Blog post by SJ Wolfe on William Gillette.docx

2018

Contemporary literature and recent media studies have taken so much from the genre called “Sensational Novels”, that even though this genre emerged in the late nineteenth century, it became hugely popular in the twentieth century, and also drew the attention of the present generation. The Detective fiction first presented to the world by Wilkie Collins, was introduced during the time when the concept and performance of the great detective and the sensation genre was blooming. One such work which became popular during that time was the narrative by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle centering on Sherlock Holmes. The aim of this paper is to examine the intriguing characters which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette constructed in the play of Sherlock Holmes. This consultant detective laid its impact on the readers in the nineteenth century, when it was first published, but even in the present times it had not lost its charms. The character of Sherlock Holmes became a sensational figure, d...

Re-examining Arthur Conan Doyle, 2021

A discussion of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ history of reception. This paper gives a general overview of a collection of articles, published by literary journalists in intellectual weeklies, which gave birth to the Sherlockian movement at the end of the 1920s and early 1930s. That historical sequence can be considered as its Golden Age (1927-34). Amusement, acumen, and the joy to explore literary puzzles were the main components of the early studies on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The higher criticism of the Sherlock Holmes stories, scrutinizing every detail of the text with methods borrowed from literary and textual criticism gave birth to a unique and vivid scholarship. Sources: http://earlysherlockiana.blogspot.com Printed version in Clausson, N. (ed.), Re-examining Arthur Conan Doyle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tye, 2021, pp. 141-161.

Transformative Works and Cultures, 2017

Sherlockian scholarship is a display of intellect, wit, and canonical expertise that requires a cunning manipulation of a story world and of nonfiction. This playful style of writing defies easy classification in the terminology of fan and literary studies. Emerging in the early 20th century, Sherlockian scholarship had a tremendous surge in popularity in the late 1920s and early '30s in articles by renowned British and American authors, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Christopher Morley, Sir Desmond MacCarthy, Sir Sydney Castle Roberts, and Ronald A. Knox. The sustained popularity of Sherlockian scholarship owes much to these initial players, whose sparkling prose conjures a bygone era of repartee. In this study, I present a chronological survey of two early periods in Sherlockian scholarship to understand its poetics, popularity, generic identity, and contemporary relevance.

Peer Reviewed Proceedings of the 5th Annual Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ) Conference: 65-75. ISBN: 978-0-473-41892-2, 2014

Sherlock Holmes is arguably the world's most famous fictional detective. Similarly, the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to share the pages with his consulting detective are some of the most recognized names within the crime fiction canon. This article explores the most important men in the life of Sherlock Holmes with particular focus on his loyal friend Dr John Watson and his archenemy Professor James Moriaty. These novels and short stories are regularly adapted with numerous stage, radio, film and television versions made since the mid-1890s. Some adaptations have been faithful to the original texts while others have pushed various creative boundaries. Of special interest for this article is the CBS television production Elementary (2012-present) which re-imagines the most important men in the life of Sherlock Holmes as women with the central narratives of the original works reconstructed to facilitate Dr Joan Watson and Ms Jamie Moriaty.

When Arthur Conan Doyle “killed” Sherlock Holmes, arguably the most famous detective in literary fiction, numerous writers attempted to replicate the author’s success. Between 1894 and 1903 journalist and collector Arthur Morrison published 25 detective stories featuring PI Martin Hewitt as the protagonist. Stodgier, somewhat lacking sartorially, more down to earth, and, for obvious reasons, less developed than Sherlock, this detective was said to be “thoroughly at home among any and every class of people”. However, the challenge involved in fashioning a character that would not feel derivative within the given genre was not solely Morrison’s concern. Sidney Paget, a British artist known primarily for his Sherlock Holmes drawings, became responsible for illustrating Morrison’s Hewitt tales as they appeared in The Strand Magazine. This meant that he, too, would have had to overcome the impulse to simply imitate the work that brought him recognition. In my presentation I will therefore comment on Hewitt’s traits as a literary character and on his pictorial realization.

This paper looks to examine the man Joseph Bell and the man he inspired directly and the one he inspired indirectly. Joseph Bell was a famous Scottish surgeon, a pioneer in forensic pathology and an inspiration in criminal profiling. The point of this paper is to examine the importance of the facets of Joseph Bell’s life as well as his impact in each field. While a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh he would meet a student named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who would go on to write investigative fiction. One of his pieces would feature a detective named Sherlock Holmes who was largely created in the image of Joseph Bell. This paper looks to examine the legacy of Joseph Bell, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. It takes the legacy of Joseph and how through his own achievements and his cause for the creation of Sherlock Holmes make him the father of forensic science.

Critical Survey of Mystery & Detective Fiction , 2008

Comme tous les hors série de Marginalia publiés jusqu'ici, cette compilation des écrits sur Conan Doyle et Sherlock Holmes est une bibliographie de base où, je l'espère, on retrouvera l'essentiel de ce qui a été écrit sur ce que les mordus et les spécialistes appellent au mieux "le Canon" ou au pire les "Écritures saintes" (Ce que je trouve excessif...). Un très grand nombre de ces "études" sont des brochures, des pamphlets, souvent publiés à compte d'auteur et qui dans certains cas, ne comptent que quelques pages. Introuvables, ils peuplent les rêves les plus fous des collectionneurs et des maniaques. Pour des raisons évidentes de longueur, j'ai omis nombre d'écrits mineurs ou triviaux, les livres de jeux, de mots croisés, de recettes gastronomiques (à une exception près), etc... Tout comme le roman policier a ses textes dits "patristiques", le corpus sherlockien a ses textes "canoniques. , des classiques, des incontournables, des textes qui ont marqué l'histoire. Je les ai indiqués avec une note spéciale en couleur. Il existe de nombreuses bibliographies sherlockoises et sherlockiennes. Elles pullulent sur internet, mais, vérification faite, elles sont souvent fragmentées, dispersées sur de nombreux sites et, exception faite du monumental opus de De Waal (consultable en ligne, mais qui ne couvre pas non plus ces dernières années) elles sont rarement multilingues. Ce hors série double vous propose donc une biblio up to date, partiellement annotée (les textes sont des quatrièmes de couverture, des notes d'éditeur, etc) des écrits sur Conan Doyle et son célèbre détective. Cette bibliographie (publiée en deux hors série) est divisée en quatre parties: 1. Les ouvrages de référence (bibliographies, chronologies, etc), 2. Les études sur Conan Doyle (biographies, correspondance), 3. Les études sherlockiennes, et 4. Les ouvrages qui s'intéressent à Sherlock Holmes et/ou Conan Doyle dans les médias (cinéma, télévision, théâtre, radio). Sherlock Holmes 1 contient les parties 1, 2 et 3 (de A à G) et Sherlock Holmes 2, contient les parties 3 (H à Z) et 4. Cette contribution aux études sherlockiennes est dédiée à René Paul, webmestre émérite, avec remerciements.

2018

sidekick in literature is perceived as a supporter of a hero or a man-behind a hero. However, it does not always work that way. In Sherlock Holmes canon, there can be found a well-known dr. John Watson who acts differently as a sidekick for Sherlock Holmes as a protagonist of the stories. Throughout the canon, Watson does not merely act as a supporter or a man-behind who just follows Holmes’s moves. In many occasions, Watson contributes varied significant things in supporting Holmes through some roles he possesses. Moreover, what Watson contributes is found out to be influential to Holmes. Therefore, it can be seen that being a sidekick can do other things apart from following the hero all the time.Based on the facts about Watson’s contributions, this paper is conducted to examine the roles dr. John Watson as a sidekick. The data used in the research are 56 short stories and four novels of Sherlock Holmes bundled together in Sherlock Holmes canon. The method of collecting the data i...

Rhinoplasty and the nose in early modern British medicine and culture, 2019