The Mysterious Case of Sherlock Holmes' Missing Deerstalker Hat.

This really is me musing. It has no real bearing on my writing; it’s just an idle notion that stumbled across my mind just now.

 I was thinking about how we place some quote or characterization on a fictional character that doesn’t actually apply to that character if we examine things more closely. In terms of fictional quotes, it’s a fact that Rick never actually said “Play it again, Sam” in the film Casablanca, but it somehow feels wrong to think that. The Evil Queen in Snow White never said “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”. Dirty Harry never said, “Do you feel lucky, punk?” "Greed is good." No. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto." Again no. "Luke, I am your father." And again, no. But doesn’t it feel odd, to know that?

 But I’ll go to an even stranger case of misquoting, featuring the main subject of my ambling, rambling muse…

 Arthur Conan Doyle never had Sherlock Holmes say “Elementary, my dear Watson", in any of Holmes’ mysteries. Yes, every word was used somewhere, at some time, in a Holmes story, but those words were never strung together in a sentence by Doyle himself. In fact, looking it up, I find that the phrase was actually coined and popularized by P.G. Wodehouse in his novel “Psmith, Journalist” (1915). Who knew?

 From there, my mind has wandered to another aspect of the Great Detective, that seems ironclad as a part of his persona, but which I find was so much after all.

 It’s funny how latter-day depictions of Holmes fiction in books, films and TV have built so much on some aspects of Doyle’s creation that are slight, to say the least, in terms of how Sherlock was portrayed by his actual creator. For one thing, Holmes’ deerstalker hat and cape, which is synonymous with the character if you ask anyone with a casual knowledge of Doyle’s creation. However, if you logged the amount of times he’s actually worn that attire it’s only a few, and only when a case took him out of town. Even then in the actual prose Doyle wrote of Holmes wearing a “close-fitting cloth cap” (in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”) and “his ear-flapped travelling cap” (in “Silver Blaze”).

 In fact the look was popularized by one image in “Silver Blaze”, although truly one of the greatest Holmes illustrations ever, IMHO.

Apart from that, Paget depicted Holmes wearing the hat in some cases set out of London, but overall the great detective wore a top hat as any city gentleman would have at that time. In fact, these are the few illustrations I could find where Paget put Holmes in a deerstalker. Not many, right?

Although Sidney Paget, himself, apparently like to wear his…

I believe it was William Gillette, who portrayed Holmes on stage in England for a staggering 33 years, who made the deerstalker part of Holmes’ “uniform”…

…This was then taken up by Basil Rathbone when he began his run as Holmes.

(Although to be fair I note that when they decided to update Rathbone’s Holmes to modern day America, after just the first two films set in Victorian England, he wore a more modern hats better suited to the present day.)

Another noted leading illustrator was Robert Fawcett for all of the stories by Holmes’ son Adrian, co-written by John Dickson Carr and published in Colliers Magazine during 1952-53 prior to their collection as “The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes”. As you’ll see, Robert Fawcett, unlike Sidney Paget, never saw an illo with Holmes in his cape and deerstalker that he didn’t like, which I’m sure helped to further solidify that image in people’s mind at that time. (Colliers was an incredibly popular magazine then, and furthermore Fawcett was a brilliant illustrator who made each of his “deerstalkered” Holmes depictions into wonderful art.

Wait, wait! Here's one without the deerstalker... but... but... where's Holmes? Presumably outside somewhere in his deerstalker and cape.

Oh, and by way of nothing, Fawcett's Hercules Poirot illustrations for Colliers were pretty cool too.

This makes me think further, how elements that were barely in Doyle’s stories, have become so much more a part of Holmesian lore. I question whether that’s a good thing or whether it just shows a lack of imagination on the part of some writers. Mycroft Holmes only appeared in three stories: "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", his first full appearance, "The Adventures of the Bruce-Partington Plans", and then a brief showing in "The Final Problem". However, if you followed either of the shows "Sherlock" or "Elementary" you'd think Doyle put him in every other story.

The same goes for Moriarty who only appeared in "The Final Problem". Holmes knew of his existence long before this but only chose to reveal The Napoleon of Crime to Watson and the readers during the events of that one story. He was mentioned in later stories as being dead and gone and mentioned in "The Valley of Fear" a novel written in 1914 but set in 1889 before Holmes’ “death”, although even there he’s merely referenced but not shown. Again, he’s used all the time on TV and film.

And I do understand how if for writers adapting the Final Problem to TV, the sudden appearance of Moriarty might seem problematic. In fact, I was quite impressed with the Jeremy Brett Grenada TV Holmes series where without him saying anything or interacting beyond a silent image of him thwarted, we learn that Moriarty was the brains behind The Red-Headed League.

This giving him a tad more presence in the overall narrative before his inevitable appearance in the last episode of the season.

All idle musing. Although it did end up being a lot of words to get to the end of it, eh?

Hmm, I'm sure even William Gillette would agree...