9 Less Known Facts About Sherlock Holmes

If you haven’t heard of Sherlock Holmes, there might be a chance that you are living in the wrong universe! The well known marvelous detective Sherlock is the brain child of the famous British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and has been a hero for the mystery aficionados for  more than a century.

Apart from the main Author, the character was an inspiration for many different writers. In the last 100 years, a lot of work has been done on the life of this fictional character. Countless movies and television series were inspired by the life of Sherlock Holmes. However, a lot of readers do not know about some facts about Sherlock.

We have listed the top 9 facts about him that are lesser known to most of the readers.

1. Originally, Sherlock and Watson were successful at young age

In one of the very famous television adaptations of the character “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” both the characters were in the 50s and 40s. In the later series the two characters are often middle-age gentlemen. The series were so popular that this ‘wrong’ fact became a common misconception about the characters. However, according to the books when Sherlock met Watson at the age of 30 he was already an accomplished and famous detective.

2. Sherlock did not know that the earth revolves around the sun.

Whoa! That shook you out of the comfortable reverie you had found yourself in. Isn’t it? Well a titbit of exchange between Sherlock and Watson from a study in scarlet does attest to the same.

On realizing that Sherlock doesn’t know that the earth revolves around the sun, Watson’s thoughts are “that any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it” On seeing that Watson is astonished by his lack of knowledge in this aspect Sherlock very coolly remarks “you say that we go around the sun. If we went around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

3. Sherlock was on good terms with the police

In many movies and series including the one with Robert Dowry Jr., the relationship of Sherlock with the police has shown to be tense and full of stress. However, if you check the original books and the character profile, Holmes always helped the police with the information to make sure they are on the right track. It looks like to add extra spice to the story, this fact has been altered by many scriptwriters over the time.

4. Sherlock was obsessed with cleanliness and manners

Again, from several adaptations of the stories including those with Robert Dowry Jr. it looks like Sherlock was a total menace and had unclean and unhygienic living habits. The books suggest the otherwise. He was not only one of the well-mannered character of the story, he never spoke ill of any woman. His behavior was not even close to what Robert Dowry Jr. or Benedict Cumberbatch have portrayed in the series.

5. Sherlock Holmes, has been accorded the honorary fellowship of The Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry is a society for chemical scientists and is headquartered in London.  It is a respected society with close to 46,000 members worldwide. In the October of 2002, this society issued a news release saying, they had decided to bestow this honour on the fictional character. As per this release, they even invited a ‘DR Watson’ another fellow of the society and also ensured a hound (made famous in the Hound of Baskervilles) was present for the ceremony.

6. Holmes was a pioneer of many detective techniques

Sherlock Holmes pioneered the use of many detective techniques in his cases even before they were actually used in reality. Yes, this much loved fictional character was indeed so cool. He made use of fingerprinting technique in 1890, much before the first recorded case of using the same in Argentina in 1893. He also made use of techniques such as analysis of typewritten documents, identification of blood stains and calculation of gunshot firing distance before these techniques made their debut in the real world.

7. Sherlock’s most famous attire and accessories were, well, fabricated!

If one sets aside the normal depiction of ‘Sherlock’ the image of Holmes branded on people’s memories is a characteristic one with deerstalker cap and a calabash pipe, In the books, however, there are no mentions about this Cap and the Pipe.

It looks like with time; these two accessories were added to the character to give it more weight. The combination was first used in Theater and it got popular with time. Also the famous dialogue we all associate with the legendary detective “Elementary, my dear Watson!”, nope even that is not to be found in the original books.

8. Moriarty was not the biggest enemy

Professor Moriarty has become one of the most hated characters from Sherlock series and is considered Holmes’ arch-rival. However, he only appeared in one story that was “The Final Problem”. He again makes a brief foray in ‘The Valley of Fear’.  His character was so strong that with time he was used by many script writers in different stories as well. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s main intention was to kill Sherlock in “The Final Problem” and move on with other projects. However, the fans didn’t take it well and Sherlock had to come back.

9. Sherlock Holmes carries the distinction of being the most portrayed literary human character in films and TV.

As per The Guinness Book of World Records, Holmes has appeared in a total of 254 movies and TV series (the latest number as per IMDB is even higher) making him the most popular literary character in films and television. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a close second.