Editing Sherlock Holmes (section)

====Irene Adler====
[[Irene Adler]] is a retired American opera singer and actress who appears in "[[A Scandal in Bohemia]]". Although this is her only appearance, she is one of only a handful of people who bests Holmes in a battle of wits, and the only woman. For this reason, Adler is the frequent subject of [[pastiche]] writing.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://arthurconandoyle.co.uk/character/irene-adler|title=Irene Adler|last=Karlson|first=Katherine|website=The Official Conan Doyle Estate Ltd.|access-date=27 December 2019|archive-date=27 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227073313/https://arthurconandoyle.co.uk/character/irene-adler|url-status=live}}</ref> The beginning of the story describes the high regard in which Holmes holds her:

{{Blockquote|To Sherlock Holmes she is always ''the'' woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler.&nbsp;... And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.<ref>Klinger I, pp. 5-6—"A Scandal in Bohemia"</ref>}}

Five years before the story's events, Adler had a brief liaison with Crown Prince of [[Bohemia]] Wilhelm von Ormstein. As the story opens, the Prince is engaged to another. Fearful that the marriage would be called off if his fiancée's family learns of this past impropriety, Ormstein hires Holmes to regain a photograph of Adler and himself. Adler slips away before Holmes can succeed. Her memory is kept alive by the photograph of Adler that Holmes received for his part in the case.<ref>Klinger I, pp. 5-40—"A Scandal in Bohemia"</ref>