Holmes claims that he knows the height of the murderer or Drebber by measuring the length of his stride, saying "It is a simple calculation." Actually, the height of a person has nothing to do with the length of their stride.
Is doesn't? that seems strange. You wanna say that a person of 2 meters has steps as long as one of 1.55?
As for the 'Holmes's knowledge' it's allways a tricky issue. I think homes was teasing poor little Watson, or just keeping mysterious atmosphere. for all it's brilliance, and for his reproaches of Watson, Holmes always had a weakness for the theatral.
In this story, Holmes speaks deprecatingly of Edgar Alan Poe's detective character Dupin, saying "That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial." Yet Holmes himself will later employ this "showy and superficial trick" several times in the series with Watson, such as in the famous passage at the beginning of "The Cardboard Box".
It is funny that Holmes says negative things about Poe and his writings considering that Doyle himself always spoke highly of Poe and acknowledged his influence. Perhaps in this first Holmes novel, he was trying to distance himself from potential charges of "ripping off" Poe and his Dupin stories. Poe had an effect on Doyle's other fiction as well, compare "The Lost Catacomb" with "The Cask of Amontillado".
Project Gutenberg is a project of many academics putting free electronic texts of public-domain works on the Internet--including many works of Sherlock Holmes. I thought you'd be interested.
Here's the URL, but I don't know how to highlight it.
http://promo.net/pg/
Project Gutenberg is a project of many academics putting free electronic texts of public-domain works on the Internet--including many works of Sherlock Holmes. I thought you'd be interested.
Here's the URL. http://promo.net/pg/
Todd, about the denouncing of Poe's characters -- keep in mind that it is not Doyle who is saying negative things about Poe, but Holmes!
Doyle was showing Holmes' arrogance by having him say these things. He was not asserting that his character was better than Poe's character, or distancing himself as an author from others in the genre. He was showing that Holmes thought he was better than these mere fictional creations. :0)
Right, it`s time to settle it once and for all - where was Watson`s bullet wound?
In Afganistan! :0)
Oh yes, very funny.
Well, I like to think he was shot in the shoulder during the war, then caught another bullet in the leg while pursuing some crook with Holmes. Nothing in the Canon contradicts it (support is nil too, but hey, what do I care? =).
Ah, yes, good idea. I heard on some website somewhere that Watson was obviously preforming yoga at the time of the bullet wound and so the bullet got him in the shoulder and the leg. (It wasn`t a serious one, needless to say)
Just started this. Being the first Sherlock Holmes story I have ever read, I have found it to be VERY enjoyable. Can't wait to read 'em all! *thinks "Gotta Read 'Em All!" ala Pokemon and laughs*
I envy you, Ben. You're gonna have a ball discovering one of the greatest literary series of all times.
BTW -- does that list of nits by any chance come from the 'Annotated Sherlock Holmes' by Baring-Gould?
Not, i hasten to add, that that's a bad thing -- just that i recently finished rereading the book(s - phew!). In fact, i recommend them highly as a source of Sherlockian nits...along with other delightful arcana -- including, incidentally, a discussion of where Watson's wound was. (Now there's alliteration for you!)
My wife has been reading my Sherlock Holmes collection recently, and this story evoked chuckles and gasps, often simultaneously, as we laughed at the incongruities and groaned at the distortions. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Mormons) Although we love the series, it is clear that Sir Doyle, like most authors of the time, really didn't have much factual information about the Mormons. My only concern is that someone might actually believe fiction to be fact.
I also was a bit surprised by depiction of Mormons, was Doyle's works ever banned in Utah as a result? Also was Brigham Young the only 'Real' person to feature in the Holmes Stories.