The Definitive Holmes
By Bob Byrne
The name Sherlock Holmes is uttered, and we all form an image in our minds. It might be a drawing by Sidney Paget or Frederic Dorr Steele, or maybe Basil Rathbone or Peter Cushing. Over a century with the great detective has given us very clear images of how we think he looks.
Since Charles Brookfield did a short skit entitled “Under the Clock” in 1893, Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed on stage, screen and radio far beyond anyone’s ability to count. Each medium (publishing, stage, movies and television) has seriously affected the way Holmes is viewed by current and succeeding generations.
It is hard for us in this age to imagine a time when the written word was the leading purveyor of entertainment. Television was not invented, and “motion pictures” were not remotely what we know them as today. Newspapers abounded (I have a hard time remembering when Columbus, OH, had a morning and an evening paper), and illustrated magazines were all the rage.
The Strand, an “Illustrated Monthly,” published a great deal of mystery stories, and a century later we are indebted to it for producing so much Victorian detective literature. There were many others, such as The Windsor Magazine, The Ludgate Monthly and Pearson’s Magazine. They tried to one-up each other with the next great mystery story. The exploits of characters such as Martin Hewitt, Dr. Halifax, Miss Loveday Brook and Simon Carne (the gentleman crook was much in vogue at the time) were eagerly anticipated each month.
But it was The Strand that had the advantage: for it had Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first consulting detective. After A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four met with indifference, George Newnes published six Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.” It was 1891 and The Strand was in its first year. Newnes may have made the greatest decision in publishing history (with assistance from senior editor Greenhough Smith). It was his magazine brought Sherlock Holmes to the attention of all England, and it would outlast nearly all of his contemporaries.
From a visual standpoint, there are two eras of Sherlock Holmes: BP (Before Paget) and AP (After Paget). The next section will deal with the image of Holmes before movies became a primary determiner of how we see fictional characters.
With the monthly publishing of the Holmes stories, mystery fiction was never to be the same. We turn to A Study in Scarlet for the first image of Holmes, from Doyle himself:
‘His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing… and his thin hawk-line nose gave his whole expression an air of smartness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of decision.”
To use the parlance of the times, “dashing” is not a word that comes to mind. Doyle often complained that Sidney Paget made Holmes too good-looking. But let us briefly look at the few illustrators (largely forgotten, and for good reason) before Paget.
Pre-Paget Illustrators
The first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in the Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887. A noted illustrator, D.H. Friston, drew four pictures for the story. The best known is of Holmes examining the word “Rache” on the wall with his magnifying glass. If you disposed of the sideburns, baggy coat and put a deerstalker on his head, the image would not be too bad.
However, nothing could save the next drawings, also made for A Study in Scarlet. In 1888, Ward, Lock & Company, who had published the story the prior year, issued a stand-alone edition. They had Sir Arthur’s father, Charles Doyle, illustrate it. I think I speak for all Sherlock Holmes fans when I say I am very glad Arthur Doyle wrote better than this father drew. If the enduring image of Holmes had been based on this picture, I doubt I would have been interested enough to develop an image-oriented web page dedicated to Holmes. The two photos by Doyle at the Illustrator’s Page are terrible. I could probably write an article solely on them. None of the emotions conveyed by Watson at the site of the body of Enoch Drebber are portrayed in the picture shown here.
In 1891, Ward, Lock & Bowden issued the story yet again, this time with forty illustrations by George Hutchinson, of which eleven feature Holmes. As shown by this photo depicting the meeting of Holmes & Watson, a much clearer, sharper image of Holmes was being realized. I am most impressed with the sense of leanness he conveys for the master detective. Huchinson was harshly treated by Vincent Starrett, but I think his drawings show progress.
Before we leave A Study in Scarlet, I will mention one more illustrator. James Greig did seven drawings for an 1895 reissue by Ward (again). The frontispiece looks cartoonish.
The next story was The Sign of the Four, first published in America’s Lippincott’s Magazine in February of 1990. There were no illustrations, other than the cover, which I regret I have never seen. The story appeared in England later that same year, with no illustrations. However, we do have the cover done by Charles Kerr. Holmes has discovered the body of the unfortunate Bartholomew Shalto at Pondicherry Lodge. Compared to the drawings that followed over the next thirty-six years, this one suffers in comparison (look at that nose!). But, when looked at in the context of the drawings by Friston and Doyle, it was still progress.
Sidney Paget
Walter Paget was a noted illustrator at the time, and he was chosen by Newnes to illustrate Doyle’s stories. But Newnes made a mistake and gave the assignment to his older brother Sidney. On such small matters momentous events can rely. As Holmes said in The Twisted Lip: “It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.” Nenwnes commissioned six more stories, and Sidney Paget continued illustrating them. In a bit of irony, he often used his brother Walter as a model for Holmes.
In a drawing for The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Paget gave Holmes a deerstalker cap. The image quality of the early drawings was poor, and the hat was not really remarked upon. Nine stories later, he drew one of the classic Holmes Illustrations for the Silver Blaze. Holmes & Watson are in a railway car. Holmes is wearing a deerstalker (but not the Inverness cape) and Watson has the bowler that became his trademark.
Paget drew 356 illustrations to 38 stories before he died in
1908. A succession of illustrators followed, including Frank Wiles, whose frontispiece for The Valley of
Fear is one of the most reproduced Holmes illustrations of all
(and on the homepage of this site). Also included here is his first drawing, for A
Scandal in Bohemia.
It is interesting to note that
the deerstalker was not a commonly used item in the original stories, and the
curved pipe did not originate there at all. As for the deerstalker, it did not
make a single appearance between 1904 (Paget) and 1927, when Frank Wiles used
it in the final Holmes story, Shoscombe
Old Place.
Paget had defined Holmes for Englanders. There were multiple illustrators for the stories in the US, and a uniform Holmes image took longer to form. That happened when Frederic Dorr Steele began illustrating the stories for Colliers Weekly in 1903. He drew some of the most recognizable Holmes images (my favorite drawing). Dorr acknowledged using photographs of William Gillette for his sketches.
But it is back to Sidney Paget we must turn. His drawings captured gas-lit London like no other illustrator. It is his drawings that other illustrators emulate, even today. His influence is felt on TV and in film as well. He should receive a credit for the excellent Granada series, which copied his images from the Canon. At times Jeremy Brett and specific scenes look exactly like Paget drew them 100 years ago. Before taking up the part, Arthur Wontner (the Holmes of the thirties) said he was frequently told: “You really ought to play Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never seen anyone so like Sidney Paget’s drawing.” I feel Wontner is the best image of Holmes ever portrayed.
“I tried to take the make-up and so on from the first illustrations by Sidney Paget” said fifties television Holmes Alan Wheatley.
John Wood , who played Holmes on stage in 1974 with the Royal Shakespeare Company said “I got it together from the Sidney Paget pictures and Conan Doyle’s own descriptions.”
We are indebted to Sidney Paget for his classic drawings of the great detective, and we also owe a nod to George Newnes for mixing up the Paget brothers. Walter Paget did in fact draw Holmes for The Strand, illustrating The Adventure of The Dying Detective in 1913. So he modeled for Holmes, and drew him. But it is Sidney who we remember.
The next great illustrator of the Canon was American Frederic Dorr Steele. Initially, when The Adventures were published in America, the local papers simply had their staff illustrators add drawings to the story. To say they were indifferent would be an understatement. Compare Paget’s drawing of Jabez Wilson’s shop in The Red-Headed League with an American illustration showing the street it was on. Now, look at the careful copy from the 1906 Czech drawing by Josef Friedrich. It’s as if the American artist was simply meeting a deadline. I know, it was just a job assignment, but what if Michelangelo had felt the same way about the Sistine Chapel?
In 1893, W.H. Hyde, a very talented artist, drew twenty-one illustrations for Harper’s Weekly’s publication of The Memoirs. The drawings aren’t bad, but one is left with the impression he didn’t really know what Holmes looked like.
The Final Problem was the only Memoir not published in Harper’s but instead appeared in McClure’s Magazine. Therefore, Harry C. Edwards illustrated it. Of his eight drawings, one illustration nearly became famous. It is of Holmes leaning against an outcrop at the Reichenbach Falls. Watson has been summoned back to the Englischer Hof to attend to a sick lady (of course we know it was a ruse by the evil Moriarty to trap Holmes). Had Doyle not relented and brought Holmes back from the dead, this would have been the lasting image Watson had of his friend. As such, it would have achieved a special place in Holmesian lore.
On July 6, 1902, the Louisville Courier-Journal brought Holmes back to the readers by serializing The Hound of the Baskervilles.. Robert Hoof contributed six drawings, and the paper used four of Paget’s pictures. In chapter III, Watson returns from an evening at his club and is overwhelmed by the cigar smoke that fills their rooms. Hoof’s drawing masterfully captures this.
The only man whose name one can even dream of mentioning in the same breath with Paget is American illustrator Frederic Dorr Steele. He drew forty-six pictures, published in Collier’s Weekly, for The Return. Ten of them were color covers for the stories and are arguably the best-known drawings of Holmes (they can be found at the Illustrator’s Page).
They are grand illustrations, crackling with color, and in sharp contrast to the charcoal-like shading of the Paget pictures (which I still prefer). Steele acknowledged that he used famous Holmes actor William Gillette for his drawings, and these color illustrations certainly bear that out. Gillette’s most famous drawing is of Holmes kneeling and looking down, having just dispatched of Moriarty, as retold in The Adventure of the Empty House.
In 1908, Holmes resurfaced when Watson and Doyle provided His Last Bow. Unfortunately Sidney Paget had died. So instead, seven different artists were commissioned to illustrate the seven stories. They drew a total of forty-two pictures. Arthur Twiddle, Gilbert Holiday, Joseph Simpson, H.M. Brock, Alec Ball, A. Gilbert and Walter Paget filled Sidney’s shoes (see the Illustrator’s page for their work). I will merely add that Simpson’s drawing for The Red Circle bears an uncanny resemblance to future Holmes actor Arthur Wontner (see my frontpage for a side-by-side look).
Collier’s knew it had a good thing and hired Steele to draw for the American version of His Last Bow. The Red Circle and The Devil’s Foot didn’t make their American debut in Collier’s so Steele did not get to draw them, but did sketch the rest of the collection. Though it had been a three and-a-half year break from drawing Holmes, Steele was undaunted and continued to produce excellent drawings. He did twenty-four pictures and once again, the covers were excellent.
In 1914, The Strand serialized The Valley of Fear, with illustrations by Frank Wiles. He contributed thirty-one illustrations, and some were impressive. For example, the picture of Holmes trying to crack Fred Porlock’s cipher is one of the finest ever drawn of the great detective. The book was published in England in 1915 with only one illustration (by Wiles).
The Valley of Fear was serialized in America in September and October of 1914. Arthur Keller provided eleven drawings.
Gilbert, who had done illustrations for three of the stories in His Last Bow, was called upon in late 1921 to draw for The Mazarin Stone and Thor Bridge. He would not be used again. Howard Elcock illustrated the next seven stories in what would come to be The Casebook, contributing a total of thirty-four drawings. My impression is that they are solid, as shown in this Baker Street scene.
Frank Wiles was brought back for the final three stories. He added thirteen pictures to the thirty-one he did for the Valley of Fear. Shoscombe Old Place was the last Doyle Sherlock Holmes story. Three of the drawings from this pictured Holmes in his deerstalker, which had not happened in The Strand since 1903 (eighteen years before). We owe Frank Wiles a tip of the deerstalker for leaving us with that enduring image.
The Casebook had a strange evolution in America. Three different magazines debuted most of the stories, with pictures by Frederic Dorr Steele, G. Patrick Nelson and W.T. Benda. These were released between 1921 and 1924. John Richard Flanagan then contributed pictures to two more stories.
Four of the stories were reprinted in 1924, with Frederic Dorr Steele illustrating again. The last six stories of The Casebook were released in 1926 and 1927 in Liberty. He added thirty-four pictures to his already impressive resume. One of them, from The Lion’s Mane, is my favorite picture.
Sidney Paget gave Holmes a definable look. Frederic Dorr Steele refined it, based on actor William Gillette, and made his image the one that Americans would rely on until the forties.
Having explored the illustrating of the Canon and how images came to be formed of Sherlock Holmes, I will now turn to the four actors who I believe have defined Sherlock Holmes for their times.
It is to Gillette, more than any other actor, that we owe the image of Sherlock Holmes. He rewrote a draft play by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and successfully toured the United States and England, starting in 1899. The play, Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts, has been performed off an on for one hundred years. Gillette would perform as Holmes over 1200 times, do the first Holmes radio broadcast and make a silent film version of the play. Frederic Dorr Steele used his likeness for his famous drawings.
There is no denying the impact he had in establishing the image of Holmes for the entire century. When he first traveled to England in May of 1899, six months before his play opened, he greeted Doyle at the train station, fully decked out as Holmes. Gillette walked up to Doyle, examined him with his magnifying glass and said “Unquestionably an author.” Doyle roared with laughter and formed a lifelong friendship with the great American actor.
To quote the learned Jack Tracy: “Never before or since was there such a perfect fusion of character and actor” (from Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha). As mentioned, Sidney Paget had introduced the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape. But it was Gillette who brought them to the people by performing his hit play. Remember, there was no television, and moving pictures weren’t really having an impact yet. It was the stage that conveyed images. And Gillette was appearing on both sides of the Atlantic. Other actors who toured in the play, such as H.A. Saintsbury and Julian Royce, modeled themselves after Gillette (after all, he was its author and the best-known Holmes in the world).
Gillette wore the hat and cape in each performance, cementing the image. Doyle did not give Holmes a deerstalker cap. Paget wore one (or something very similar to it), so he superimposed it onto Holmes. Gillette made it a staple.
Along with the deerstalker and magnifying glass, perhaps the most recognizable prop of Sherlock Holmes is the curved pipe. Neither Doyle nor Paget gave him that. Gillette was using a regular straight pipe in his play, but found he couldn’t keep it clenched between his teeth, speak his lines and have his hands free at the same time. So, he substituted a curved meerschaum, or calabash pipe. Frederic Dorr Steele’s American illustrations were based on Gillette wearing an inverness cape and deerstalker hat, smoking a curved pipe and carrying a silver-headed walking stick. For millions of Americans who had not seen the play, Dorr’s drawings became the image of Sherlock Holmes.
Harold Shepstone, writing for The Strand, after viewing Gillette in his play in 1901 said he was “the almost perfect personification” of Holmes. I have included two more Dorr Steele drawings that were literally portraits of Gillette. The first is from The Adventure of the Priory School and the second is from The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.
William Gillette first presented his play in 1899. He completed his last tour in 1932. Because of the play and the drawings by Frederic Dorr Steele, for over thirty years, it was Gillette that many people pictured when they heard the name Sherlock Holmes. He made the deerstalker and cape common apparel for Holmes, and introduced the curved pipe. His play is still performed today. It is hard to argue that any other actor has had as much influence over the portrayal of Holmes as William Gillette. For more information (including pictures of the castle he lived in), visit his homepage. NOTE: In late 2000, a rumor surfaced that a copy of Gillette’s film had been found. This has not yet been verified.
Part I of The Definitive Holmes looked at how the image of the great detective was shaped by the many illustrators who drew him for Doyle’s stories. Part II will look at how a few actors in television and movies have given us our picture of Sherlock Holmes.
Movies were becoming more popular in the teens. In the twenties it seemed that they would in fact stick around, and the advent of sound pictures in the late twenties truly launched what has become a pop culture industry (“would you like a plastic toy promoting the latest $300 million kid’s movie with your burger?”). For Sherlock Holmes fans in the early part of the twentieth century, it was Eillie Norwood whom they saw on the screen.
A British film company, Stoll, decided to produce twenty-minute shorts based on the Canon. By all accounts, this was a smart approach, as they could adhere to the Doyle plots without adding “filler” to make them longer (I know some movies of today that could benefit from such an approach).. Three sets of fifteen films, titled The Adventures, The Further Adventures and The Last Exploits, were made between 1921 and 1923. Two longer features were made as well: The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of the Four.
One of the features of these films that was played up in the press, was Norwood’s ability to disguise himself. Every film had at least two elaborate disguises for him. Also, Hubert Willis played Watson in all forty-seven films, making him the most filmed Watson.
It is interesting to note that the films were contemporary, so it was an Edwardian London, with motor cars and telephones, rather than a Victorian one. Regardless, the films did have an “old London” look to them.
Very few of the forty-seven films have survived, so Norwood’s legacy is much less than it should be. He was the first Holmes star on film, and his movies were seen in the US as well as England. The image he cast upon the screen became identifiable with Sherlock Holmes during the twenties. It’s hard to put his impact in proper perspective since most of his work has been lost to time. A few other actors, including Clive Brook and John Barrymore would play Holmes but Norwood’s visage would not be supplanted until 1931.
In one of the great pieces of Sherlock irony, Norwood’s real name was Anthony Edward Brett. Another fellow named Brett would redefine the Holmes image seventy years later.
Between 1931 and 1937 Arthur Wontner made five films as Sherlock Holmes. Those movies are still entertaining almost seventy years later. If you went through my front page, you saw Wonter’s photograph next to original drawings by Sidney Paget, Joseph Simpson, and Frank Wiles. The resemblance is uncanny. He had the sharp, hawk-like features that Doyle described. He was dignified without being too handsome. The great Vincent Starret said of him: “No better Sherlock Holmes than Arthur Wontner is likely to be seen and heard in pictures in our time.”
Wontner was fifty-six when he made his first film, Sherlock Holmes’ Fatal Hour (actually called The Sleeping Cardinal in England). The story was based on The Final Problem, but with some liberal rearranging. Norman McKinnell played Moriarty in this movie, but would be replaced by Lyn Harding (Dr. Grimesby Roylott in Doyle’s play, The Speckled Band) for the others in the series. The Missing Rembrandt (based on Charles Augustus Milverton) and The Sign of the Four would be the next two films with Wonter.
For the final two, he would be pitted against Professor Moriarty. The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes was from The Valley of Fear and last up was Silver Blaze. Apparently the studio had difficulty in making the short story fill out a feature length film, as both Moriarty and Henry Baskerville (you read that right) are added to the movie. Strangely enough, though made in 1937, it wasn’t released in the US until 1941, when Basil Rathbone had made his excellent version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. To cash in on the success of that film, Wontner’s movie was retitled Murder at the Baskervilles (this was a bit of a stretch).
Holmes watches Moriarty be led away in handcuffs and says “Elementary Watson, elementary.” So ends Arthur Wontner’s role as Sherlock Holmes. Simply put, I believe Arthur Wontner most looked like the classic Holmes, as described by Doyle and initially drawn by Sidney Paget. The movies have aged reasonably well for being over sixty-five years old. The acting of Wontner and Harding are likely to be credited. Had Wontner made a few more films, he might have established himself more firmly in the United States and Basil Rathbone might not have immediately “become” Sherlock Holmes. But as the first major Holmes in the era of the sound picture, he has an important role as one of the men who painted our image of the detective.
So, can the definitive Sherlock Holmes be characterized by a series of films set in contemporary times (1940’s) rather than Victorian London and with Dr. Watson being a bungling fool? I guess so. See The Rathbone Gallery for photos from each film he made.
Has an actor ever more completely dominated one role than Basil Rathbone did with Sherlock Holmes? In 1939, Twentieth-Century Fox decided to make a high quality version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. They cast Rathbone in the lead role, and popular British actor Nigel Bruce as Watson. They followed up with a second movie the same year: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Both films were well received, and Universal scooped up the franchise.
Between 1939 and 1946 Rathbone
made fifteen movies (all but two for Universal) and did 242 radio broadcasts.
There were no Sherlock Holmes movies or television shows during the forties,
and no major new plays. It would be thirteen years before another actor dared
to play Holmes on the big screen (Peter Cushing in 1959's Hound of the Baskervilles).
Radio was still the primary form of media entertainment for Americans in the forties. Basil Rathbone was the voice of Holmes, and his face was the image, thanks to an average of two films a year. Some of the fifteen movies were very good, some were solid, and some looked like the whole production was just going through the motions. Had Rathbone not finally tired of the role in 1946 and quit (both film and radio), the series likely would have gone on through the rest of the decade.
Rathbone had the thin, strong profile required of an excellent Holmes, although he did seem to have an unruly mop of hair that showed through in some of the movies. Simply put, his portrayal of the role would reign unchallenged until the late eighties, when Granada would cast Jeremy Brett as Holmes in its television series.
Rathbone’s voice is still unchallenged on radio (the current BBC production is fantastic, but Clive Merrison’s voice is not quite strong enough to replace Rathbone’s). For serious fans of Sherlock Holmes, the Rathbone movies are bittersweet. There is no denying his power in the role, best exemplified by The Hound. But only two of the films were set in Victorian England, which plays such a vital part in the best Sherlock Holmes stories.
Also, Nigel Bruce has to be ranked among the worst Dr. Watsons ever portrayed. It would not be unreasonable to assert that the image most people have of Dr. Watson is that of Nigel Bruce. And he played the role as a buffoon, nothing like Doyle’s characterization. It would take the stellar portrayals of Granada’s David Burke and Edward Hardwicke to change the image, and that was about forty years after the Rathbone-Bruce movies ended.
There is an interesting footnote to the Rathbone-Holmes story. When he quit the role, Rathbone made it clear he was tired of playing the sleuth and wanted to move on to other things. In 1953 his wife Oudia wrote a play simply called “Sherlock Holmes.” Rathbone played the title role on Broadway. It closed after three nights.
The general consensus is probably still that Basil Rathbone is the personification of Sherlock Holmes, in spite of those negatives stated above. However, it is hard to argue that the rich detail of the Granada series, along with the reshaping of Dr. Watson, add to Jeremy Brett’s claim to the title.
On April 24, 1984, ITV aired a new Sherlock Holmes series, starting with A Scandal in Bohemia. Known as the Granada Series, after the production company, it would quickly establish itself as the finest Holmes series ever made for television. And Jeremy Brett’s stunning portrayal of the master detective equals Rathbone’s, if not surpasses it. Brett also played Watson on stage, appearing opposite Charlton Heston in a 1991 Los Angeles staging of Crucifer of Blood.
Brett, who suffered ill health, would die far too soon in September of 1995. The Adventures, The Return, The Case-Book and The Memoirs would be completed before his death. Hour-long movies would also be made of The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sussex Vampire and Charles Augustus Milverton.
For the Holmes fan, this series was an absolute treasure. The sets were excellent, the casting was solid, and the stories remained extremely faithful to Doyle’s originals. As mentioned previously, David Burke, then Edward Hardwicke, completely transformed the Watson role from Bruce’s character to an intelligent, loyal, useful assistant. This was long, long overdue.
And simply put, Brett was superb. Having watched the series, it is hard for one to reread the Doyle stories and not picture Brett in the mind. HE looked like Holmes, he sounded like Holmes and he acted like Holmes. To watch an episode is to be completely transported to Victorian England, watching the great sleuth solve puzzles. Whether he’s standing before the blackboard in The Dancing Men, anguishing in his rooms over his inability to solve the mystery in The Norwood Builder, or, my favorite, giving a Scotland Yard officer Brett’s patented pained expression, he became Sherlock Holmes on screen.
Gillette dominated the teens, Norwood the twenties and Wontner the thirties. Basil Rathbone was unchallenged for almost five decades. Then along came Brett, and Holmes fans, starved for the next great portrayal, got their wish. Had there been another dominant Holmes in the prior ten, or even twenty years, his impact might have been diminished (or possibly not). But Brett shone brightly in an unlit sky, and we are the better for his casting for the part.
It is hard to imagine a better all-around production than the Granada Series. The characters of Holmes and Watson were played as well as they have ever been, the stories were true to Doyle’s originals, and the sets were impressive. In 2000, Muse, a Canadian company, started a series of television movies starring Matthew Frewer, well-known for his character, Max Headroom. Most Holmes fans I know have soundly decried him in the role. I think that his performances improved throughout the series, and he is not as bad as perceived. The series itself looks very good in costume and setting. I will agree that it is not as strong as the Granada production. Who will be the next actor to don the deerstalker and cape to give us another “definitive” portrayal of Sherlock Holmes?
Capsule
Regardless, Sidney Paget and Frederic Dorr Steele gave shape to Sherlock Holmes on paper. William Gillette epitomized Holmes on stages across two continents. Eillie Norwood made forty-seven silent films, and Arthur Wontner came to personify Holmes in sound films of the thirties. Basil Rathbone eclipsed Wontner on the silver screen, and also became the voice of Sherlock Holmes through the radio. Then, almost half a decade later, Jeremy Brett used the television to set another standard for playing Sherlock Holmes.
One has to wonder what the next great medium will be, and who will step up in that new method of entertainment to stamp their name on the role of Sherlock Holmes. Or will it go back to almost the beginnings, and will someone write a play that inspires the casting of a new Holmes legend? We anxiously await.
To read the stories with the original photos alongside (a great way to experience the atmosphere of the stories), I recommend:
The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury – Every story that appeared in the Strand (The Adventures, Memoirs, Return and Hound of the Baskervilles) with EVERY Paget drawing).
Immensely informative is:
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by William Baring Gould – Includes notes on when some original drawings first appeared.
I have not yet seen Gasogene’s new annotated series, but have been told it is excellent.
I can also recommend two outstanding books on this subject that should be brought back into print:
Sherlock Holmes In Portrait and Profile by Walter Klinefelter (with and introduction by the great Sherlockian Vincent Starrett)
The Sherlock Holmes File by Michael Pointer. Probably the most entertaining book in my collection.
For information on the development of the Holmes image through film (after Gillette), find a copy of:
The Films of Sherlock Holmes by Chris Steinbrunner and Norman Michals. The information breakout on each Basil Rathbone movie is excellent.
The Television Sherlock Holmes by Peter Haining. The Granada story: one every fan should know and love.
