A Norwegian named Sigerson

[mightymads]

I came across an article called “A Norwegian named Sigerson or a Swede named Hedin?”, where the authors suggest that everything Watson tells us in EMPT about Holmes’s travels during the Hiatus is mostly falsehoods. It coincides with my headcanon, so the article drew me in.

There was a real Swedish explorer Sven Hedin of whom ACD most probably read since Hedin’s travels had a lot of media coverage. Hedin’s first major expedition to Central Asia started in 1893. If we assume that Hedin existed in Holmes’s universe, it’s two years after Holmes’s disappearance. Therefore, it’s unlikely that Holmes and Hedin were one and the same person. They might have met each other, and Hedin might receive some information from Holmes which later was included into Hedin’s reports, but again the timeline is off, since by 1893 Holmes already returned to Europe. That’s a gist of the article, more or less.

I think it’s very likely that ACD was inspired by Hedin’s travels. After all, he seems to have lifted baritsu from a 1901 Times article where it was misspelled exactly in this way and was called “Japanese wrestling” (Wikipedia). Bartitsu was developed in 1898–1902, so it simply didn’t exist in 1891.

As for the Holmes ‘verse, Watson could do exactly the same: take random things from newspapers and paste them into EMPT, not particularly bothering about their being anachronistic. He obviously couldn’t tell the truth (or complete truth) about Reichenbach, so almost ten years after Holmes’s return Watson wrote a heavily fictionalised version of the events. And the most cool thing about it is how many possibilities it opens, what a leeway for imagination!

Comments

[rachelindeed]

It's neat to hear about what Doyle might have been grabbing out of the headlines for inspiration! I didn't know about Hedin's publicized travels, or about 'baritsu' in the 1901 Times :) I do remember as a teenager being embarrassed when my mother scolded me for mispronouncing the "Ku Klux Klan" as the "Klu Klux Klan" - it was a somber and horrifying piece of history that she didn't want me to seem ignorant of. I only later recognized that I'd picked up my error from Doyle (he spells it wrong in "The Five Orange Pips.")

And yes, I agree that it's wonderfully freeing to assume - as there is every reason to assume, canonically - that Watson deliberately changed dates and names and details in order to ensure discretion for their clients while also making Holmes a household name. The cases he published must have been heavily doctored (yes, that pun was deliberate :P) and half-fictionalized by the time he was through with them, which helps explain why Holmes complained about their inaccuracies and romanticisms so much. I've always found it curious how much energy Baring-Gould and other 20th century fans used to pour into details like analyzing the dates Watson gives for each case, given that I've always assumed that the dates are the very first thing he would falsify.

I've always loved this passage from "The Veiled Lodger" in which Watson reflects on the tightrope he has to walk of keeping confidentiality intact while also making Holmes famous through his writings. He acknowledges that he not infrequently receives letters from frantic clients or their children begging him not to publish their cases or scandals...and some of them go further than just asking politely:

When one considers that Mr Sherlock Holmes was in active practice for twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I was allowed to co-operate with him and to keep notes of his doings, it will be clear that I have a mass of material at my command. The problem has always been, not to find, but to choose. There is the long row of year-books which fill a shelf, and there are the dispatch cases filled with documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime, but of the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era. Concerning these latter, I may say that the writers of agonized letters, who beg that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forebears may not be touched, have nothing to fear. The discretion and high sense of professional honour which have always distinguished my friend are still at work in the choice of these memoirs, and no confidence will be abused. I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand.

That is such a wonderful aside, so full of story possibilities, and yet I've never read a fic about this aspect of their lives. I'd love to hear more about how Watson selects cases to publish, Holmes's input into the same, and the resistance they encounter from past clients with a lot of money to spend who don't trust Watson not to besmirch their reputations with some bit of sensationalism in The Strand and who aren't scrupulous about how they try to stop him...

[smallhobbit]

I've always been very fond of that passage, because the last two sentences are the reason the Ocelot came into existence.

[rachelindeed]

Oh, I didn't realize that was the inspiration! How lovely :)

[mightymads]

Oh yes, that’s a great prompt for a fic, and there’s much to think about. Holmes’s complains do seem quite justified if Watson embellished that much.

It seems that ACD didn’t have an editor or didn’t bother to submit Holmes stories to one. I wonder why. Misspellings and many inaccuracies could have been corrected that way. Among numerous things it amuses me that in SPEC Holmes addresses Miss Stoner as “Miss Roylott” at one point. ACD really needed a beta-reader XD