{ May 12th }
Robert Downey Jr. on Benedict Cumberbatch’s & Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock

Talking to Daybreak’s Lorraine Kelly, the US star spoke about the two actors, who have gone on to have successful Sherlock TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic - with Benedict starring in the lead role for the BBC show, while Miller plays Sherlock in Elementary.

Of his role in as the super sleuth, he [Downey Jr.] said: “I feel like I’m an honorary Brit having played Sherlock. More importantly than playing Sherlock, I believe I helped launch all these really good TV shows.”

“Even though I didn’t get a cut of those TV shows, it’s just enough to know,” Downey Jr. continued. “But Johnny Lee and Benedict, either one of those guys could have played in the movie and it probably still would have been as successful.” (x)

30 notes
{ April 30th }
{ April 28th }

thenorwoodbuilder:

So, after having tried my hand at a timeline of the BBC Sherlock series, I’ve recently put myself at a much more complicate and ambitious task - that is, a chronology of the original ACD’s Canon.

Of course, any attempt at such an enterprise is an hazard, as we know how sloppy Doyle could be with dates and other chronological details…

And this is, naturally, only my PERSONAL timeline: I intentionally avoided to go back to my Baring-Gould or other chronologies, compiled by other people, so as not being influenced.

Some brief clarifications, before I leave this post open to asks and replies:

  • I found myself forced to anticipate what I thought to be Sherlock Holmes’ birthdate: I noticed that, in GLOR, it’s said that the Gloria Scott sunk in 1855, and thus Victor Trevor could hardly be born before the end of 1957; but Holmes and Trevor were fellow students at college, so Holmes must be born in 1857, too.
    This, however, would also be congruent with what Watson tells us in VEIL about the duration of Holmes’ career and of their active cooperation.
  • I inserted a specific note about the controversial question of the date and duration of Watson’s first marriage. Here we have TWO thorny issues to handle: 1) From SIGN it would seem that Watson and Mary Morstan got engaged and then married in 1888, but from many hints in other stories (mainly NOBL, SCAN and FIVE) it appears more likely that all the events portrayed in SIGN - thus including Watson’s engagement and, possibly, his marriage - actually happened one year before, in 1887; if this were true, many of the cases I placed in 1889 could instead have occurred in 1888. 2) Through all the years 1889 and 1890 Watson appears alternatively to live with his wife and be in practice, and to live in Baker Street with Holmes; this is the main reason why some scholars have hypotesized that Watson’s marriage with Mary Morstan only lasted some few months, and Watson then married ANOTHER woman before 1891; I, however, cannot agree with this theory, as the periods of lodge-sharing and those of matrimonial life appear completely intermingled between 1889 and 1890: my take on it is that Mary’s health deteriorated quite soon after her marriage and she was frequently absent, to a sanatorium, or an asylum, or on trips in more salubrious places than London; another possibility (which I’ve already stated), which is linked to the fact that Holmes and Watson, in VALL, appear aware of the existance and crimes of Moriarty much before 1891, is that Watson actually kept Mary away most of the time during the years in which Holmes and him investigated Moriarty’s organization, in order to keep her safe from possible threats.

And now I’ll leave this open for comments and further speculation on your part.

Cheers!

[?]

98 notes
{ April 12th }

holmesosis:

The second episode’s title has been announced as The Sign of Three.

So I want to take a moment to remind everyone of one of the single most depressing bits in the entire canon, the final words of The Sign of Four:

“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?” 
“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it. 
Righto, carry on. 
385 notes
{ March 27th }
“
Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look
up at our old rooms—the starting-point of so many
of our little adventures? We will see if my three years
of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.
”
- “The Adventure of the Empty House” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5 notes
{ March 17th }
{ February 16th }

tabbystardust:

9 versions of Holmes and Watson you may not have been aware of:

  1. Moy nezhno lyubimyy detektiv (My dearly beloved detective) (1986) | Yekaterina Vasilyeva (Shirley Holmes), Galina Simonova (Jane Watson)
  2. They Might Be Giants (1971) | George C. Scott (Justin Playfair/Sherlock Holmes), Joanne Woodward (Dr. Mildred Watson)
  3. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
  4. Meitantei Holmes (Sherlock Hound) (1984)
  5. Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (1999)
  6. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1987) | Michael Pennington (Sherlock Holmes), Margaret Colin (Jane Watson)
  7. The Adventures of Shirley Holmes (1996) | Meredith Henderson (Shirley Holmes), John White (Bo Sawchuk)
  8. Sherlock Holmes Returns (1993) | Anthony Higgins (Sherlock Holmes), Debrah Farentino (Amy Winslow)
  9. Veggie Tales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (2006)
1,709 notes
{ February 12th }
In which the NYT throws shade at ACD and Sherlock Holmes.

“The New York Times, Sunday October 16, 1892

“Two New Novels”

Appreciation of Dr. Doyle’s “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ has to do with one’s personal zest for the marvelous. You may care for one detective story, but when there is a round dozen you may get a fit of indigestion. This volume of Dr. Doyle’s in entirely different from his other spirited work, and scarcely the better on that account. Sherlock Holmes, with all his mise-en-scène has too much of a premeditation about him. You get a little weary of his perspicacity. A person has mud spots on his sleeve. “You have been driving in a dog cart,” says Sherlock Holmes. “You have a scratch on your boot. you have a careless servant who has cut the leather of your boot scraping off the dirt on the uppers.” “You have just had your hair cut—because under a microscope there are fragments of  hair on your hat lining.” “You have a cold, because you sneeze, and you sneeze because you have a cold.” A man loses his hat and a Christmas goose and somebody else gets the bird, has it roasted, and in the craw a blue carbuncle is found—and it is “the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle.” 

At once Sherlock Holmes works up the complex matter of a felt hat, rather the worse for wear, a goose with a black tail feather, the carbuncle, and, indifferent to the gravy, the sage and onions, or the apple sauce, finds out precisely when the bird swallowed the carbuncle, his particular coop, and who stole the Morcar carbuncle. “A scandal in Bohemia,” with Miss Irene Adler as heroine and his Grace the hereditary King of Bohemia as hero, is cleverly managed. Irene was the only woman who ever beat Sherlock Holmes. But Dr. Doyle ought to have acknowledged his indebtedness to Poe’s “Purloined Letter” for the main points. “The Adventures of the Engineer’s Thumb” has also the Poe idea in it. Then in “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” which is about the professional beggar who has a nice wife and lived in elegance in a villa while he exercised his calling of gathering in the ha’pence unbeknown to his cultured family, that is a Thackeray skit. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” and the snake business have been told many a time, and Dr. Doyle only varies the snake. Certainly, the stories are amusing and are told in good style, but they are written for those designated by the French as gobemouches. 

[here the article’s author writes a short review of some other novel called “Old St. Stephen’s”]”

Source: Two new novels. (1892, Oct 16). New York Times (1857-1922). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/95009309?accountid=27495 (please do not use this article elsewhere without citing the source. thanks).

3 notes
{ February 10th }

wearfandom:

All-over print Litographs t-shirt,  created entirely from the text of The adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

$34, available here. Ships Worldwide.

2,317 notes
{ February 9th }

tabbystardust:

I made this graphic because some people like to complain that changing the gender/sex of the characters somehow “ruins” or “desecrates” Arthur Conan Doyle’s legacy. Funnily enough nobody ever complains when they are turned into mice, dogs, etc. (Presumably because they are still male.) As you can see there have been several female versions of these characters in the past, and they have hardly ruined anything.

Some of the oldest adaptations only had the actor info for Holmes on IMDB, so either Watson didn’t exist in those films at all, or the actor is unknown. (If he did exist it’s pretty safe to assume he was male.)

I excluded incarnations where Holmes/Watson only appeared once as guest stars in unrelated tv shows. (There were lots.)

24,923 notes