(HOST) December marks the birthday of a much-beloved literary character – someone who inspired many to become serious readers. Commentator Vic Henningsen explains.
(HENNINGSEN) "You have been in Afghanistan I perceive." With those words, published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual one hundred and twenty years ago this month, the world first met Sherlock Holmes.
And yawned. Readers ignored the first Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet", and Arthur Conan Doyle returned to writing the historical novels he believed would be his literary legacy. It wasn’t until "The Sign of Four" appeared three years later that Holmes, his companion Dr. Watson, and their adventures in what the hero called "the science of deduction" caught the fancy of the reading public.
After that there was no looking back. Fans grew so insatiable for Holmes stories that Conan Doyle came to resent the character who made him rich. Increasingly irritated that readers ignored his other novels, Conan Doyle killed off the great detective – dropping him over Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls in 1893. But such was the public outrage that he had to bring Holmes back ten years later and resume a series that lasted until 1927.
I wonder whether small boys today read the Holmes stories as zealously as my friends and I did when we were ten. I rather doubt it. But for generations, Holmes not only excited and entertained youngsters, but played a pivotal role in turning them into committed readers.
For me it began with a wonderful teacher reading "The Speckled Band" aloud to a rapt class. I vividly recall our gleeful horror as the sinister asp slid down the bell rope onto the unsuspecting sleeper below. Who wouldn’t want more?
That summer I embarked on an intense effort to read as many of the stories as I could. Late one night, as wind and rain battered the house, I huddled in my attic room immersed in a tale of an ancient curse afflicting a West-country family. Footprints had been discovered near the body of Sir Charles Baskerville. When Holmes inquired whether the prints were male or female, he received the immortal, chilling, response: "Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of an enormous hound!"
At that moment several things happened. Lightning struck the house, plunging all in darkness. Our faithful old Labrador retriever leapt into my lap, howling in terror. And I set a land speed record for ten year olds descending three flights of stairs in total darkness pursued by a baying hound that couldn’t bear to be left alone.
I was hooked! And fifty-six stories, four novels, and some thirteen hundred pages later, I’d not only become a Holmes addict but a full-fledged member of the reading public as well.
Does this sort of thing happen any more? The Harry Potter books seem to have introduced a new generation to the pleasures of reading and perhaps Holmes and Watson and the villains they tracked through the London fog still thrill kids as much as they did me. I hope so.
So Happy Birthday Mr. Holmes! Thanks for making me a reader.
Vic Henningsen is a teacher and historian.