Why Arthur Conan Doyle Started Hating Sherlock Holmes and Decided to Kill Him in His Finest Moment

Recent polls have shown that one in five Britons believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real person. Books about the adventures of the detective and his assistant, Dr. Watson, are still very popular, even 130 years after launch. However, scientists have recently uncovered letters from Arthur Conan Doyle in which he confessed that he was deeply repulsed by the name of Sherlock. In the end, it seems that the author’s relationship with his character was anything but simple.

O awesome.club found out why the author killed the legendary detective and what the consequences of that decision were.

Arthur (age 6) with his father, Charles Doyle.

The then future writer was born into a dysfunctional (albeit respected) family: his father was an alcoholic, so he quickly spent his fortune on addiction. When Arthur was 9 years old, wealthy relatives took pity on him and took him to a Jesuit boarding school, so that he could later continue his studies at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He wasn’t the most diligent student, as his main passion was literature. The young man even published some short stories in the magazine of this institution.

In 1881, Arthur received a medical degree and opened a private practice. However, patients did not line up outside the door to be seen by such a young doctor, because there were hundreds of others like him. And when there are no people to treat, there is no money.

Arthur devoted himself to work he did not like for 5 years. During this time he managed to get married, wrote a novel and many short stories, but these did not bring him fame🇧🇷

In 1886, in just three weeks, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a novel called A study in red🇧🇷 In it, the protagonists, Detective Sheridan Hope and Dr. Ormond Sacker, are responsible for investigating two murders at once. You’ve probably already guessed: these gentlemen were named after Sherlock Holmes and John Watson🇧🇷 A London publisher bought the rights to this work for a ridiculous £25. However, Sherlock suddenly became a success, and its author left medicine to devote himself to writing books.

Holmes’ prototype was Doyle’s colleague, Dr. Joseph Bell, who could guess the occupation and habits of patients, paying attention to the smallest details. But despite the success, not everything was going well. Pompous critics scorned the book and called it “vulgar literature.” The writer himself did not like the duo Holmes and Watson, and only used the characters to earn money.

However, this man made a revolution in literature without even thinking about it. Today we have Superman and Batman, who can get out of any trouble, but for Victorian England, such a character was a real find. Readers loved Sherlock for his preternatural ability to solve complex cases and because even his difficult nature couldn’t affect him.

In addition, even low-income people could buy a magazine with stories about Holmes. They became truly popular literature, and, although this character brought fame and money to its creator, it broke him in half.

Doyle wrote a series of Holmes stories for the magazine The Strand🇧🇷 As a result, the numbers sold like hotcakes, and the author made a lot of money. For 4 or 5 pages he was paid what ordinary workers were paid for a year of hard work.

But Conan Doyle wanted to be a “serious” author. He wrote historical works and novels, and Sherlock Holmes shamelessly stole readers’ attention.🇧🇷 Most likely, he was suffering, since he considered his best work to be the romance of chivalry. The White Companywho did not have a tenth of the fame of Sherlock.

For two years, the author wrote stories and short novels about the Baker Street detective. But, in the end, he himself began to get tired of his character. Sherlock was a purely commercial project that provided the writer with a steady income but did not provide any moral satisfaction. The character almost “swallowed” his creator, and the mere mention of the detective’s name provoked anger in Conan Doyle.

In 1891, Conan Doyle decided to do away with Sherlock Holmes. Hostility towards the character was so strong that the writer shared his experiences with his mother. 🇧🇷I want to kill Holmes… exterminate him forever. It stops me from doing much better things.”

On one occasion, the writer, together with his wife, visited the Alps and saw a local tourist attraction: the Reichenbach Falls. The landscape became the perfect place for the public favorite to die.

However, in addition to the location of the murder, the writer had to come up with a suitable villain. This point makes it possible to understand Conan Doyle’s hatred towards Holmes: the greatest criminal mastermind in the history of literature, Professor Moriarty, appeared in the plot only to put an end to the famous detective. He fulfilled the objective and, in the story The Final Problem: A Sherlock Holmes Caseenemies disappear in the waters of the falls.

Readers were transfixed: they believed that the author had made some kind of smart move and was working on a new novel. Nobody could believe that the magnificent Sherlock Holmes was really dead. Conan Doyle felt the power of popular indignation: he began to receive letters with pleas and threats from people who demanded that the hero be resurrected. Publishers, who lost an impressive amount of profit due to this decision, bombarded the author with telegrams. Legend has it that the detective’s “fans” wore mourning bandages and went to the defense of their favorite hero.

However, no one could change the position of the writer. He completely devoted himself to “serious” work and even returned to medical practice. As a battlefield surgeon he was in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Then he participated in the elections, received a knighthood and did many important things. But like a ghost, Sherlock constantly pursued his creator.

Exhausted by it all, stubborn Arthur wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, a story that takes the reader back to the times when Sherlock was alive. The novel turned out to be very successful, and Arthur Conan Doyle became the highest paid writer in the history of world literature. If 120 years ago there was the word bestsellerthe books and stories about Sherlock would deserve that title.

Sherlock Holmes returned alone because, towards the end of his life, Conan Doyle became enthusiastic about spiritualism. The writer lost his brother and son in the First World War and began to believe that it was possible to communicate with the souls of the dead with the help of mediums.

This cost him dearly: he had to organize meetings of group members, invite the seers and print special literature. So Sherlock turned out to be very useful: for stories about the detective, publishers were willing to pay 1.5 million dollars (at the current exchange rate).

Throughout his career, Conan Doyle wrote 4 stories and 56 short stories about the detective and his loyal friend. He honestly considered these books not serious, and until the end of his life he could not understand why the public admired them.

Ironically, Sherlock Holmes remains one of the most popular characters in world literature, even 100 years after his creation. He is even mentioned in Guinness World Records: the number of films, series and cartoons by the Holmes/Watson duo has already surpassed 200.

Unfortunately, many worthy books by the author have fallen in the shadow of Sherlock Holmes. Have you read any other Arthur Conan Doyle novels that don’t feature the famous detective? Tell us in the comments section.