Hiatus".
The novel begins in 1891, when Holmes first informs Watson of his belief that Professor James Moriarty is a "Napoleon of Crime". The novel presents this view as nothing more than the fevered imagining of Holmes' cocaine-sodden mind and further asserts that Moriarty was the childhood mathematics tutor of Sherlock and his brother Mycroft. Watson meets Moriarty, who denies that he is a criminal and reluctantly threatens to pursue legal action unless the latter's accusations cease. Moriarty also refers to a "great tragedy" in Holmes' childhood, but refuses to explain further when pressed by Watson.
The heart of the novel consists of an account of Holmes' recovery from his addiction. Knowing that Sherlock would never willingly see a doctor about his addiction and mental problems, Watson and Holmes' brother Mycroft induce Holmes to travel to Vienna, where Watson introduces him to Dr. Freud. Using a treatment consisting largely of hypnosis, Freud helps Holmes shake off his addiction and his delusions about Moriarty, but neither he nor Watson can revive Holmes' dejected spirit.
What finally does the job is a whiff of mystery: one of the doctor's patients is kidnapped and Holmes' curiosity is sufficiently aroused. The case takes the three men on a breakneck train ride across Austria in pursuit of a foe who is about to launch a war involving all of Europe. Holmes remarks during the denouement that they have succeeded only in postponing such a conflict, not preventing it; Holmes would later become involved in a "European War" in 1914.
One final hypnosis session reveals a key traumatic event in Holmes' childhood: his father murdered his mother for adultery and committed suicide afterwards. Moriarty was his mother's lover, having fled sometime before the murder. From that point on, his onetime tutor became a dark and malignant figure in Holmes' subconscious. Freud and Watson conclude that Holmes, consciously unable to face the emotional ramifications of this event, has pushed them deep into his unconscious while finding outlets in fighting evil, pursuing justice, and many of his famous eccentricities, including his cocaine habit. However, they decide not to discuss these subjects with Holmes, believing that he would not accept them, and that it would needlessly complicate his recovery.
Watson returns to London, but Holmes decides to travel alone for a while, advising Watson to claim that he had been killed, and thus the famed "Great Hiatus" is more or less preserved. It is during these travels that the events of Meyer's sequel The Canary Trainer occur.
During the 1973 scriptwriters strike, Nicholas Meyer needed a project to occupy his time. [5] Meyer developed an interest in Sherlock Holmes as a teenager and off-and-on over the years had given thought to authoring a story where Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud, having learned of the founder of psychoanalysis from his psychiatrist father. [5] The strike was the impetus to settle into developing the various ideas he had over the years into a book. [5]
Meyer wrote the book in longhand and then typed it up feeling that this better put him in the mindset of "editing" Watson's words. [5] He added deliberate continuity errors and mistakes to better provide the illusion of being an extension of the original works. [6]
Holmes's addiction to cocaine is developed out of the opening scene of Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four . In that scene, Holmes describes the cocaine with which he is injecting himself as "a seven-per-cent solution." [7]
In his Introduction, Meyer's Watson declares that "The Lion's Mane", "The Mazarin Stone", "The Creeping Man" and "The Three Gables" (all Arthur Conan Doyle-written adventures from 1927's The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes ) are forged "drivel". "The Creeping Man" has been accused of resembling a science-fiction tale more than a Holmes adventure, [8] "The Mazarin Stone" is often viewed as an awkward adaptation of a theatrical script by Doyle [9] and some have objected to a racist characterization in "The Three Gables". [10] "The Lion's Mane", while perhaps less controversial than the other tales, is notable for being one of the canon's two stories narrated by Holmes. Meyer's Watson also states that other forgeries exist, though whether canonical works are concerned is not specified.
On the train to Vienna, Holmes and Watson briefly meet Rudolf Rassendyll, the fictional protagonist of the 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda , returning from his adventures in Ruritania.
The story was adapted for the screen in 1976 in a Universal Studios production, directed by Herbert Ross, scripted by Meyer and designed by James Bond veteran Ken Adam. The all-star cast featured Nicol Williamson as Holmes, Robert Duvall as Watson, Alan Arkin as Dr. Sigmund Freud, with Laurence Olivier as Moriarty, Charles Gray as Mycroft Holmes (the role he reprised in the Jeremy Brett TV series), Samantha Eggar as Mary Watson, Vanessa Redgrave as Lola Devereaux, Joel Grey as Lowenstein, and Jeremy Kemp as Baron von Leinsdorf and Williamson's then wife Jill Townsend playing his character's mother (Mrs. Holmes). [11] The film was made at Pinewood Studios with location shooting in the UK and Austria (including the famous Austrian National Library); the tennis match/duel between Freud and von Leinsdorf was filmed on one of the historic real tennis courts at the Queen's Club in West Kensington, London. [12] The chase on the trains was shot with set-dressed British steam locomotives and freight cars dressed up as coaches.
Meyer adapted his novel to screenplay form, but the film differs significantly from the novel, mainly by supplementing the book's Austrian baron-villain (played by Jeremy Kemp) with an older Turkish foe. Also, the film departs from traditional Holmes canon in portraying the detective as light-haired instead of the traditional black-haired, [13] and as a somewhat flirtatious Holmes at that (Doyle's hero never let women see any signs of interest). Furthermore, the traumatic revelation that affected Holmes in his childhood is heightened – the final hypnosis therapy reveals that Sherlock witnessed his mother's murder by his father. Finally, the lady whom Holmes saves in the story's climactic chase, Lola Devereaux, appears on his ship as he departs for his sabbatical with the purpose of joining him and Holmes eagerly accepts the offer. Meyer's three Holmes novels are much more faithful to the original stories in these regards.
The story was dramatised for radio by Denny Martin Flinn. The adaptation aired on BBC Radio 4 on 9 January 1993. It was directed by Jane Morga, with Simon Callow as Sherlock Holmes, Ian Hogg as Dr Watson, Karl Johnson as Sigmund Freud, David King as Professor Moriarty, Philip Voss as Mycroft Holmes, Matthew Morgan as Baron von Leinsdorf, Melinda Walker as Nancy Osborn Slater, Geraldine Fitzgerald as Baroness von Leinsdorf, and Wolf Kahler as Hugo von Hoffmansthal. [14] The radio adaptation was more faithful to the novel than the film adaptation. [15]
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.
Mycroft Holmes is a fictional character appearing in stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from 1893 to 1908. The elder brother of detective Sherlock Holmes, he is a government official and a founding member of the Diogenes Club. Mycroft is described as having abilities of deduction and knowledge exceeding even those of his brother, though their practical use is limited by his dislike of fieldwork.
The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson is a 1993 Sherlock Holmes pastiche by Nicholas Meyer. Like The Seven Percent Solution and The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer was published as a "lost manuscript" of the late Dr. John H. Watson. In "The Adventure of Black Peter", an original Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes story from 1904, Watson mentions that his companion recently arrested "Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer, which removed a plague-spot from the East-End of London." This Wilson is not related to the eponymous character of Meyer's novel. Meyer's "trainer" is Erik, the principal figure of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. It is from this unchronicled tale that The Notorious Canary Trainers take their name.
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes is a short story collection of twelve Sherlock Holmes pastiches, first published in 1954. It was written by Adrian Conan Doyle, who was the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and by John Dickson Carr, who was the authorised biographer of the elder Conan Doyle. The first six stories were written in collaboration by the two writers, while the last six stories were written solely by Adrian Conan Doyle.
The Giant Rat of Sumatra is a fictional giant rat, first mentioned by Arthur Conan Doyle in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire". As part of the tale, the protagonist, Sherlock Holmes, declares that there is a "story" connected with this rat, presumably a detective case he has handled. The name of the rat and its implied unpublished history were later used in works by many other writers.
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:
Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace is a 1962 mystery film directed by Terence Fisher. It is a West German-French-Italian international co-production. The film starred Christopher Lee as Sherlock Holmes and Thorley Walters as Dr. Watson. Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay, based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Sherlockian game is the pastime of attempting to resolve anomalies and clarify implied details about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson from the 56 short stories and four novels that make up the Sherlock Holmes canon by Arthur Conan Doyle. It treats Holmes and Watson as real people and uses aspects of the canonical stories combined with the history of the era of the tales' settings to construct fanciful biographies of the pair.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is a 1976 Oscar-nominated British-American mystery film directed by Herbert Ross and written by Nicholas Meyer. It is based on Meyer's 1974 novel of the same name and stars Nicol Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, and Laurence Olivier.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a 1929 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by Basil Dean and written by Arthur Conan Doyle, Basil Dean and Garrett Fort. The film shares its title with the third volume of the Sherlock Holmes stories, The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. The film stars Clive Brook, H. Reeves-Smith, Betty Lawford, Charles Hay and Phillips Holmes. The film was released October 29, 1929, by Paramount Pictures. A copy is held at the Library of Congress. It was the first sound film to feature Sherlock Holmes.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1983 British made-for-television mystery thriller film directed by Douglas Hickox, starring Ian Richardson as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Churchill as Dr. John H. Watson. It is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Sherlock Holmes is a film series running from 1931 to 1937. Arthur Wontner portrayed Sherlock Holmes in five films.
Hands of a Murderer is a 1990 British made-for-television mystery film directed by Stuart Orme, starring Edward Woodward as Sherlock Holmes and John Hillerman as Dr. John H. Watson.
The Adventure of the Peerless Peer is a 1974 adventure pastiche novel written by Philip Jose Farmer, writing as Dr. John H. Watson, about the meeting of Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan. This was one of several works Farmer wrote that involved Tarzan.
Professor James Moriarty is the fictional archenemy of Sherlock Holmes in some of the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He has appeared in several forms outside of the original stories.
Doctor Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mystery is a 1974 British made-for-television mystery film directed by James Cellan Jones and starring Edward Fox as Doctor Watson.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Loren D. Estleman, originally published in 1979.
The Revenge of the Hound is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Michael Hardwick, originally published in 1987. It is Hardwick's second Holmes novel after 1979's The Prisoner of the Devil.
Sherlock Holmes is a French–British silent film series consisting of eight short films which were produced in 1912 by Éclair.