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Canon re-read: The Final Problem
Feb. 26th, 2021 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mightymadsWe're halfway through the canon! Thanks so much to luthienberen for pitching the idea of a re-read! It's such fun and keeps the comm going.
There's a lot of interesting stuff regarding this particular story, so it's going to be a rather long post with lots of quotes. Buckle up.
Everyone knows that after Holmes had become tremendously popular, Doyle grew so fed up with him that he tried to kill him off. I was surprised to find out, however, that ACD was thinking about doing away with Holmes as early as November 1891, i.e. only some six months after skyrocketing to fame and money through the Strand Magazine! SCAN was published in July 1891, and here's what Doyle writes to his mother on November 11, 1891:
“I have done five of the Sherlock Holmes stories of the new Series. They are 1. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle 2. The Adventure of the Speckled Band 3. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor 4. The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb 5. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet. I think that they are up to the standard of the first series, & the twelve ought to make a rather good book of the sort. I think of slaying Holmes in the sixth & winding him up for good & all. He takes my mind from better things.” (—Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters)
Such a weird decision, isn't it? Numerous authors dream of coming up with something that would sell, and you just don't turn away from your goldmine once you've struck it. Before Holmes Doyle was struggling financially and was fairly unknown. Only half a year after the breakthrough he decides that he's done with Holmes. That speaks of Doyle's ambition, but it seems like he was a bit too sure of himself.
Thankfully, in 1891 his mother managed to talk him out of it, and during the next couple of years Doyle did another dozen before winding it all up in December 1893. What a Christmas present to his readers.
( Read more... )
luthienberen for pitching the idea of a re-read! It's such fun and keeps the comm going.There's a lot of interesting stuff regarding this particular story, so it's going to be a rather long post with lots of quotes. Buckle up.
Everyone knows that after Holmes had become tremendously popular, Doyle grew so fed up with him that he tried to kill him off. I was surprised to find out, however, that ACD was thinking about doing away with Holmes as early as November 1891, i.e. only some six months after skyrocketing to fame and money through the Strand Magazine! SCAN was published in July 1891, and here's what Doyle writes to his mother on November 11, 1891:
“I have done five of the Sherlock Holmes stories of the new Series. They are 1. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle 2. The Adventure of the Speckled Band 3. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor 4. The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb 5. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet. I think that they are up to the standard of the first series, & the twelve ought to make a rather good book of the sort. I think of slaying Holmes in the sixth & winding him up for good & all. He takes my mind from better things.” (—Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters)
Such a weird decision, isn't it? Numerous authors dream of coming up with something that would sell, and you just don't turn away from your goldmine once you've struck it. Before Holmes Doyle was struggling financially and was fairly unknown. Only half a year after the breakthrough he decides that he's done with Holmes. That speaks of Doyle's ambition, but it seems like he was a bit too sure of himself.
Thankfully, in 1891 his mother managed to talk him out of it, and during the next couple of years Doyle did another dozen before winding it all up in December 1893. What a Christmas present to his readers.
( Read more... )
