On This Day In History Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Creator of Sherlock Holmes, Was Born

On this day in 1859 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was born. 

You can read about his life and work via the below link: 

https://www.biography.com/people/arthur-conan-doyle-9278600

Note: The top photo is of Sir Arthur Conan Dole. The above photo is of Jeremy Brett, my favorite Sherlock Holmes actor.  

On This Day In History Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Creator Of Sherlock Holmes, Was Born

As History.com notes, on this day in 1859 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the iconic fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, was born.

You can read about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-is-born?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2017-0522-05222017&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&om_mid=187277472&kx_EmailCampaignID=12766&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2017-0522-05222017&kx_EmailRecipientID=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa

Note: My favorite Sherlock Holmes actor, Jeremy Brett, appears as Holmes in the above photo.

On This Day In History Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Was Published

As History.com notes, on this day in 1892 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. 

You can read about Doyle and Sherlock Holmes via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes-published?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2016-1031-10312016&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&om_mid=103988729&kx_EmailCampaignID=7826&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2016-1031-10312016&kx_EmailRecipientID=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa

Note: The top photo is of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the bottom photo is of actor Jeremy Brett, who offered, in my view, the best portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

It's Elementary – Of Course Sherlock Holmes Was Real

 

Allan Massie offers an interesting piece in the Telegraph on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional (or perhaps not) iconic character.

The Museum of London has a new exhibition honouring the most famous Englishman of the 19th century. In his lifetime he had rivals for that title – Mr Gladstone, and WG Grace, for instance. But their memory has faded, and Sherlock Holmes stands supreme. It is quite right that the museum should be hosting this exhibition – the first in the capital since 1951 – for Holmes’s London is, even more than Dickens’s, the London of our historical imagination, the London of hansom cabs, horse-dung, flickering gas-light and pea-soup fogs, the London of sinister opium dens in Wapping.

Some still say that there was no real Holmes, that he was only the creation of an Edinburgh-born doctor, Arthur Conan Doyle. For these sceptics, he exists only in four novels and 56 short stories, almost all recounted by his friend, housemate and collaborator, Dr Watson. Yes, they admit, there is indeed a plaque on 221b Baker Street, proclaiming that Sherlock Holmes lived there; but, they add triumphantly, there was no such address when Conan Doyle wrote. It’s all a work of fiction.
 

Tell that to the Marines, but not to the Sherlock Holmes Society, or indeed to its New York brother, the Baker Street Irregulars. Tell it not to the Sherlock Holmes Society of Japan, which has more than 1,000 devoted members; there is a statue of Holmes in Karuizawa. The Japanese, it seems, are devoted to him because, in recounting his struggle with the Napoleon of crime and distinguished mathematician, Professor Moriarty, at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, he ascribed his victory to his knowledge of “baritsu”, the Japanese art of wrestling. (This should correctly be “bartitsu”, we are told; which only goes to prove that Holmes was human and capable of making a mistake.)

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/museums/11171447/Its-elementary-of-course-Sherlock-Holmes-was-real.html

Note: The above DVD cover shows actor Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. He's my favorite Sherlock Holmes actor. 

Which Literary Character Has Been Portrayed A Record-Breaking 254 Times On TV And Film? It's Elementary... Sherlock Holmes

Mario Ledwith and Nick Enoch at the British newspaper the Daily Mail wrote an interesting piece on the many TV and film portrayals of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic fictional character Sherlock Holmes.

Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr, Tom Baker... the full list of actors who have taken on the role of Sherlock Holmes is so long that the super sleuth himself might struggle to remember all the names.

And now, Holmes has broken the record for having more film and Tv portrayals than any other literary character.

The consulting detective has been depicted on the big and small screen a total of 254 times.

Sir Arhtur Conan Doyle's creation beats the next most popular character, Hamlet, by a total of 48 appearences.

You can read the rest of the story and see photos of many of the actors who portrayed Holmes, included Jeremy Brett (seen in the above photo), my favorite Sherlock holmes, via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2146091/Sherlock-Holmes-portrayed-literary-character-TV-film.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Mr. Ritchie, May I Have My Sherlock Holmes Back, Please?

Andrew Martin at the British newspaper the Independant asks film director Guy Ritchie if he can have his beloved Sherlock Holmes character back.

When people berated Steven Spielberg for dumbing down Tintin, I looked on with bemusement, but then I didn't spend half my childhood reading Tintin stories. I did spend half of my childhood reading Sherlock Holmes stories, which is why I have a bone to pick with Guy Ritchie, director of the Christmas blockbuster and nominal Holmes film, A Game Of Shadows.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-martin-can-i-have-my-sherlock-back-please-6281534.html

The photo above is of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective Lives On - And On

As I've noted here before, I'm not fond of continuation novels. But Anthony Horowitz does a good job of explaining why he agreed to write a new novel about the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic character Sherlock Holmes in the British newspaper the Telegraph.

Although Holmes appears in just 56 short stories and four novels, he is famously the one character most often portrayed on television and film. He has recently been modernised by the BBC and bowdlerised by Hollywood – the second film with Robert Downey Jnr comes out at Christmas. There is currently a campaign (which I support) to give Jeremy Brett (seen in the above photo) a posthumous Bafta for his brilliant depiction of the character throughout the Eighties.

My own addition to the Sherlock canon – the first to be given the imprimatur of the Doyle estate – received extraordinary attention when I announced it last January in the House of Commons at a dinner hosted by the 1,000-strong Sherlock Holmes society. I found myself on the News at Ten. The Spectator ran an editorial as did the New York Times – although neither seemed to think the book would be much good. So why Holmes has endured – and, more to the point, how did I dare to take on the mantle of the world’s most successful detective?

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8856345/Sherlock-Holmes-The-great-detective-lives-on-and-on.html