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Joahnna Vergara
Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 39B
30 April 2014
The Sherlock Revolution
Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Nancy Drew, Bruce Waynethese are all well-known
fictional characters who utilize their detective skills to solve mysteries. But where did this so-
called detective originate from? Sherlock Holmes emerged as the first great detective during
the Victorian era through the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes set the classic
example of a true detective, and since then, detective characters who have followed possess
similar characteristics to the great Holmes. The famous detective became popular in Doyles
popular novels and short stories including The Sign of the Four, in which Holmes and his famous
sidekick, John Watson, solve the mystery behind a missing treasure, and A Scandal in
Bohemia, where Holmes finds himself outwitted my a clever woman. There are many factors
which played a role in the growing popularity of Sherlock Holmes during the Victorian era
period. Literary scholars Panek, Konnikova, and Dove discuss various conditions of Britain in
the Victorian era and how they played a role in Doyles pieces. Due to the lack of an effective
police force, the need for a more logical way of thinking, and a growing middle class in the
British Victorian era, the character of Sherlock Holmes blossomed and became popularized
among readers.
One of the reasons readers of the Victorian era became interested in a character like
Sherlock Holmes is the corrupt system of the police force during that time. Police were not really
needed until the growth of cities during the Industrial Revolution brought along an increase in
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crime. However, as the police force was still in a stage of growth, their methods remained
questionable and very ineffective. In An Introduction to the Detective Story Leroy Panek
comments that The police detective, however, suffered a good many ups and downs in the
nineteenth century and did not become an entirely acceptable hero for almost one hundred years
(8). He also states that In his [Doyles] early works, official policemen display all sorts of
truculent ignorance and wrong-headedness. They never see the truth and frequently want to
arrest the wrong person (87). Despite the admiration for these new keepers of justice, the flaws
of the police became evident as a number of false convictions were continually made. Doyle
highlights this flaw in The Sign of the Four when police detective Athelney Jones readily
convicts a man named Thaddeus Sholto despite Holmes remarks on why his theory was
incorrect. Upon listening to Jones illogical reasoning, Holmes remarks to Watson that, He can
find something, remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. He has occasional glimmers of
reasoning (Doyle). Doyles allusion to the flaws of the police force agree with Paneks
statement that A gap, therefore, developed between the ideal of honest, efficient policework and
the actual conditions observable in society (8). The imperfection of the police system brought
the need for a hero to correct what was being wronged in society. Literary scholar Kirby Farrell
writes in Heroism, Culture, and Dread in The Sign of Four that Crime, that is, makes heroic
exaltation possible (32). Farrell points out that without the crime going on during the
Victorian era (due to the ineffective police force), a hero stands out to correct this social
injustice. That hero happened to be Conan Doyles very own Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes possessed something about him that made him the hero that became so
unique among others of his time. The character of Holmes introduced a new way of thinking that
stood out and caught the attention of readers. One of the methods introduced by Holmes
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character is the logical thinking of the scientific method. Literary scholar Maria Konnikova
discusses this method in Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. She describes how
the scientific method involves one to understand, observe, hypothesize, test, and deduce. She
goes further to explain that Each observation, each exercise, each simple inference drawn from
a simple fact will strengthen your ability to engage in ever-more-complex machinations (16).
This scientific method is complex in the fact that it requires the thinker to fully engage in their
observations. Panek agrees with this in his discussion about Doyle by stating that Although in
the early stories Doyle makes a great deal out of Holmes as a thinking machine and puts
particular stress on the detective's employment of strict methodology, most of the stories show
not that Holmes reasons better, but that he observes better than anyone else (91). Holmes
became widely popular for using his observational skills to gather all the information necessary
to deduce the correct solution to a mystery. This is evident all throughout Conan Doyles stories
about Sherlock Holmes. For example, in the short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes
converses with Watson about the difference between seeing and observing. When asked how
many steps are outside 221 Baker Street, Watson fails to produce an answer. Holmes replies by
saying, You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point (Doyle). It is in
this conversation that Doyle explains to his readers through Holmes the difference between
passively seeing things in ones daily life and actively observing even the minute details. This
unique way of thinking in a highly logical manner appealed to readers of Sherlock Holmes
because the idea was new and proved successful in solving crime, a popular topic among men of
the Victorian era.
The interests of the active readers of the Victorian era played a significant role in making
Holmes more popular. Crime rates increased due to the growing population, and it became a
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popular topic among the middle class men of the Victorian era. Literary scholar discusses the
middle class audience by writing, Holmes takes a high hand with the nabobs and robber barons
who come to him and, in general, concentrates on the problems of the modest middle-class.
Finally, Doyle, through his fictional narrator, takes it as a given that the public has a right to
know about crime, criminals, policemen, and detectives (76). The topic of solving crime
appealed to the middle class who were now improving in terms of literacy. It was also easier for
these middle class men to relate because the narrator, John Watson, was a common middle class
man of the Victorian era. Literary scholar Dove discusses how the act of reading detective fiction
became a form of leisure, especially among middle class men. He says that, Literary detection is
a stress free experience, whose primary purpose is recreation and relaxation (30). For middle
class men, reading detective fiction became an opportunity to recreationally explore and engage
in a topic they found stimulating and appealing.
An incompetent police force, an introduction to a new way of thinking, and a growing
suitable audience all contributed to the conditions of the Victorian era that allowed Sherlock to
become a notable detective. The discussion among scholars confirm these factors. Conan Doyle
himself also exemplifies these factors throughout his novels and short stories. Without the need
for a better police detection source, the need for a more conventional way of thinking, and a
growing interest of crime among the middle class audience, Sherlock Holmes would not be as
popular as he is today. Had Sherlock not become a prominent character in detective fiction,
many of the famous fictional detectives of today would not have a classic detective model to
build off from. Therefore, it is to these factors of the Victorian age society to which we can
attribute credit to the pool of famous detectives we have today.

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Works Cited
Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Sign of the Four. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2013. Kindle
eBook. Online.
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1997. Print.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. "Adventure 1: A Scandal in Bohemia." The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes. Lit2Go Edition. 1892. Web.
Farrell, Kirby. Heroism, Culture, and Dread in The Sign of Four. Studies in the Novel 16:1
(1984): 32-51. JSTOR. Web. 01/15/2014.
Konnikova, Maria. Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. New York: Viking, 2013.
Print.
Panek, Leroy. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987. Print.