There are many reasons why Sherlock Holmes continues to attract legions of followers from around the world and has for over one hundred years.
Fans enjoy the observations and deductions that are essential to any good detective story. The crimes and/or mysteries themselves are often uniquely bizarre, or as John Scott Eccles put it, grotesque. The setting of Victorian England with its cobblestone streets and alleyways, its gas lamps and gloom, and the rhythmic clip-clop of horses’ hooves and cab wheels scraping the pavement are all charming elements of a bygone age that we romanticize.
More than any of those aspects is Sherlock Holmes himself and all the characteristics that make Holmes… Holmes.
There is also the detective’s own unique character traits; his moodiness, his cries of triumph, his silence during intense concentration, and his manners, both Victorian and Bohemian.
The man was a veritable walking contradiction; tidy and sloppy, lazy and energetic, compassionate, and uncaring.
He may have known many people, but he only had one close friend.
His knowledge was wide-ranging and had a breadth of view. Holmes occupied the top position of his profession; indeed, he may have been the only unofficial consulting detective in the world.
He was an excellent detective and was able to find answers when few even knew the questions. But Holmes was not perfect, and that only endeared him to us even more.
Holmes of Baker Street is available in book and Kindle, only on Amazon!
Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon!
