Sherlock Holmes Day

Happy Sherlock Holmes Day!

The reason May 22 is the day to celebrate this holiday is because on this day in 1859, his creator, English author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born. 

The character of Sherlock Holmes first appeared in the 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet. However, he would become popular thanks to short stories starring the character in The Strand, a British magazine. Doyle would go on to write four novels and 56 short stories focused on the character. In the over 150 years since his debut, Holmes's adventures have not only been adapted into various forms of other media, but many authors have written new stories with the character. He also has been parodied and pastiched many a time.

While not the first fictional detective, Holmes is arguably one of the most famous, and helped popularize the genre. Doyle is believed to have drawn inspiration from American writer Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and French writer Emile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq. Doyle himself has said that one of the inspirations for Holmes was Scottish surgeon Joseph Bell. Doyle had worked for Bell as a clerk, and Bell was known to be quite observant, able to deduce things from a glance.

My first exposure to the character was a small book. It had a gray cover, and it was part of a series of classic literature adapted for children. This small book collected three Sherlock Holmes short stories: The Red-Headed League, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches...and a third. I forget which one it was. But I loved that little book, and I would read the heck out of it.