Just Watson's Grandparents?

 In all my years as a Sherlockian, and lately a Watsonian podcaster, I have heard many a conversation and read many a thought on John H. Watson's sad brother and his late father. The watch scene in The Sign of the Four has etched that one into Sherlockian minds like the pawnbroker's scratched ticket number mentioned in that same scene. But in all that time, I've never heard anyone speak of Watson's grandparents.

Tonight's library group discussion of "The Adventure of the Empty House" brought a particular line from that story to the fore: 

"The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame."

Tracing a person's profile on to black paper and then cutting it out was an nice, low-cost way to do something like a portrait before photography was a thing. The middle and lower classes could afford to hang such a shadow portrait of a loved one on their wall in the Victorian era, and apparently Watson's grandparents were fond of the form. The idea that a young John H. Watson's silhouette was once hung upon their wall is intriguing.

Silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes, inspired by that window shade in "Empty House" or not, have long been a part of Sherlockian culture going back a long ways. How far back? Well, let me propose a first silhouette of Sherlock Holmes that goes back long before anyone ever read of him. Because what did Watson write?

"... one of those black silhouettes which OUR grandparents loved to frame."

And who was he with when that "our" came up?

Sherlock Holmes.

Sounds a little bit like Holmes and Watson had the same grandparents, doesn't it?

Holmes and Watson as first cousins? Which would mean Watson only pretended he didn't know about Mycroft (like he doesn't seem to know about Moriarty when we know he did). And that Stamford bringing them together was a little different than we imagined: "Hey, I heard your cousin was looking for someone to share rooms with."

Well, it's a thought. Always something fun coming up at library discussion group night.

Explaining Sherlock Holmes

 Yesterday, someone asked me if I could explain Sherlock Holmes to them. It took me a bit to get back to that question, and I thought, "why not share what I come up with to answer that." So here we are.

Sherlock Holmes.

Originally a detective character in four novels and sixty short stories published between 1887 and 1927, Sherlock Holmes became the model for generations of fictional detectives to come. Working with the police, but not one of them, Holmes used his special talents for seeing details, working out theories, and presenting solutions in a dramatic fashion to solve mysteries in a very entertaining fashion. 

Most of his stories are narrated by his friend Dr. Watson, whom fans of Sherlock Holmes sometimes like to pretend actually wrote the stories instead of the true author, Arthur Conan Doyle. The level of actual historical detail that Doyle layered into the stories gives fans a window into the Victorian era in which Holmes worked, so that if Sherlock Holmes goes to a restaurant called "Simpson's" you can often look it up and learn all about it from historical sources. This makes Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson almost seem like historical characters who actually existed, delighting their fans all the more and confusing a few folks along the way.

As time has gone by, versions of Sherlock Holmes in books, TV, and movies, have moved beyond the Victorian era and been used for drama, comedy, and nearly every other sort of entertainment you can name, including commercials and pornography. It was once said that there was more written about Sherlock Holmes than anyone besides Jesus and Napoleon, but at this point, I think he might be beating Napoleon. The images of a fore-and-aft cap and a magnifying glass, used by early actors to play Holmes on stage and screen, now symbolize detective-work when applied to anyone in cartoons or live action. Sherlock Holmes has, in the nearly one hundred and forty years since his creation, become a part of our culture across most of the world.

Okay, that's my answer. Most folks might have used an AI to come up with that at this point, but I needed the mental exercise and was very curious what the answer was myself. Having studied Sherlock Holmes for over forty years, it was fun to see what came out of my brain on the topic.