The name, Sherlock Holmes, conjures up a lot of images in people’s heads. The iconic image of a man in tweeds, a deerstalker hat and a large pipe in his mouth, muttering, “Elementary, my dear Watson” has long reigned supreme.
The new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. has done much to dispel this stuffy old image, but a number of stereotypes and misconceptions still remain rife about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Great Detective.
The Famous Deerstalker Hat
The deerstalker hat is so synonymous with the character that it is often referred to as “the Sherlock Holmes hat”. For those not in the know, the deerstalker is a double-peaked hat, often made from tweed, with ear flaps that can be tied atop the head with a ribbon. It is designed to be worn when in the country hunting (i.e. stalking deer), rather than in the town detecting.
The deerstalker was, in fact, never mentioned once by Conan Doyle in his books and stories. The closest he came, was in The Boscombe Valley Mystery where Sherlock Holmes is described as wearing “a cloth cap” and in The Adventure of Silver Blaze in which he wears “an ear flapped travelling cap”. The stories’ illustrator, Sidney Paget, took these references to mean a deerstalker hat and so an iconic image was born.
The Meerschaum Pipe
A similar story can be told about the Meerschaum pipe (or “Sherlock Holmes pipe”) the character is often seen smoking. Again, Holmes is never described as smoking such a pipe in Conan Doyle’s books and stories. Here, only clay and cheery-wood (both straight) pipes are mentioned. The use of a Meerschaum pipe actually came from a stage adaptation, Sherlock Holmes. The actor playing Holmes, William Gillette, reputedly wanted a pipe that would sit in his mouth, leaving his hands free. With its large bowl, the Meerschaum fit the bill as the only pipe that would stay balanced.
Elementary My Dear Watson
As for “Elementary, my dear Watson”, like “Beam me up Scotty” in Star Trek, it was never said once (in the books that is).
Holmes the Opium Addict
Another commonly held misconception about Sherlock Holmes is that he was addicted to drugs, often said to be that favourite of Victorian vices, opium. The closest Holmes comes to opium use in the books is in The Man With the Twisted Lip. Here, the detective is working undercover, disguised as an old man in an opium den. While he obviously couldn’t avoid some passive intake in such a place, one would hope he would prefer to keep enough of his wits about him to do his job. His disdain for the “sottish” opium addicts in the den in certainly clear enough.
As for other drug abuse, in The Sign of the Four Sherlock Holmes has injected himself with a 7 percent solution of cocaine (and there is also talk of morphine use). He is said to take this three-times a day, to stave off the boredom and mundanity of life between cases.
It must be pointed out that at the time the books were written, cocaine (and morphine) were perfectly legal and available over-the-counter to cure all sorts of ills. It must also be pointed out that Holmes is specifically said to use the drug only when he has nothing else to stimulate his ever-active mind (i.e. a case).
The Real Sherlock Holmes
For the 'real' Sherlock Holmes a reader should always go back to the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The various film and television (not to mention computer game and graphic novel) adaptations all have their charms and add their own unique twist to the character. But once in a while, it is necessary to shake off the dust of worn stereotypes and iconic images and return to the source to see what made them so iconic in the first place.
Michelle Wilkinson - Michelle Wilkinson is a freelance writer. She recently completed an MA in Screenwriting at the Skillset Screen and Media Academy (in which ...
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