ADVANTAGES
Though Holmes may not be the first detective in fiction, but we kind of think he's the best. When you hear the word "detective," we're betting dollars to donuts that one of the first things that comes into your mind is the sharp-featured, pipe-smoking, deerstalker-hat-wearing Sherlock Holmes. He's like Frankenstein or Dracula – one of those characters who becomes so fundamental to his genre that, even if you've never read a single story, you probably still know who Sherlock Holmes is. (Though maybe you picture him )
Holmes wasn't instantly popular by any means. Conan Doyle had some minor success with his first two Holmes novels, A Study in Scarlet (1888) and The Sign of Four (1890), but it wasn't until Doyle started publishing Holmes-based short stories in a new fiction magazine, , that the character and his tales really started to take off.
It was still pretty standard in the late nineteenth century for English novels to appear chapter by chapter in magazines before being collected into one published volume – that's how the first two Holmes novels appeared. Conan Doyle had the idea that this format would be perfect for a series of episodes from his detective's life. After all, sustaining a reader's interest in one detective plot across multiple chapters is kind of hard, and if you miss one issue, you're sunk. But if each story has its own self-contained plot arc, readers can get both the suspense and the resolution they want every month, while continuing to crave more Holmes-y goodness from one magazine issue to the next. So Conan Doyle basically invented the episodic drama. And as any viewer of , , or can tell you, having a character-focused genre series is a great strategy for commercial success. Sherlock Holmes is no exception.
Conan Doyle selected The Strand because it occurred to him that he could tie the success of this new magazine (which started in January 1891, six months before Conan Doyle started publishing his "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes") to his new series of short stories. And it worked: Conan Doyle's Holmes tales raised The Strand's circulation and established it as the popular fiction magazine of its day.
Weirdly, despite the fact that he wound up writing dozens of short stories and five novels around this character, Conan Doyle was actually not that fond of his creation. A retired army surgeon and medical doctor (like a certain Dr. John Watson whom we know!), Conan Doyle had other, more serious ambitions. He wanted to be known for his historical novels and for his writings on the . He didn't mind the money that came with being a commercial writer, but he hated that public demand for Holmes totally overwhelmed anyone's interest in his more serious work.
So Conan Doyle tried to kill off Holmes at the end of his second story collection, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1895). Public outcry was so strong, though, that he eventually brought Holmes back to life after a decade's hiatus (he did publish The Hound of the Baskervilles during this period, but it's set before Holmes's death). Luckily, if his creator couldn't love Sherlock Holmes as Holmes deserves, those of us here at Shmoop can totally fill in the gap.
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Arthur and the Invisibles 2 & 3: The New Minimoy Adventures
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal – except for Sherlock Holmes, who is better than everybody. Seriously, this guy's a superhero: it's like asking why we should care about Batman (hint: because he's awesome). For one thing, Sherlock can look at people and see right into their minds (basically). We bet we can think of a million situations in which that ability might be useful, up to and including: (a) crime fighting, (b) bickering with our significant others, or (c) trying to convince our parents to loan us money. So Holmes is a guy who we either want to be, or who at least we want on our side.
Speaking of having him on our side, Holmes totally uses his powers for good. Everyone in Victorian London, from the lowliest governess to the highest nobleman, eventually comes to see Holmes when they need help. He's like a super-genius, disguise-loving Victorian version of . And it's reassuring to read about a guy who just goes around making sure that life is fair for the little guy. Sure, Holmes may be in his business of private detective work mostly for the intellectual work rather than the moral judgment, but for us, reading Holmes is like reading Chicken Soup for the Nerdy Soul: he's so sure, and so good at getting things right, that reading his stories leave us with a comfortable glow.
If that's somehow not enough to convince you that Holmes is worth caring about, let's just add that the bromance scale goes up to eleven in these stories. Holmes's relationship with Dr. John Watson is so emotionally satisfying that Watson's wife Mary eventually just dies so that the two guys can be roomies again. Holmes and Watson restore our faith in (Platonic) love – we hope we're as excited to spend time with our friends fifteen years down the line as Holmes and Watson seem to be during their later adventures. The guys may not be romantic partners in the least, but they are life partners. And we must admit, reading about their adventures leaves us a little choked up.
Adventures In Paradise - Arthur Lyman - YouTube
His results and methods have come under criticism since his death in 1941. In part this is due to the standards of his day. He and his assistant, Duncan Mackenzie, had to personally supervise anywhere from 50 to 180 men and obviously could not be everywhere at once. Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that there has been more than a little controversy over the recording and interpretation of the evidence. Normally, any questions raised subsequently can be cleared up by further excavations. Unfortunately, any such work has been effectively precluded by the major restorations undertaken by Evans on what was, after all, his property. Many of these can be justified in the name of conservation—the throne room and its frescoes (left) would have suffered irreparable damage if left exposed. Structural elements, such as the columns that support the Grand Staircase, had been made of wood that had long since rotted away. They were replaced by cement versions. However, Evans went well beyond this and restored many elements that had not survived—the layout of the upper storeys of the East and West wings, for example. Much of the work was planned and directed by the artist and architect for the British School of Athens, Piet de Jong'
Rotary Club of Thunder Bay - Port Arthur - Service …
Arthur Evans was born in 1851 in Hertfordshire England, the son of Sir John Evans, one of the fathers of prehistoric archaeology, and was brought up among archaeologists and antiquarians. He possessed an unusual amount of toughness and discipline, having served as war correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in Bosnia during the 1870’s. While in London in 1878, he saw an exhibition of Schliemann’s material from Troy and visited him in Athens five years later. A distinguished scholar, he was curator of the Ashmolean Museum from 1884 to 1908 and became extraordinary professor of prehistoric archaeology at Oxford in 1909. He visited Crete for the first time in 1894 where he met with Minos Kalokairinos and visited the site of Knossos. Three years later he purchased the land on which the site of Knossos was located and spent the rest of his life excavating its remains and interpreting them.
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