For the past few weeks, I’ve reported here the thoughts of some of today’s leading authors of Sherlock efforts to reproduce his world. These authors care passionately about the Holmes/Watson legacy. They demonstrated this through their contributions to the anthology, Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, edited by Richard T. Ryan. It’s one of a series filling in the years 1881-1886, when almost no Holmes cases were reported. Contemporary writers, not content to assume the duo temporarily retired during that period, have enthusiastically created adventures to fill in the gap.

One last question I asked them was why Holmes and Watson have had such enduring reader appeal. (People who’ve seen these posts in social media have also weighed in on this question!) Author DJ Tyrer says that, for him, the attraction lies in the rapport between Holmes and Watson. Shelby Phoenix terms it their “genuine fondness for each other.” Tyrer says “There’s a depth to their relationship, their friendship, and their investigative partnership that is more than the sum of its parts.”

George Jacobs says that friendship helps anchor the sometimes aloof and calculating Holmes—“ultimately unknowable” says Katy Darby. Yet, Jacobs says, they’re both very likeable heroes, with Watson “the classic everyman,” so brave and loyal readers keep rooting for him, and with Holmes’s strong sense of morality—even when it contradicts that law or social convention. As Paul Hiscock points out, literature has many great detectives, but far fewer memorable sidekicks. “Readers can respect Watson, just as Holmes does. His relatability allows Holmes to be exceptional without alienating the reader.” (The duo of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock comes to mind.) Frequent Holmes/Watson pasticher David Marcum finds the pairing an “amazing narrative device to show a brilliant person—someone always two steps ahead of what’s going on—from the perspective of the everyman narrator.”

Add to all that the strength of Doyle’s writing, especially his characterizations, says Hassan Akram: “His characters live and breathe.” Also, Doyle focuses on the crime, Phoenix points out, not on tension and distrust between characters, as many writers do today. Darby points out that, because the stories “are easy and fun to read, they’re often underestimated as the highly skilled work they are,” in terms of plot, action, and character development.

Author George Gardner believes that our continued exposure to these personalities and their world has made the stories “readily imaginable to the reader.” We instantly recognize the names of Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and Baker Street, but they are remote enough in time to give “an air of the fantastic to the stories.” Holmes is “the epitome of a detective” for many, many people, says Gustavo Bondoni, and readers have found his fog-covered streets a most evocative time and place. Even people who read his adventures in the World War I trenches, like Kevin Thornton’s grandfather, eagerly introduced them to later generations.

Developing and writing a story in the late-Victorian London setting, “is even more immersive than reading one,” says Akram. So, let’s see how he did with his story, generously larded with wry wit, “The Return of the Buckinghamshire Baronet.”

Here goes: A partially burned telegram is a clue to the distant town where Holmes believes a bank robber has hidden his loot. Holmes and Watson’s old acquaintance, a Baronet, lives there and is about to be married. He appears at Baker Street with the astonishing proposal that Holmes perform his “deducing” act at the wedding. (Holmes, not surprisingly, declines.) Still, the Baronet offers a week’s invitation to stay at his manor house before the ceremony, and there, another species of financial pandemonium soon erupts.

I asked Akram about his use of humor in this story, and he thinks “it’s more difficult to use humor to good effect when the characters are so familiar.” Thus, most of his story’s humor comes from their slightly dim friend and other minor characters. The personas of Holmes and Watson having reached “almost mythical” status, he says, requires that they be treated with complete respect. Doyle’s own sense of the absurd “has been underrated in the face of his more serious elements, though it’s clearly visible in a story like ‘The Red-Headed League,’ when Holmes and Watson burst into laughter on hearing the client’s story.”

The popularity of Holmes and Watson endures, regularly refreshed by the work of the authors mentioned above. Their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885 are:
D.J. Tyrer – “The Japanese Village Mystery”
Shelby Phoenix – “Sherlock Holmes and the Six-Fingered Hand Print”
George Jacobs – “The Mystery of the Cloven Cord”
Katy Darby – “The Adventure of the Lock Hospital”
Paul Hiscock – “The Light of Liberty”
David Marcum – “The Faulty Gallows”
George Gardner – “The Adventure of the Damaged Tomb”
Gustavo Bondoni – “The Burning Mania”
Kevin Thornton – “Tracks Across Canada” and “Tracked Across America”