People enjoy reading these stories because of its charismatic crime fiction in which it’s based on. Sherlock Holmes proves to be a dexterous detective throughout the stories and for the eagle-eyed Sherlock Holmes, no challenge is too great. Aided by his faithful companion Dr. Watson, he uses his remarkable powers of deduction to solve the seemingly unsolvable.
The Sherlock Holmes stories are very popular and well-known by many in various countries. The stories were often shorter than those of other writers, and thus avoid unnecessary detail. Generally, the stories have a distinct and a succinct plot structure and were supported by illustrations, which I suggest, played a part in the general success. However, in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes there are not only illustrations inside of the book but only the cover which is quite simple. The popularity of his detective stories increased rapidly, yet at the same time Doyle was becoming more and more uncomfortable with his character. I think he wanted, out of personal preference to devote greater time to other forms of writing.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is purely based on crime fiction and readers would adore this because of its drama, comedy and thriller united in each story. Sherlock Holmes is a cryptic character and the reader will always be tantalized by what he does next because of his perplexing personality. These points are shown from small observations. Dr. John Hamish Watson is a coruscating character created by Arthur Conan Doyle and what a helping hand he offers to the modern reader and this is shown as he is the narrator of the stories. He is the friend, confidant and biographer of Sherlock Holmes. I think Conan Doyle made Watson the narrator because he wanted to show that even though he wasn’t the main character, he was a significant one.
Doctors serve in one of the most trusted professions as they traditionally have an image of being saviours. I think the reason why Watson is shown as a doctor is to make the readers trust him and for him to have some sort of value in this supermarket of stories. Since Holmes is a detective, it is only right that Watson should have and is a lighted figure in the stories.
The social context contributed to the popularity of the stories because in the Victorian era, England increasingly became a nation of readers and many people had got their pleasure by simple reading a crime novel because it was relevant to the audience of the time. This was because crime was common in that age and people needed to understand mentally what went on and this is where Sherlock Holmes came in. He was almost the messiah for crime and some people actually thought he was a real person. He was often relied on in the stories to capture the culprit and people knew he was the best at his job. In the 1890’s, a middle-class gentleman could support his family on an annual income of £500, and the average annual household income in the 1990’s was £15, 800 and the point in this is that the contrast is so great and the historical context says that this might have been a slight reason as to the popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
The police is also a major aspect in the social context of Sherlock Holmes because even though a British police force had been established in 1829, the institution was hardly respected and was not really taken serious and this was because of the early police being bribed and turned corrupt and this was due to low wages and probably the respected that they had not earned yet by the communities. Doyle’s portrayal of police agent Jones and Holmes’s attitude toward him repeated these stereotypes and in the stories, the police are depicted as earnest in their desire to promote justice but almost rely on Holmes to save the day.
Holmes is able to disturb people mentally by just talking to them as he usually does but somehow mocking their intelligence and being sarcastic toward them.
It is shown through out all of the Sherlock Holmes stories that the culprit will always get caught and basically the simple saying that what goes around comes back around. “Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.” This shows that in the Speckled Band, Roylott created the plan in which he made a swamp adder, which is the deadliest snake in India bite his step-daughter Julia Stoner because of financial reasons and kill her. It came back to him as he attempted to do the same thing to Sherlock Holmes and his companion but it had backfired and instead the angry snake had bit him instead dying within ten seconds of being bitten.
Sherlock Holmes is very careful and he doesn’t rush things, especially his investigations and he checks through everything he believes is significant whether it is small or large. In The Red Headed-League he confirms this by saying, “You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed.” Holmes is a peculiar but extremely intelligent person. He didn’t speak that much, he was a fine observer and a pleasant thinker. He studied crime like a scientist studies the Earth. Sherlock Holmes was fearless and his favourite hobby was danger. He was generous and was always ready to help those innocent against evil.
I think the simple answer to why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s crime stories have been so popular is because of his creation of Sherlock Holmes. Some people thought he was a real person and even sent letters to him. The stories were so famous because it had the formula of a good crime story. A crime story has to be realistic. If a murder is in a way it could not happen in reality, the reader feels fooled, whereas if it is done in an authentic way the reader feels like they are part of the story, which might be the most important point in a crime story and this is what Doyle had excelled on.
As a conclusion I think that a crime story has to have certain components such as an increase of suspense, a fair chance to the reader and an authentic action to be a good crime story, but in the end it depends on the reader if he likes the story or not and I think everyone loved Doyle’s stories. The social context contributed to the popularity of the play because without the Victorian era police, Doyle would never have been able to portray Sherlock Holmes as he did because the modern police wouldn’t need a peculiar detective to solve every crime because that is every inspector’s job. And this didn’t seem to occur in the stories because it just seemed as Sherlock Holmes all day and no other detective was a vigorous as he was but then again it just fiction.
