This short film of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which has been making the rounds on social media, was sent to me last week by a friend. I must say, I find it absolutely delightful. Doyle confirms, as has often been told, that his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, was believed by many to be an actual person – and he has the letters to prove it. If I ever knew Doyle was born in Edinburgh, I’d forgotten it, but surely it is evident in his accent, which you will hear when following the link to the video. I defy you not to smile when he says goodbye and strolls off with his dog.
By coincidence, I have been working my way through the Granada Television adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories starring the great Jeremy Brett, who was widely lauded as the definitive interpreter of the character, and rightly so. At any rate, he is the most faithful to Doyle’s vision. The series, produced between 1984 and 1994, aired here in the U.S. on PBS’ “Mystery!”
The first Holmes’ story I ever read was “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” which I believe was in 8th grade English class. I loved it, as I did just about everything I read that year. This would have included “Great Expectations” and “Romeo and Juliet” (which we students read aloud, taking the various parts). I remember being amazed at how bawdy the latter turned out to be, since it’s always endured in our collective memory as the epitome of romantic love. This led to some lively discussions. That’s what school was like back then. If there were ever any offended students or disgruntled parents, we never heard anything about it. There certainly were never any threats of book-bannings or lawsuits. But maybe I just wasn’t privy to what went on at PTA meetings.
As recently as this past Christmas, I revisited Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (included in an anthology of Christmas stories), which I’d forgotten I’d done until viewing the Granada Television adaptation last week.
So Holmes has been a life-long acquaintance, and Doyle’s stories have provided decades of pleasure. By the time we were in our teens, all of my friends and I had acquired, I venture to guess most of us as Christmas gifts, the collected stories, as well as those of Edgar Allan Poe. And we actually read them, and loved them! It’s remarkable that these works, in Doyle’s case written nearly a hundred years earlier (in Poe’s case, more like 150), still held us in their thrall. I wonder if it’s still the case for young people today, when we are told so many no longer read?
Certainly, Poe and Doyle did wonders for our vocabulary. And we all tittered whenever Watson “ejaculated.”