First time posting here. Hope I’m doing it right :)

I don't know much about modern hobby drama, but I'll write more historical hobby drama if people enjoy this post.

Who is Sherlock Holmes?

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887. He investigates crimes, usually murders, with his friend, companion, and sometimes flatmate, Dr John Watson.

In the original canon, Sherlock featured in 56 short stories and four novels. Since then, many other authors have written more stories featuring Holmes.

From 1891-1927, most Holmes stories were published in Strand magazine. A lot of people subscribed to the magazine just to read them.

In 1893, Doyle finally killed off his detective in the novel “The Final Problem”. Sherlock plunged to his death over the Reichenbach falls, taking his hated nemesis, Dr Moriarty, with him.

But why did Doyle want to kill off Holmes?

To put it bluntly, he wanted to write “better things”. Aka more serious stuff that (in his eyes) would increase his standing in the literary world. He thought Holmes was “a Lower Stratum of Literary Achievement”

As he wrote his mother in 1891:” “I think of slaying Holmes… and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.”

His mother replied: “You won’t! You can’t! You mustn’t!

If Sherlock fans had known about his plans, they would’ve reacted the exact same way.

When the Final Problem was finally published, there was a great furore.

The Dreadful Event

In response to Holmes’s death, more than 20,000 Strand readers cancelled their subscriptions. The magazine barely survived. Staff called it “the dreadful event”.

The magazine was flooded with hate mail, directed at Doyle. One woman called him a “brute”. Even Americans protested, starting “Let’s Keep Holmes Alive” fanclubs. There’s a legend that Londoners wore black armbands to mourn the legendary detective.

Doyle remained aloof. He wrote to a friend, stating:” "I couldn't revive him if I would, at least not for years, for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day."

After killing off Holmes, Doyle wrote many historical novels and short stories. These books achieved critical acclaim. He had achieved his dream of writing more serious stuff.

The resurrection

It took Doyle 8 years to write another Holmes story. Fans refer to this period as “The Great Hiatus”.

In 1901, he published “The Hound of The Baskervilles”, set before Holmes’s demise. In response, subscriptions to the Strand increased by 30,000, reviving the magazine Funnily enough, Sherlock only returned in 1901 because Doyle wanted to write a story about the legend of a great hound on the moody moors of Dartmoor and felt it easier to use Holmes than create an entirely new character.

But in 1903, he resurrected Holmes in “"The Adventure of the Empty House". His publishers had offered him a lucrative contract. He couldn’t turn it down.

To the end of his life, Doyle remained bitter about his creation.

“"If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one," he once complained.

Thanks for reading

edit: Just wanted to include this letter I found while doing research for this post.

In 1893, a little girl called Ruby wrote to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, asking about the lack of new Sherlock Holmes stories.

Doyle replied:

My Dear Ruby

Sherlock has become very lazy and I am very stupid so that I am afraid there will not be very many more stories about the strange things that he has done. But both he and I are very pleased when we hear that we have given pleasure to nice little girls. I showed him your letter and he said that your signature showed him that your father was about 45 years of age, that your hair was brown, and that you were a clever little girl with a turn for everything except mathematics. That was what he said, but he smokes too much and has been getting quite muddled lately.

Your affectionate friend A. Conan Doyle