An unusual sequence of events.
In 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle published "The Final Problem", a story in which his beloved consulting detective Sherlock Holmes confronted the criminal mastermind James Moriarty. It was this story that cemented Professor Moriarty, who has very few appearances in canon, as Holmes's archnemesis. It also, to all appearances, killed off Holmes.
The story "The Adventure of the Empty House" reintroduced Holmes, his reappearance narrated by a joyful and incredulous Dr. Watson. "Empty House" was published in 1903. Holmes's apparent death lasted a decade in real time. That's because it wasn't intended to be a fakeout. Doyle thought the Holmes stories were holding him back and fully intended "The Final Problem" to be just that.
I can understand Doyle not wanting to be pigeonholed, certainly. And it's also plausible that the Holmes canon would only be lesser in number if it weren't for the post-1903 stories. Still, it's hard not to see this as an artist not appreciating their own work.
2 comments:
He was certainly a very prolific author, but it's funny that if you search for titles of Conan Doyle books none of them, except perhaps the Professor Challenger story about The Lost World are memorable. Perhaps he got bored with Holmes and Watson but after ten years had gone by he found new inspiration.
The weirdest story we read of his was that big chunk of A Study in Scarlet that took place in Utah. There you are reading what appears to be, not a routine Holmes mystery because none of them are that, but one that takes place in the Victorian London we've become used to when suddenly the action moves to Salt Lake City and Brigham Young's Mormon settlers. There follows a very long sequence devoid of our beloved characters that gives the background of the case. I quite enjoyed it overall even though it was an enormous digression from the more familiar settings and I kept waiting for Sherlock to show up riding a horse.
For a time he did seem not to place the Holmes stories highly. Arthur Morrison, a contemporary who had written two volumes of short stories featuring the detective Martin Hewitt, had graduated to more literary works and social realism, and Doyle I think felt some envy. As it turns out the Hewitt stories have stood the test of times better than most of Morrison's other books. So it is at least as much with Doyle and Watson, as he may have realized.
The description of the Utahan desert in Study in Scarlet is pretty melodramatic. Just a horrible void that even the coyote is trying to get away from. It's almost Lovecraftian, although he manages not to insult the Indians much. Entertaining in its way, but the return of Holmes and Watson comes as a relief.
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