Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective

This episode of Biography examines the phenomenal popularity and endurance of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Created in the late 1880s, Sherlock Holmes is the epitome of the late nineteenth century’s elevation of science and scientific methods. Applied to everything from medicine to criminology, scientific methodology is one of the historic hallmarks of the Victorian Era. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes became the master of applying scientific methodology for solving criminal cases. Sherlock Holmes’s enduring popularity is evident in the numerous movie adaptations of Conan Doyle’s stories and the proliferation of Sherlock Holmes societies. Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective would be useful for classes on Literature, Science and Technology, English History, Cultural History, and Criminal Justice. It is appropriate for middle school and high school.

• adduce
• analogous
• apiary
• aquiline
• ascertained
• clarifying
• commemorates
• deduction
• degradation
• diminutive
• endeavor
• epitome
• exemplary
• forensics
• formidable
• genre
• hiatus
• illustrious
• incarcerated
• negates
• pathological
• predecessor
• solace
• stagnated

1. Although created over a century ago, Sherlock Holmes is as popular today as he was a hundred years ago. What is it about the character of Sherlock Holmes that makes him so enduring?

2. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attended medical school and had a small medical practice before he turned to writing full time. How did Conan Doyle’s years as a medical student influence the character of Sherlock Holmes?

3. Sherlock Holmes is a product of the late 19th century, a time when science and medicine were given great credence. How did the scientific discoveries of the era influence Conan Doyle and his creation, Sherlock Holmes?

4. How was Sherlock Holmes the product of Victorian England? How might his character be different if he was created in a different era?

5. How did class distinctions influence the interpretation of crime in Victorian England? Do these assumptions continue today? If so, how?

6. How did the unsolved mystery of Jack the Ripper escalate the popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work?

7. What was the role of drugs in Sherlock Holmes’s crime solving?

8. Why is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle referred to as “the godfather of the crime story?”

1. Write a short, modern crime story with Sherlock Holmes as the detective. How would Holmes make use of the advances in technology that have occurred in the twentieth century?

2. Create a mobile that demonstrates the tools Sherlock Holmes used in his profession.

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Air Dates

• October 21, 2004