Editing Sherlock Holmes (section)

=={{anchor|Inspiration for the character of Holmes}}Inspiration for the character==
[[File:Arthur Conan Doyle by Walter Benington, 1914.png|thumb|upright|[[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] (1859–1930), Sherlock Holmes's creator, in 1914]]

[[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s [[C. Auguste Dupin]] is generally acknowledged as the first detective in fiction and served as the prototype for many later characters, including Holmes.<ref>
{{Cite book | last = Sova | first = Dawn B. | title = Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z | publisher = Checkmark Books| year = 2001 | edition = Paperback | isbn = 0-8160-4161-X | pages = [https://archive.org/details/edgarallanpoetoz0000sova/page/162 162–163] | url = https://archive.org/details/edgarallanpoetoz0000sova/page/162 }}</ref> Conan Doyle once wrote, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed&nbsp;... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?"<ref>{{Cite book | last = Knowles | first = Christopher | title = Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes | year = 2007 |publisher = Weiser Books |isbn=978-1-57863-406-4|page=67| title-link = Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes }}</ref> Similarly, the stories of [[Émile Gaboriau]]'s [[Monsieur Lecoq]] were extremely popular at the time Conan Doyle began writing Holmes, and Holmes's speech and behaviour sometimes follow those of Lecoq.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Oxford Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes|last=Conan Doyle|first=Arthur|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1993|editor-last=Lancelyn Green|editor-first=Richard|location=Oxford|pages=xv}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Sims|first=Michael|date=25 January 2017|title=How Sherlock Holmes Got His Name|url=https://lithub.com/how-sherlock-holmes-got-his-name/|access-date=11 November 2020|website=Literary Hub|language=en-US|archive-date=16 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210716112159/https://lithub.com/how-sherlock-holmes-got-his-name/|url-status=live}}</ref> Doyle has his main characters discuss these literary antecedents near the beginning of ''A Study in Scarlet'', which is set soon after Watson is first introduced to Holmes. Watson attempts to compliment Holmes by comparing him to Dupin, to which Holmes replies that he found Dupin to be "a very inferior fellow" and Lecoq to be "a miserable bungler".<ref>Klinger III, pp. 42-44—''A Study in Scarlet''</ref>

Conan Doyle repeatedly said that Holmes was inspired by the real-life figure of [[Joseph Bell]], a surgeon at the [[Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh]], whom Conan Doyle met in 1877 and had worked for as a clerk. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing broad conclusions from minute observations.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lycett |first=Andrew |title=The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |publisher=Free Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7432-7523-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/manwhocreatedshe00lyce/page/53 53–54, 190] |url=https://archive.org/details/manwhocreatedshe00lyce/page/53 }}</ref> However, he later wrote to Conan Doyle: "You are yourself Sherlock Holmes and well you know it".<ref>{{cite book|last=Barring-Gould |first=William S. |title=The Annotated Sherlock Holmes|publisher=Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.|isbn=0-517-50291-7|page=8|year=1974 }}</ref> Sir [[Henry Littlejohn]], Chair of [[Medical Jurisprudence]] at the [[University of Edinburgh Medical School]], is also cited as an inspiration for Holmes. Littlejohn, who was also Police Surgeon and Medical Officer of Health in Edinburgh, provided Conan Doyle with a link between medical investigation and the detection of crime.<ref>{{cite book |last=Doyle |first=A. Conan |title=The Boys' Sherlock Holmes, New & Enlarged Edition |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1961 |page=88}}</ref>

Other possible inspirations have been proposed, though never acknowledged by Doyle, such as ''Maximilien Heller'', by French author Henry Cauvain. In this 1871 novel (sixteen years before the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes), Henry Cauvain imagined a depressed, anti-social, opium-smoking [[polymath]] detective, operating in Paris.<ref>{{cite book|title = Peter D. O'Neill, foreword to ''Maximilien Heller''|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dAhVcqVyDeAC&pg=PA3|access-date = 10 November 2015|isbn = 9781901414301|last1 = Cauvain|first1 = Henry|year = 2006|publisher = Glen Segell Publishers|archive-date = 19 February 2024|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240219042323/https://books.google.com/books?id=dAhVcqVyDeAC&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=¿Fue Sherlock Holmes un plagio?|url=http://www.abc.es/cultura/20150223/abci-polemica-sobre-sherlock-holmes-201502211944.html|newspaper=[[ABC (newspaper)|ABC]]|date=22 February 2015|access-date=10 November 2015|archive-date=17 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117033314/http://www.abc.es/cultura/20150223/abci-polemica-sobre-sherlock-holmes-201502211944.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=''Maximilien Holmes. How Intertextuality Influences Translation'', by Sandro Maria Perna, Università degli Studi di Padova 2013/14|url=http://tesi.cab.unipd.it/46778/1/TESI_COMPLETA_UNIPD.pdf|access-date=10 November 2015|archive-date=3 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181103230818/http://tesi.cab.unipd.it/46778/1/TESI_COMPLETA_UNIPD.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> It is not known if Conan Doyle read the novel, but he was fluent in French.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=France|title=France|website=The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia|access-date=22 June 2018|archive-date=23 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623005023/https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=France|url-status=live}}</ref>