Crooked Man may refer to:

"The Crooked Man", alternate title of "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", a Sherlock Holmes short story

"The Crooked Man", ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' (TV series) first season episode

"The Crooked Man", an episode of the animated show ''Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century''

"The Crooked Man", ''The Adventures of Ellery Queen'' television episode

''The Crooked Man'', a 2003 British television movie starring Ross Kemp

"Crooked Man", nickname of Marvel Comics character Mad Jim Jaspers

''A Crooked Man'', a novel by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

"The Crooked Man", a Melinda Snodgrass short story in ''Card Sharks'' (anthology)

"The Crooked Man", a Charles Beaumont short story

"The Crooked Man", a song from ''Western Approaches'' (album)

"Crooked Man", an ''As You Were'' (album) track

''The Crooked Man'', a Hellboy limited series by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben.

See also

There Was a Crooked Man (disambiguation)

name	The Adventure
cover	Angelsb.jpg
artist	Angels & Airwaves
from album	We Don't Need to Whisper
released	May 18, 2006
format	CD
recorded	2005
genre	Alternative rock
length	5:40
label	Geffen
writer	Tom Delonge
producer	Tom DeLonge
this single	"The Adventure"(2006)
next single	"It Hurts"(2006) }}

"The Adventure" is a song by American alternative rock band Angels & Airwaves and the lead single from their 2006 debut album, ''We Don't Need to Whisper''. It was also the first full song to be heard by fans. "The Adventure" entered the UK singles chart at its peak position #20.

The song received increased attention when it aired on a ''Smallville'' trailer. After the season finale of ''Smallville'' aired, "The Adventure" climbed to #30 on Amazon.

During concerts, DeLonge has often used both "Down" and "I Miss You" by Blink-182 as part of an extended intro to the song. The track was played in the crowd warm-up session before Barack Obama's presidential election rallies in 2008.

"The Adventure" is also featured as downloadable content in the karaoke game ''Lips'' and as a playable song in the music game ''Band Hero''.

Track listing

#"The Adventure" (Album version) – 5:03 #"The Adventure" (Radio edit) – 4:40

Acoustic version

An acoustic version of "The Adventure" appears as a B-side on the "Everything's Magic" single.

This song was featured on MuchMusic's ''Big Shiny Tunes 11''.

Short film

The song was officially released on February 20, 2006, as an internet-only short film. Although DeLonge had stated differently, the same version of the song that had been leaked previously after someone hacked into DeLonge's email account. It is shot on 8mm black and white, with the film having a science fiction feel to it. DeLonge stated that "...it kind of looks like George Lucas' ''THX 1138'', where it's all beautiful naked women and fast cars and concrete and glass architecture." The subsequent short-film, "It Hurts", was released on April 18 and continues the story where "The Adventure" left off.

Music video

The music video for the song was directed by The Malloys. It was shot in March 2006 was released on April 5. The video was leaked onto the Internet soon after its release. "The Adventure" begins with the band boarding a spacecraft to pick up their instruments and begin playing, and then moves to DeLonge walking in a field. It ends with clips of World War II and DeLonge walking off into the distance in a meadow with the sky lit with planets. The video was nominated for Best Effects by the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best New Artist and Best Editing. It was also number one on MuchTopTens: "Top Ten Out of This World Videos" on December 14, 2006.

Charts

!Chart (2006)	!Peakposition
U.S. Pop 100
UK Singles Chart
Irish Singles Chart

External links

Watch "The Adventure" on Dailymotion

"The Adventure" lyrics

Category:2006 singles Category:Angels and Airwaves songs Category:2005 songs Category:Debut singles

es:The Adventure it:The Adventure pt:The Adventure

colour	#DEDEE9
name	Sherlock Holmes
series	Sherlock Holmes
first	''A Study in Scarlet''
creator	Arthur Conan Doyle
gender	Male
occupation	Consulting detective
family	Mycroft Holmes (brother)
nationality	British }}

Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases.

Holmes, who first appeared in publication in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories. The first story, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in ''Beeton's Christmas Annual'' in 1887 and the second, ''The Sign of the Four'', in ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'' in 1890. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the beginning of the first series of short stories in ''Strand Magazine'' in 1891; further series of short stories and two novels published in serial form appeared between then and 1927. The stories cover a period from around 1880 up to 1914.

All but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Holmes himself ("The Blanched Soldier" and "The Lion's Mane") and two others are written in the third person ("The Mazarin Stone" and "His Last Bow"). In two stories ("The Musgrave Ritual" and "The ''Gloria Scott''"), Holmes tells Watson the main story from his memories, while Watson becomes the narrator of the frame story. The first and fourth novels, ''A Study in Scarlet'' and ''The Valley of Fear'', each include a long interval of omniscient narration recounting events unknown both to Holmes and to Watson.

Inspiration for the character of Holmes

Doyle said that the character of Sherlock Holmes was inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations. Sir Henry Littlejohn, Lecturer on Forensic Medicine and Public Health at the Royal College of Surgeons, is also cited as a source for Holmes. Littlejohn served as Police Surgeon and Medical Officer of Health of Edinburgh, providing for Doyle a link between medical investigation and the detection of crime.

Life

Early life

Explicit details about Sherlock Holmes's life outside of the adventures recorded by Dr. Watson are few and far between in Conan Doyle's original stories; nevertheless, incidental details about his early life and extended families portray a loose biographical picture of the detective.

An estimate of Holmes' age in the story "His Last Bow" places his birth in 1854; the story is set in August 1914 and he is described as being 60 years of age. Commonly, the date is cited as 6 January. However, an argument for a later birthdate is posited by author Laurie R. King, based on two of Conan Doyle's stories: ''A Study in Scarlet'' and ''"The Gloria Scott" Adventure''. Certain details in ''"The Gloria Scott" Adventure'' indicate Holmes finished his second and final year at university in either 1880 or 1885. Watson's own account of his wounding in the Second Afghan War and subsequent return to England in ''A Study in Scarlet'' place his moving in with Holmes in either early 1881 or 1882. Together, these suggest Holmes left university in 1880; if he began university at the age of 17, his birth year would likely be 1861.

Holmes states that he first developed his methods of deduction while an undergraduate. The author Dorothy L. Sayers suggested that, given details in two of the Adventures, Holmes must have been at Cambridge rather than Oxford and that "of all the Cambridge colleges, Sidney Sussex (College) perhaps offered the greatest number of advantages to a man in Holmes’ position and, in default of more exact information, we may tentatively place him there".

His earliest cases, which he pursued as an amateur, came from fellow university students. According to Holmes, it was an encounter with the father of one of his classmates that led him to take up detection as a profession, and he spent the six years following university working as a consulting detective, before financial difficulties led him to take Watson as a roommate, at which point the narrative of the stories begins.

From 1881, Holmes was described as having lodgings at 221B, Baker Street, London, from where he runs his consulting detective service. 221B is an apartment up 17 steps, stated in an early manuscript to be at the "upper end" of the road. Until the arrival of Dr. Watson, Holmes worked alone, only occasionally employing agents from the city's underclass, including a host of informants and a group of street children he calls "the Baker Street Irregulars". The Irregulars appear in three stories: "A Study in Scarlet," "The Sign of the Four," and "The Adventure of the Crooked Man".

Little is said of Holmes's family. His parents were unmentioned in the stories and he merely states that his ancestors were "country squires". In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", Holmes claims that his great-uncle was Vernet, the French artist. His brother, Mycroft, seven years his senior, is a government official who appears in three stories and is mentioned in one other story. Mycroft has a unique civil service position as a kind of memory-man or walking database for all aspects of government policy. Mycroft is described as even more gifted than Sherlock in matters of observation and deduction, but he lacks Sherlock's drive and energy, preferring to spend his time at ease in the Diogenes Club, described as "a club for the most un-clubbable men in London".

Life with Dr. Watson

Holmes shares the majority of his professional years with his good friend and chronicler Dr. John H. Watson, who lives with Holmes for some time before his marriage in 1887, and again after his wife's death; his residence is maintained by his landlady, Mrs. Hudson.

Watson has two roles in Holmes's life. First, he gives practical assistance in the conduct of his cases; he is the detective's right-hand man, acting variously as look-out, decoy, accomplice and messenger. Second, he is Holmes's chronicler (his "Boswell" as Holmes refers to him). Most of the Holmes stories are frame narratives, written from Watson's point of view as summaries of the detective's most interesting cases. Holmes is often described as criticising Watson's writings as sensational and populist, suggesting that they neglect to accurately and objectively report the pure calculating "science" of his craft.

Nevertheless, Holmes's friendship with Watson is his most significant relationship. In several stories, Holmes's fondness for Watson—often hidden beneath his cold, intellectual exterior—is revealed. For instance, in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", Watson is wounded in a confrontation with a villain; although the bullet wound proves to be "quite superficial", Watson is moved by Holmes's reaction:

In all, Holmes is described as being in active practice for 23 years, with Watson documenting his cases for 17 of them.

Retirement

In "His Last Bow", Holmes has retired to a small farm on the Sussex Downs in 1903–1904. Sussex Downs is another name for South Downs, the name of a range of chalk hills in Sussex, overlooking the English Channel. They are opposite to the North Downs, a parallel range stretching from Farnham in Surrey across the entire width of Kent. "Down" is from the Old English "dun," meaning a hill. Holmes specifically retired to a farm in the downs, 8 km (5 miles) from the town of Eastbourne as is chronicled by Watson in his preface to the series of stories entitled "His Last Bow." It is here where he takes up the hobby of beekeeping as his primary occupation, eventually producing a "Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen". The story features Holmes and Watson coming out of retirement one last time to aid the war effort. Only one adventure, "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", which is narrated by Holmes as he pursues the case as an amateur, takes place during the detective's retirement. The details of his death are not known, but he lives on to this day through the records of his thrilling cases, and will always be remembered and regarded as the "World's Greatest Detective".

Habits and personality

Watson describes Holmes as "bohemian" in habits and lifestyle. According to Watson, Holmes is an eccentric, with no regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order. In ''The Musgrave Ritual'', Watson describes Holmes thus:

}}

What appears to others as chaos, however, is to Holmes a wealth of useful information. Throughout the stories, Holmes would dive into his apparent mess of random papers and artefacts, only to retrieve precisely the specific document or eclectic item he was looking for.

Watson frequently makes note of Holmes's erratic eating habits. The detective is often described as starving himself at times of intense intellectual activity, such as during "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", wherein, according to Watson:

His chronicler does not consider Holmes's habitual use of a pipe, or his less frequent use of cigarettes and cigars, a vice. Nor does Watson condemn Holmes's willingness to bend the truth or break the law on behalf of a client (e.g., lying to the police, concealing evidence or breaking into houses) when he feels it morally justifiable. Even so, it is obvious that Watson has stricter limits than Holmes, and occasionally berated Holmes for creating a "poisonous atmosphere" of tobacco smoke. Holmes himself references Watson's moderation in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", saying, "I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned". Watson also did not condone Holmes's plans when they manipulated innocent people, such as when he toyed with a young woman's heart in The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton although it was done with noble intentions to save many other young women from the clutches of the villainous Milverton.

Holmes is portrayed as a patriot acting on behalf of the government in matters of national security in a number of stories. He also carries out counter-intelligence work in ''His Last Bow'', set at the beginning of the First World War. As shooting practice, the detective adorned the wall of his Baker Street lodgings with "VR" (''Victoria Regina'') in bullet pocks made by his pistol.

Holmes has an ego that at times borders on arrogant, albeit with justification; he draws pleasure from baffling police inspectors with his superior deductions. He does not seek fame, however, and is usually content to allow the police to take public credit for his work. It's often only when Watson publishes his stories that Holmes's role in the case becomes apparent.

Holmes is pleased when he is recognised for having superior skills and responds to flattery, as Watson remarks, as a girl does to comments upon her beauty.

Holmes's demeanour is presented as dispassionate and cold. Yet when in the midst of an adventure, Holmes can sparkle with remarkable passion. He has a flair for showmanship and will prepare elaborate traps to capture and expose a culprit, often to impress Watson or one of the Scotland Yard inspectors.

Holmes is a loner and does not strive to make friends, although he values those that he has, and none higher than Watson. He attributes his solitary ways to his particular interests and his mopey disposition. In ''The Adventure of the'' Gloria Scott, he tells Watson that during two years at college, he made only one friend, Victor Trevor. Holmes says, "I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year;... my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all". He is similarly described in ''A Study in Scarlet'' as difficult to draw out by young Stamford.

Holmes' emotional state/mental health has been a topic of analysis for decades. At their first meeting in ''A Study in Scarlet'', the detective warns Watson that he gets "in the dumps at times" and doesn't open his "mouth for days on end". Many readers and literary experts have suggested Holmes showed signs of manic depressive psychosis, with moments of intense enthusiasm coupled with instances of indolent self absorption. Other modern readers have speculated that Holmes may have Asperger's syndrome based on his intense attention to details, lack of interest in interpersonal relationships and tendency to speak in long monologues. The detective's isolation and near-gynophobic distrust of women is said to suggest the desire to escape; Holmes "biographer" William Baring-Gould and others, including Nicholas Meyer, author of ''the Seven Percent Solution'', have implied a severe family trauma (i.e., the murder of Holmes' mother) may be the root cause.

Personal hygiene

Holmes is described in ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' as having a "cat-like" love of personal cleanliness. This in no way appears to hinder his intensely practical pursuit of his profession, however, and appears in contrast with statements that, in the first Holmes story, ''A Study in Scarlet'', his hands are discoloured with acid stains and Holmes uses drops of his own blood to conduct experiments in chemistry and forensics.

Use of drugs

Holmes occasionally uses addictive drugs, especially when lacking stimulating cases. He believes the use of cocaine stimulates his brain when it is not in use. He is a habitual user of cocaine, which he injects in a seven-per-cent solution using a special syringe that he keeps in a leather case. Holmes is also an occasional user of morphine but expressed strong disapproval on visiting an opium den. The 2002 movie ''Sherlock: Case of Evil'' depicts him using heroin, though that never appears in the original stories. All these drugs were legal in late 19th-century England. Both Watson and Holmes are serial tobacco users, including cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Holmes is expert at identifying tobacco-ash residues, having penned a monograph on the subject.

Dr. Watson strongly disapproves of his friend's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's "only vice" and expressing concern over its possible effect on Holmes's mental health and superior intellect. In later stories, Watson claims to have "weaned" Holmes off drugs. Even so, according to his doctor friend, Holmes remains an addict whose habit is "not dead, but merely sleeping".

Financial affairs

Although he initially needed Watson to share the rent of his comfortable residence at 221B Baker Street, Watson reveals in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", when Holmes was living alone, that "I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms," suggesting he had developed a good income from his practice, although it is seldom revealed exactly how much he charges for his services. In "A Scandal in Bohemia", he is paid the staggering sum of one thousand pounds (300 in gold and 700 in notes) as advance payment for "present expenses". In "The Problem of Thor Bridge" he avers: "My professional charges are upon a fixed scale. I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether".

This is said in a context where a client is offering to double his fees; however, it is likely that rich clients provided Holmes a remuneration greatly in excess of his standard fee. For example, in "The Adventure of the Final Problem", Holmes states that his services to the government of France and the royal house of Scandinavia had left him with enough money to retire comfortably, while in "The Adventure of Black Peter", Watson notes that Holmes would refuse to help the wealthy and powerful if their cases did not interest him, while he could devote weeks at a time to the cases of the most humble clients. Holmes also tells Watson, in "A Case of Identity", of a golden snuff box received from the King of Bohemia after "A Scandal in Bohemia" and a fabulous ring from the Dutch royal family; in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", Holmes receives an emerald tie-pin from Queen Victoria. Other mementos of Holmes's cases are a gold sovereign from Irene Adler ("A Scandal in Bohemia") and an autographed letter of thanks from the French President and a Legion of Honour for tracking down an assassin named Huret ("The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"). In "The Adventure of the Priory School", Holmes "rubs his hands with glee" when the Duke of Holdernesse notes the 5000 pound sterling sum, which surprises even Watson, and then pats the cheque, saying, "I am a poor man", an incident that could be dismissed as representative of Holmes's tendency toward sarcastic humour. Certainly, in the course of his career Holmes had worked for both the most powerful monarchs and governments of Europe (including his own) and various wealthy aristocrats and industrialists and had also been consulted by impoverished pawnbrokers and humble governesses on the lower rungs of society.

Holmes has been known to charge clients for his expenses, and to claim any reward that might be offered for the problem's solution: he says in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" that Miss Stoner may pay any expenses he may be put to, and requests that the bank in "The Red-Headed League" remunerate him for the money he spent solving the case. Holmes has his wealthy banker client in "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" pay him for the costs of recovering the stolen gems and also claims the reward the banker had put for their recovery.

Relationships with women

The only woman to impress Holmes was Irene Adler, who according to Watson was always referred to by Holmes as "''the'' woman". Holmes himself is never directly quoted as using this term and even mentions her name in other cases. Adler is one of the few women who are mentioned in multiple Holmes stories, appearing in person in only one, "A Scandal in Bohemia".

In one story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," Holmes is engaged to be married, but only to gain information for his case. Although Holmes appears to show initial interest in some of his female clients (in particular, Violet Hunter in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"), Watson says he inevitably "manifested no further interest in the client when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems". Holmes finds their youth, beauty, and energy (and the cases they bring to him) invigorating, distinct from any romantic interest. These episodes show Holmes possesses a degree of charm; yet apart from the case of Adler, there is no indication of a serious or long-term interest. Watson states that Holmes has an "aversion to women" but "a peculiarly ingratiating way with [them]". Holmes states, "I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind"; in fact, he finds "the motives of women... so inscrutable.... How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial actions may mean volumes;... their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin".

As Doyle remarked to muse Joseph Bell, "Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine and just about as likely to fall in love". The only joy Holmes derives from the company of women is the problems they bring to him to solve. In ''The Sign of the Four'', Watson quotes Holmes as being "an automaton, a calculating machine", and Holmes is quoted as saying, "It is of the first importance not to allow your judgement to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money". This points to Holmes's lack of interest in relationships with women in general, and clients in particular, leading Watson to remark that "there is something positively inhuman in you at times". At the end of "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", Holmes states: "I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act as our lawless lion-hunter had done". In the story, the explorer Dr Sterndale had killed the man who murdered his beloved, Brenda Tregennis, to exact a revenge which the law could not provide. Watson writes in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" that Mrs. Hudson is fond of Holmes in her own way, despite his bothersome eccentricities as a lodger, owing to his "remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women". Again in ''The Sign of the Four'', Watson quotes Holmes as saying, "I would not tell them too much. Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them". Watson notes that while he dislikes and distrusts them, he is nonetheless a "chivalrous opponent".

Methods of detection

Holmesian deduction

Holmes's primary intellectual detection method is induction, which Holmes rather inaccurately calls deduction. "From a drop of water", he writes, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other". Holmes stories often begin with a bravura display of his talent for "deduction". It is of some interest to logicians and those interested in logic to try to analyse just what Holmes is doing when he performs his induction. "Holmesian deduction" appears to consist primarily of drawing inferences based on either straightforward practical principles—which are the result of careful inductive study, such as Holmes's study of different kinds of cigar ashes or inference to the best explanation. One quote often heard from Holmes is "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".

Sherlock Holmes's straightforward practical principles are generally of the form, "If 'p', then 'q'," where 'p' is observed evidence and 'q' is what the evidence indicates. But there are also, as may be observed in the following example, intermediate principles. In "A Scandal in Bohemia" Holmes deduces that Watson had got very wet lately and that he had "a most clumsy and careless servant girl". When Watson, in amazement, asks how Holmes knows this, Holmes answers:

In this case, Holmes employed several connected principles:

If leather on the side of a shoe is scored by several parallel cuts, it was caused by someone who scraped around the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud.

If a London doctor's shoes are scraped to remove crusted mud, the person who so scraped them is the doctor's servant girl.

If someone cuts a shoe while scraping it to remove encrusted mud, that person is clumsy and careless.

If someone's shoes had encrusted mud on them, then they are likely to have been worn by him in the rain, when it is likely he became very wet.

By applying such principles in an obvious way (using repeated applications of ''modus ponens''), Holmes is able to infer from his observation that "the sides of Watson's shoes are scored by several parallel cuts" that:

"Watson's servant girl is clumsy and careless" and "Watson has been very wet lately and has been out in vile weather".

Deductive reasoning allows Holmes to impressively reveal a stranger's occupation, such as a Retired Sergeant of Marines in ''A Study in Scarlet''; a former ship's carpenter turned pawnbroker in "The Red-Headed League"; and a billiard-marker and a retired artillery NCO in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter". Similarly, by studying inanimate objects, Holmes is able to make astonishingly detailed deductions about their owners, including Watson's pocket-watch in "The Sign of the Four" as well as a hat, a pipe, and a walking stick in other stories.

Yet Doyle is careful not to present Holmes as infallible—a central theme in "The Adventure of the Yellow Face". At the end of the tale a sobered Holmes tells Watson, “If it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you”.

Disguise

Holmes displays a strong aptitude for acting and disguise. In several stories, he adopts disguises to gather evidence while 'under cover' so convincing that even Watson fails to penetrate them, such as in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Adventure of the Empty House" and "A Scandal in Bohemia". In other adventures, Holmes feigns being wounded or ill to give effect to his case, or to incriminate those involved, as in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective".

Weapons and martial arts

;Pistols :Holmes and Watson carry pistols with them; in the case of Watson often his old service revolver. Watson describes these weapons as being used on seven occasions.

;Cane :Holmes, as a gentleman, often carries a stick or cane. He is described by Watson as an expert at singlestick and twice uses his cane as a weapon.

;Sword :In "A Study in Scarlet" Watson describes Holmes as an expert with a sword—although none of the stories have Holmes using a sword. It is mentioned in "Gloria Scott" that Holmes practised fencing.

;Riding crop :In several stories, Holmes appears equipped with a riding crop and in "A Case of Identity" comes close to thrashing a swindler with it. Using a "hunting crop", Holmes knocks a pistol from John Clay's hand in "The Red-Headed League". In "The Six Napoleons" it is described as his favourite weapon—he uses it to break open one of the plaster busts.

;Fist-fighting :Holmes is described as a formidable bare-knuckle fighter. In ''The Sign of the Four'', Holmes introduces himself to a prize-fighter as:

:Holmes engages in hand-to-hand combat with his adversaries on occasions throughout the stories, inevitably emerging the victor. It is mentioned also in "Gloria Scott" that Holmes trained as a boxer.

;Martial arts :In "The Adventure of the Empty House", Holmes recounts to Watson how he used martial arts to overcome Professor Moriarty and fling his adversary to his death down the Reichenbach Falls. He states, "I have some knowledge, however, of ''baritsu,'' or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me". The name "baritsu" appears to be a reference to the real-life martial art of Bartitsu, which combined jujitsu with Holmes' canonical skills of boxing and cane fencing.

Knowledge and skills

In the first story, ''A Study in Scarlet'', something of Holmes's background is given. In early 1881, he is presented as an independent student of chemistry with a variety of very curious side interests, almost all of which turn out to be single-mindedly bent towards making him superior at solving crimes. (When he appears for the first time, he is crowing with delight at having invented a new method for detecting bloodstains; in other stories he indulges in recreational home-chemistry experiments, sometimes filling the rooms with foul-smelling vapours.) An early story, "The Adventure of the ''Gloria Scott''", presents more background on what influenced Holmes to become a detective: a college friend's father richly complimented his deductive skills. Holmes maintains strict adherence to scientific methods and focuses on logic and the powers of observation and deduction.

Holmes also makes use of phrenology, which was widely popular in Victorian times but now regarded as pseudo-scientific: In "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", he infers from the large size of a man's hat that the owner is intelligent and intellectually inclined, on the grounds that “a man with so large a brain must have something in it”.

In ''A Study in Scarlet'', Holmes claims he does not know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, as such information is irrelevant to his work. Directly after having heard that fact from Watson, he says he will immediately try to forget it. He says he believes that the mind has a finite capacity for information storage, and so learning useless things would merely reduce his ability to learn useful things. Dr. Watson subsequently assesses Holmes's abilities thus:

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Knowledge of Literature – nil.

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Knowledge of Philosophy – nil.

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Knowledge of Astronomy – nil.

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Knowledge of Politics – Feeble.

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Knowledge of Botany – Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.

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Knowledge of Geology – Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks, has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.

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Knowledge of Chemistry – Profound.

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Knowledge of Anatomy – Accurate, but unsystematic.

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Knowledge of Sensational Literature – Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.

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Plays the violin well.

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Is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman.

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Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ''A Study in Scarlet''

At the very end of ''A Study in Scarlet'' itself, it is shown that Holmes knows Latin and needs no translation of Roman epigrams in the original—though knowledge of the language would be of dubious direct utility for detective work; all university students were required to learn Latin at that time.

Later stories also contradict the list. Despite Holmes's supposed ignorance of politics, in "A Scandal in Bohemia" he immediately recognises the true identity of the supposed "Count von Kramm". Regarding nonsensational literature, his speech is replete with references to the Bible, Shakespeare, even Goethe. He is able to quote from a letter of Flaubert to George Sand and in the original French.

Moreover, in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" Watson reports that in November 1895 "Holmes lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus"—a most esoteric field, for which Holmes would have had to "clutter his memory" with an enormous amount of information which had absolutely nothing to do with crime-fighting—knowledge so extensive that his monograph was regarded as "the last word" on the subject. The later stories abandon the notion that Holmes did not want to know anything unless it had immediate relevance for his profession; in the second chapter of ''The Valley of Fear'', Holmes instead declares that "all knowledge comes useful to the detective", and near the end of "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" he describes himself as "an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles".

Holmes is also a competent cryptanalyst. He relates to Watson, "I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writing, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyse one hundred and sixty separate ciphers". One such scheme is solved using frequency analysis in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men".

Holmes's analysis of physical evidence is both scientific and precise. His methods include the use of latent prints such as footprints, hoof prints and bicycle tracks to identify actions at a crime scene (''A Study in Scarlet'', "The Adventure of Silver Blaze", "The Adventure of the Priory School", ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', "The Boscombe Valley Mystery"), the use of tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals ("The Adventure of the Resident Patient", ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''), the comparison of typewritten letters to expose a fraud ("A Case of Identity"), the use of gunpowder residue to expose two murderers ("The Adventure of the Reigate Squire"), bullet comparison from two crime scenes ("The Adventure of the Empty House"), analysis of small pieces of human remains to expose two murders (''The Adventure of the Cardboard Box'') and even an early use of fingerprints ("The Norwood Builder"). Holmes also demonstrates knowledge of psychology in "A Scandal in Bohemia", luring Irene Adler into betraying where she had hidden a photograph based on the "premise" that an unmarried woman will seek her most valuable possession in case of fire, whereas a married woman will grab her baby instead.

Despite the excitement of his life (or perhaps seeking to leave it behind), Holmes retired to the Sussex Downs to take up beekeeping ("The Second Stain") and wrote a book on the subject entitled "Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen". His search for relaxation can also be seen in his love for music, notably in "The Red-Headed League", wherein Holmes takes an evening off from a case to listen to Pablo de Sarasate play violin.

He also enjoys vocal music, particularly Wagner ("The Adventure of the Red Circle").

The film ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' (1985), which speculates about Holmes's youthful adventures, shows Holmes as a brilliant secondary school student, being mentored simultaneously by an eccentric professor/inventor and his dedicated fencing instructor.

Influence

Forensic science

Sherlock Holmes remains a great inspiration for forensic science, especially for the way his acute study of a crime scene yields small clues as to the precise sequence of events. He makes great use of trace evidence such as shoe and tire impressions, as well as fingerprints, ballistics and handwriting analysis, now known as questioned document examination. Such evidence is used to test theories conceived by the police, for example, or by the investigator himself. All of the techniques advocated by Holmes later became reality, but were generally in their infancy at the time Conan Doyle was writing. In many of his reported cases, Holmes frequently complains of the way the crime scene has been contaminated by others, especially by the police, emphasising the critical importance of maintaining its integrity, a now well-known feature of crime scene examination.

Owing to the small scale of the trace evidence (such as tobacco ash, hair or fingerprints), he often uses a magnifying glass at the scene, and an optical microscope back at his lodgings in Baker Street. He uses analytical chemistry for blood residue analysis as well as toxicology examination and determination for poisons. Holmes seems to have maintained a small chemistry laboratory in his lodgings, presumably using simple wet chemical methods for detection of specific toxins, for example. Ballistics is used when spent bullets can be recovered, and their calibre measured and matched with a suspect murder weapon.

Holmes was also very perceptive of the dress and attitude of his clients and suspects, noting style and state of wear of their clothes, any contamination (such as clay on boots), their state of mind and physical condition in order to infer their origin and recent history. Skin marks such as tattoos could reveal much about their past history. He applied the same method to personal items such as walking sticks (famously in ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'') or hats (in the case of The Blue Carbuncle), with small details such as medallions, wear and contamination yielding vital indicators of their absent owners.

An omission from the stories is the use of forensic photography. Even before Holmes' time, high quality photography was used to record accident scenes, as in the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, murders in 1888.

In 2002, the Royal Society of Chemistry bestowed an honorary fellowship of their organisation upon Sherlock Holmes, for his use of forensic science and analytical chemistry in popular literature, making him the only (as of 2010) fictional character to be thus honoured.

Role in the history of the detective story

Although Sherlock Holmes is not the original fiction detective (he was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq), his name has become a byword for the part. His stories also include several detective story characters such as the loyal but less intelligent assistant, a role for which Dr Watson has become the archetype. The investigating detective became a popular genre with many authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers after the demise of Holmes, with characters such as Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. Forensic methods became less important than the psychology of the criminal, despite the strong growth in forensics in use by the police in the early 20th century.

Scientific literature

Sherlock Holmes has occasionally been used in the scientific literature. John Radford (1999) speculates on his intelligence. Using Conan Doyle’s stories as data, Radford applies three different methods to estimate Sherlock Holmes’s IQ, and concludes that his intelligence was very high indeed, estimated at approximately 190 points. Snyder (2004) examines Holmes’ methods in the light of the science and the criminology of the mid to late 19th century. Kempster (2006) compares neurologists’ skills with those displayed by Holmes. Finally, Didierjean and Gobet (2008) review the literature on the psychology of expertise by taking as model a fictional expert: Sherlock Holmes. They highlight aspects of Doyle’s books that are in line with what is currently known about expertise, aspects that are implausible, and aspects that suggest further research.

Legacy

Fan speculation

The fifty-six short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle are termed the "canon" by Sherlock Holmes fans. Early scholars of the canon included Ronald Knox in Britain and Christopher Morley in New York, the latter having founded the Baker Street Irregulars, the first society devoted exclusively to the canon of Holmes, in 1934.

Writers have produced many pop culture references to Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle, or characters from the stories in homage, to a greater or lesser degree. Such allusions can form a plot development, raise the intellectual level of the piece, or act as Easter eggs for an observant audience.

Some have been overt, introducing Holmes as a character in a new setting, or a more subtle allusion, such as making a logical character live in an apartment at number 221B. One well-known example of this is the character Gregory House on the show ''House M.D'', whose name and apartment number are both references to Holmes. Often the simplest reference is to dress anybody who does some kind of detective work in a deerstalker and cape.

However, throughout the entire novel series, Holmes is never explicitly described as wearing a "deerstalker hat". Holmes dons "his ear-flapped travelling cap" in "The Adventure of Silver Blaze". Sidney Paget first drew Holmes wearing the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" and subsequently in several other stories.

"Elementary, my dear Watson"

A third major reference is the oft-quoted but non-canonical catchphrase: "Elementary, my dear Watson". This phrase is never actually uttered by Holmes in any of the sixty Holmes stories written by Conan Doyle. In the stories, Holmes often remarks that his logical conclusions are "elementary", in that he considers them to be simple and obvious. He also, on occasion, refers to Dr. Watson as "my dear Watson". The two fragments, however, never appear together. One of the closest examples to this phrase appears in "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", when Holmes explains a deduction:

The first known use of this phrase was in the 1915 novel, ''Psmith Journalist'', by P. G. Wodehouse. It also appears at the very end of the 1929 film, ''The Return of Sherlock Holmes'', the first Sherlock Holmes sound film. William Gillette, who played Holmes on stage and radio, had previously used the similar phrase, ''Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow''. The phrase might owe its household familiarity to its use in Edith Meiser's scripts for ''The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' radio series, broadcast from 1939 to 1947.

The Great Hiatus

Holmes aficionados refer to the period from 1891 to 1894—the time between Holmes's disappearance and presumed death in "The Adventure of the Final Problem" and his reappearance in "The Adventure of the Empty House"—as "the Great Hiatus". It is notable, though, that one later story ("The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge") is described as taking place in 1892.

Conan Doyle wrote the first set of stories over the course of a decade. Wanting to devote more time to his historical novels, he killed off Holmes in "The Final Problem," which appeared in print in 1893. After resisting public pressure for eight years, the author wrote ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', which appeared in 1901, implicitly setting it before Holmes's "death" (some theorise that it actually took place after "The Return" but with Watson planting clues to an earlier date). The public, while pleased with the story, was not satisfied with a posthumous Holmes, and so Conan Doyle revived Holmes two years later. Many have speculated on his motives for bringing Holmes back to life, notably writer-director Nicholas Meyer, who wrote an essay on the subject in the 1970s entitled "The Great Man Takes a Walk". The actual reasons are not known, other than the obvious: publishers offered to pay generously. For whatever reason, Conan Doyle continued to write Holmes stories for a quarter-century longer.

Some writers have come up with other explanations for the hiatus. In Meyer's novel ''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'', the hiatus is depicted as a secret sabbatical following Holmes's treatment for cocaine addiction at the hands of Sigmund Freud, and presents Holmes making the light-hearted suggestion that Watson write a fictitious account claiming he had been killed by Moriarty, saying of the public: "They'll never believe you in any case".

In his memoirs, Conan Doyle quotes a reader, who judged the later stories inferior to the earlier ones, to the effect that when Holmes went over the Reichenbach Falls, he may not have been killed, but was never quite the same man. The differences in the pre- and post-Hiatus Holmes have in fact created speculation among those who play "The Great Game" (making believe Sherlock Holmes was a historical person). Among the more fanciful theories, the story "The Case of the Detective's Smile" by Mark Bourne, published in the anthology ''Sherlock Holmes in Orbit'', posits that one of the places Holmes visited during his hiatus was Alice's Wonderland. While there, he solved the case of the stolen tarts, and his experiences there contributed to his kicking the cocaine addiction.

Societies

In 1934, the Sherlock Holmes Society, in London, and the Baker Street Irregulars, in New York were founded. Both are still active (though the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 to be resuscitated only in 1951). The London-based society is one of many worldwide who arrange visits to the scenes of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, such as the Reichenbach Falls in the Swiss Alps.

The two initial societies founded in 1934 were followed by many more Holmesians circles, first of all in America (where they are called "scion societies"—offshoots—of the Baker Street Irregulars), then in England and Denmark. Nowadays, there are Sherlockian societies in many countries, such as India and Japan.

Museums

During the 1951 Festival of Britain, Sherlock Holmes's sitting-room was reconstructed as the masterpiece of a Sherlock Holmes Exhibition, displaying a unique collection of original material. After the 1951 exhibition closed, items were transferred to the Sherlock Holmes Pub, in London, and to the Conan Doyle Collection in Lucens (Switzerland). Both exhibitions, each including its own Baker Street Sitting-Room reconstruction, are still open to the public. In 1990, the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened in Baker Street London and the following year in Meiringen, Switzerland another museum opened; naturally, they include less historical material about Conan Doyle than about Sherlock Holmes himself. The Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street, London was the first Museum in the world to be dedicated to a fictional character. A private collection of Conan Doyle is also housed in the Portsmouth City Museum which has a permanent exhibit, due to his importance in the city where he lived and worked for many years.

Adaptations and derived works

The enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes has led to hundreds of works based on the character – both adaptations into other media and original stories. The copyright in all of Conan Doyle's works expired in the United Kingdom in 2000 (1980 in Canada and Australasia) and they are therefore in the public domain throughout most of the world (where the expiry term is 50 or 70 years following the year of death). All works published in the United States prior to 1923 are in the public domain; this includes all Sherlock Holmes stories with the exception of some of the stories contained within The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. For works published after 1923 but before 1963, if the copyright was registered, its term lasts for 95 years. The Conan Doyle heirs registered the copyright to ''The Case Book'' (published in the USA after 1923) in 1981.

Stage and screen adaptations

The ''Guinness World Records'' has consistently listed Sherlock Holmes as the "most portrayed movie character" with 75 actors playing the part in over 211 films. Holmes' first screen appearance was in the Mutoscope film ''Sherlock Holmes Baffled'' in 1900, albeit in a barely-recognisable form.

William Gillette’s 1899 play ''Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner'' was a synthesis of several stories by Doyle, mostly based on ''A Scandal in Bohemia'' adding love interest, with the Holmes-Moriarty exchange from ''The Final Problem'', as well as elements from ''The Copper Beeches'' and ''A Study in Scarlet''. By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury had played Holmes on stage more than a thousand times. This play formed the basis for Gillette's 1916 motion picture, ''Sherlock Holmes''.

In a 1924 comedy film "Sherlock Jr." Buster Keaton's character longs to be a detective.

Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock Holmes, alongside Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson, in fourteen US films (two for 20th Century Fox and a dozen for Universal Pictures) from 1939 to 1946, as well as a number of radio plays. It is these films that produced the iconic though noncanonical line, "Elementary, my dear Watson".

Ronald Howard starred in 39 episodes of the ''Sherlock Holmes'' 1954 American TV series with Howard Marion Crawford as Watson. The storylines deviated from the books of Conan Doyle, changing characters and other details.

Fritz Weaver appeared as Sherlock Holmes in the musical ''Baker Street'', which ran on Broadway between 16 February and 14 November 1965. Peter Sallis portrayed Dr. Watson, Inga Swenson appeared as The Woman, Irene Adler, and Martin Gabel played Moriarty. Virginia Vestoff, Tommy Tune, and Christopher Walken were also members of the original cast.

In ''The Return Of Sherlock Holmes'', a TV-Movie aired in 1987, Margaret Colin stars as Dr. Watson's great-granddaughter Jane Watson, a Boston private eye, who stumbles upon Sherlock Holmes' (played by Michael Pennington) body in frozen suspension and restores the Victorian sleuth to life in the 1980s. The film was intended as a pilot for a TV series which never materialised. A similar plot line was used in ''Sherlock Holmes Returns: 1994 Baker Street'' where Dr Amy Winslow (played by Debrah Farentino) discovers Sherlock Holmes frozen in the cellar of house in San Francisco owned by a descendant of Mrs Hudson. Holmes (played by Anthony Higgins) froze himself in the hopes that crimes in the future would be less dull. He discovers that consulting detectives have been replaced by the police department's forensic science lab and that the Moriarty family are still the Napoleon's of crime.

Two episodes of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' feature Sherlock Holmes. In episode No. 29 ("Elementary, Dear Data") the character of Data, played by Brent Spiner, pretends he is Sherlock to Geordi's Dr. Watson in a holodeck experience. In episode No. 138 ("Ship in a Bottle") archvillain Dr. Moriarty seems to escape from the holodeck into the Enterprise proper.

Jeremy Brett is generally considered the definitive Holmes, having played the role in four series of ''Sherlock Holmes'', created by John Hawkesworth for Britain's Granada Television, from 1984 through to 1994, as well as depicting Holmes on stage. Brett's Dr Watson was played by David Burke (pre-hiatus) and Edward Hardwicke (post-hiatus) in the series. Jeremy Brett wished to be the best Sherlock Holmes the world had ever seen and conducted extensive research into the character and the author that created him. He strove to bring passion and life to the role and in his obituary it was said, "Mr. Brett was regarded as the quintessential Holmes: breathtakingly analytical, given to outrageous disguises and the blackest moods and relentless in his enthusiasm for solving the most intricate crimes."

Nicol Williamson portrayed Holmes in ''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'' with Robert Duvall playing Watson and featuring Alan Arkin as Sigmund Freud. The 1976 adaption was written by Nicholas Meyer from his 1974 book of the same name, and directed by Herbert Ross.

Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet television broadcast a series of five made-for-TV films in a total of eleven parts, ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson'', starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. Livanov's portrayal of Holmes is widely considered canonical. Holmes museum in London, Baker St., 221B, has the portrait of Livanov depicting Holmes himself.

In 2002 made-for-television movie ''Sherlock: Case of Evil'', James D'Arcy starred as Holmes in his 20s. The story noticeably departs from the style and backstory of the canon and D'Arcy's portrayal of Holmes is slightly different from prior incarnations of the character, psychologically disturbed, an absinthe addicted, a heavy drinker and a ladies' man.

The Fox television series ''House'' contains numerous similarities and references to Holmes. Show creator David Shore has acknowledged this "subtle homage".

In the 2009 film ''Sherlock Holmes'', based on a story by Lionel Wigram and images by John Watkiss, directed by Guy Ritchie, the role of Holmes is performed by Robert Downey, Jr. with Jude Law portraying Watson. It is a reinterpretation which heavily focuses on Holmes's more anti-social personality traits as an unkempt eccentric with a brilliant analytical mind and formidable martial abilities, making this the most cynical incarnation of Holmes. However, with the exception of missing Holmes's 'catlike love of personal cleanliness', many critics have lauded the film as one of the most faithful to Doyle's canon. Robert Downey Jr. won the Golden Globe Award for his portrayal. Downey Jr. will return in the 2011 sequel ''Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows''.

Independent film company The Asylum released the direct-to-DVD film ''Sherlock Holmes'' in January 2010. In the film, Holmes and Watson battle a criminal mastermind dubbed "Spring-Heeled Jack", who controls several mechanical creatures to commit crimes across London. Holmes (Ben Syder) is portrayed as considerably younger than most actors who have played him, and his disapproval of Scotland Yard is undertoned, though things like his drug additction remain mostly unchanged. The film features a brother of Holmes's called Thorpe, who was invented by the producers of the film out of creative liberty. His companion Watson is played by ''Torchwood'' actor Gareth David-Lloyd.

In March 2010 Youtuber "Ross K" (Ross K Foad) created No Place Like Holmes, a web drama comedy show based on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. It is considered to be the only ongoing Sherlock Holmes web show. It focuses on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson following an encounter with a malicious demonic Sir Hugo Baskerville, who freezes them in a time spell only for them to eventually re-emerge in the present day. Unlike the BBC Sherlock, this Holmes does not embrace technology or modern-day devices and remains the Victorian gentleman he has always been, dressing the same and holding the same values he did over 100 years ago. There is also a spin-off which takes place in 1891–1894 covering the Great Hiatus years where Sherlock is still on the run from Moriarty's right-hand men following the events of the Final Problem.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modern-day version of the detective in the BBC One TV series ''Sherlock'', which premiered on 25 July 2010. The series changes the books' original Victorian setting to the shady and violent present-day London. The show was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, best-known as writers for the BBC television series ''Doctor Who''. Says Moffat, "Conan Doyle's stories were never about frock coats and gas light; they're about brilliant detection, dreadful villains and blood-curdling crimes – and frankly, to hell with the crinoline. Other detectives have cases, Sherlock Holmes has adventures, and that's what matters."

Cumberbatch's Holmes was described by the BBC as

brilliant, aloof and almost entirely lacking in social graces. Sherlock is a unique young man with a mind like a 'racing engine'. Without problems to solve, it will tear itself to pieces. And the more bizarre and baffling the problems the better. He has set himself up as the world's only consulting detective, whom the police grudgingly accept as their superior.

He also uses modern technology, such as texting and internet blogging, to solve the crimes, and in a nod towards changing social attitudes and broadcasting regulations, he has replaced his pipe with multiple nicotine patches.

Related and derivative works

In addition to the Sherlock Holmes corpus, Conan Doyle's "The Lost Special" (1898) features an unnamed "amateur reasoner" clearly intended to be identified as Holmes by his readers. His explanation for a baffling disappearance, argued in Holmes's characteristic style, turns out to be quite wrong—evidently Conan Doyle was not above poking fun at his own hero. A short story by Conan Doyle using the same idea is "The Man with the Watches". Another example of Conan Doyle's humour is "How Watson Learned the Trick" (1924), a parody of the frequent Watson-Holmes breakfast table scenes. A further (and earlier) parody by Conan Doyle is "The Field Bazaar". He also wrote other material, especially plays, featuring Holmes. Many of these are collected in ''Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha'' edited by Jack Tracy, ''The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' edited by Peter Haining and ''The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes'' compiled by Richard Lancelyn Green.

In 1907, Sherlock Holmes began featuring in a series of German booklets. Among the writers was Theo van Blankensee. Watson had been replaced by a 19 year old assistant from the street, among his ''Baker Street Irregulars'', with the name Harry Taxon, and Mrs. Hudson had been replaced by one Mrs. Bonnet. From number 10 the series changed its name to "Aus den Geheimakten des Welt-Detektivs". The French edition changed its name from "Les Dossiers Secrets de Sherlock Holmes" to "Les Dossiers du Roi des Detectives".

Sherlock Holmes's abilities as both a good fighter and as an excellent logician have been a boon to other authors who have lifted his name, or details of his exploits, for their plots. These range from Holmes as a cocaine addict, whose drug-fuelled fantasies lead him to cast an innocent Professor Moriarty as a super villain (''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution''), to science-fiction plots involving him being re-animated after death to fight crime in the future (''Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century'').

Some authors have supplied stories to fit the tantalising references in the canon to unpublished cases (e.g. "The giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared" in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire"), notably ''The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes'' by Conan Doyle's son Adrian Conan Doyle with John Dickson Carr, and ''The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' by Ken Greenwald, based rather closely on episodes of the 1945 Sherlock Holmes radio show that starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and for which scripts were written by Dennis Green and Anthony Boucher. Others have used different characters from the stories as their own detective, e.g. Mycroft Holmes in ''Enter the Lion'' by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright (1979) or Dr James Mortimer (from ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'') in books by Gerard Williams.

Laurie R. King recreates Sherlock Holmes in her Mary Russell series (starting with ''The Beekeeper's Apprentice''), set during the First World War and the 1920s. Her Holmes is (semi)retired in Sussex, where he is literally stumbled over by a teenage American girl. Recognising a kindred spirit, he gradually trains her as his apprentice. As of 2009 the series includes nine novels and a novella tie-in with a book from King's present-time Kate Martinelli series, ''The Art of Detection''.

Carole Nelson Douglas' series, the Irene Adler Adventures, is based on the character from Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia". The first book, ''Good Night, Mr. Holmes'', retells that tale from Irene's point of view. The series is narrated by Adler's companion, Penelope Huxleigh, in a role similar to that of Dr. Watson.

The film ''They Might Be Giants'' is a 1971 romantic comedy based on the 1961 play of the same name (both written by James Goldman) in which the character Justin Playfair, played by George C. Scott, is convinced he is Sherlock Holmes, and manages to convince many others of same, including the psychiatrist Dr. Watson, played by Joanne Woodward, who is assigned to evaluate him so he can be committed to a mental institution.

The film ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' (1985) explores adventures of Holmes and Watson as boarding school pupils.

The Japanese anime series "Detective Conan", also called "Case Closed" in English, is an homage to Doyle's work. The 2002 film ''The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire'' is loosely based on Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire".

In the 1980s Ben Kingsley played Dr. Watson in ''Without a Clue''. Dr. Watson hired an actor to be Sherlock Holmes (Michael Caine) because the cases he has been writing about are his own. Moriarty is said to know that Sherlock Holmes is an idiot.

The novel ''A Dog About Town'' by J. F. Englert makes reference to Sherlock Holmes, comparing the black Labrador retriever narrator, Randolph, to Doyle's detective as well as naming a fictitious spirit guide after him.

''The Final Solution'' is a 2004 novel by Michael Chabon. The story, set in 1944, revolves around an 89-year-old long-retired detective who may or may not be Sherlock Holmes but is always called just "the old man", now interested mostly in beekeeping, and his quest to find a missing parrot, the only friend of a mute Jewish boy. The title references both Doyle's story "The Final Problem" and the Final Solution, the Nazis' plan for the genocide of the Jewish people.

In 2006, a southern California "vaudeville-nouveau" group known as Sound & Fury began performing a theatre in the round parody show entitled "Sherlock Holmes & The Saline Solution" which depicts Holmes as a bumbling figure guided by a slightly less clueless Watson. The show ran in Los Angeles as well as the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals through 2009.

In a novella "The Prisoner of the Tower, or A Short But Beautiful Journey of Three Wise Men" by Boris Akunin published in 2008 in Russia as the conclusion of "Jade Rosary Beads" book, Sherlock Holmes and Erast Fandorin oppose Arsène Lupin on 31 December 1899.

In June 2010 it was announced that Franklin Watts books, a part of Hachette Children's Books are to release a series of four children's graphic novels by writer Tony Lee and artist Dan Boultwood in spring 2011 based around the Baker Street Irregulars during the three years that Sherlock Holmes was believed dead, between The Adventure of the Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House. Although not specifying whether Sherlock Holmes actually appears in the books, the early reports include appearances by Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade and Irene Adler.

On 17 January 2011, it was announced that the Conan Doyle estate had commissioned Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider novels, The Power of Five and TV's ''Foyle's War'', to write a brand new, authorised Sherlock Holmes novel to be published by Orion Books in September 2011. "The content of the new tale – and indeed the title – remain a closely guarded secret."

The original stories

The original Sherlock Holmes stories consist of fifty-six short stories and four novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Novels

''A Study in Scarlet'' (published 1887, in ''Beeton's Christmas Annual'')

''The Sign of the Four'' (published 1890, ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'')

''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (serialised 1901–1902 in ''The Strand'')

''The Valley of Fear'' (serialised 1914–1915 in ''The Strand'')

Short stories

''For more detail see List of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories''.

The short stories, originally published in periodicals, were later gathered into five anthologies:

''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1891–1892 in ''The Strand'')

''The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1892–1893 in ''The Strand'' as further episodes of the ''Adventures'')

''The Return of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1903–1904 in ''The Strand'')

''The Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (including His Last Bow) '' (contains stories published 1908–1913 and 1917)

''The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1921–1927)

See also

"Holmes-ian" Detection:

*Forensic chemistry

*Forensic engineering

*HOLMES2 (police computer system)

List of people who have played Sherlock Holmes

List of Holmesian studies

Other Arthur Conan Doyle characters:

*Professor Challenger

''Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes

*Games:

*''Sherlock'' (1984) (Philip Mitchell) (PC text adventure)

*''221B Baker Street'' (1987) (Datasoft) (PC and Mac)

*''Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels'' (1988) (Infocom)

*''Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective'' (1991) (ICOM Simulations)

*''Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II'' (1992) (ICOM Simulations)

*''Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. III'' (1993) (ICOM Simulations)

*''The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel'' (1992) (Electronic Arts) (PC)

*''The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo'' (1996) (Electronic Arts) (PC)

*''Sherlock Holmes'' series: (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy'' (2002) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring'' (2004) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened'' (2006) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin'' (2007) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet'' (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper'' (2009) (Frogwares) (PC)(X360)

References

Further reading

Fenoli Marc, Qui a tué Sherlock Holmes ? [Who shot Sherlock Holmes ?], Review L’Alpe 45, Glénat-Musée Dauphinois, Grenoble-France, 2009. ISBN 978-2-7234-6902-9

Lieboe, Eli. ''Doctor Joe Bell: Model for Sherlock Holmes''. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982; Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87972-198-5

External links

The Ocular Helmsman A Vade Mecum Upon the Personal Effects & Environs of Mssrs. Sherlock Holmes & John H. Watson of 221B Baker Street for the Victorian Layman (sic)

For the Heirs to Holmes, a Tangled Web

The Sherlock Holmes Museum 221b Baker Street, London England.

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London London society founded 1951

Sherlockian Major Sherlock Holmes reference with Original Stories, Pictures, articles and links to other holmesian websites.

Baker Street Dozen Sherlock Holmes in Books, Film and Media

Bert Coules' website (BBC Radio 4 canonical and original stories, 1989–2004)

Discovering Sherlock Holmes at Stanford University

Sherlock Holmes Special Collections

The Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Special Collections and Rare Books

Edward Winter, Chess and Sherlock Holmes

Mostly-Victorian.com original Sherlock Holmes tales from ''The Strand''

Wall Street Journal on Sherlock Holmes

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name	Arthur Conan Doyle
birth name	Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
birth date	May 22, 1859
birth place	Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
death date	July 07, 1930
death place	Crowborough, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom
nationality	Scottish, Irish
citizenship	British
occupation	Novelist, short story writer, poet, doctor of medicine
genre	Detective fiction, science fiction, historical novels, non-fiction
influences	Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson
influenced	Agatha Christie and other detective fiction authors, Edgar Rice Burroughs
notableworks	Stories of Sherlock Holmes''The Lost World''
signature	Arthur Conan Doyle Signature.svg }}

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.

Life

Early life

Arthur Conan Doyle was born the third of ten siblings on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, who was born in England of Irish descent, and his mother, born Mary Foley, who was Irish, had married in 1855. Doyle's father died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness.

Although he is now referred to as "Conan Doyle", the origin of this compound surname (if that is how he meant it to be understood) is uncertain. The entry in which his baptism is recorded in the register of St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh gives "Arthur Ignatius Conan" as his Christian name, and simply "Doyle" as his surname. It also names Michael Conan as his godfather.

Conan Doyle was sent to the Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, at the age of nine. He then went on to Stonyhurst College until 1875.

From 1876 to 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, including a period working in the town of Aston (now a district of Birmingham) and in Sheffield. While studying, Conan Doyle also began writing short stories; his first published story appeared in ''Chambers's Edinburgh Journal'' before he was 20. Following his term at university, he was employed as a ship's surgeon on the SS ''Mayumba'' during a voyage to the West African coast. He completed his doctorate on the subject of ''tabes dorsalis'' in 1885.

Origins of Sherlock Holmes

In 1882 he joined former classmate George Budd as his partner at a medical practice in Plymouth, but their relationship proved difficult, and Conan Doyle soon left to set up an independent practice. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than £10 to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful; while waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novel—''The Narrative of John Smith''—which would go unpublished until 2011. His first significant work, ''A Study in Scarlet'', appeared in ''Beeton's Christmas Annual'' for 1887. It featured the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, who was partially modelled after his former university teacher Joseph Bell. Conan Doyle wrote to him, "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes. ... [R]ound the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man." Future short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes were published in the English ''Strand Magazine.'' Robert Louis Stevenson was able, even in faraway Samoa, to recognise the strong similarity between Joseph Bell and Sherlock Holmes: "[M]y compliments on your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes. ... [C]an this be my old friend Joe Bell?" Other authors sometimes suggest additional influences—for instance, the famous Edgar Allan Poe character C. Auguste Dupin. While living in Southsea, he played football as a goalkeeper for an amateur side, Portsmouth Association Football Club, under the pseudonym A. C. Smith. (This club, disbanded in 1894, had no connection with the present-day Portsmouth F.C., which was founded in 1898.) Conan Doyle was also a keen cricketer, and between 1899 and 1907 he played 10 first-class matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). His highest score, in 1902 against London County, was 43. He was an occasional bowler who took just one first-class wicket (although one of high pedigree—it was W. G. Grace). Also a keen golfer, Conan Doyle was elected captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club, East Sussex for 1910. He moved to Little Windlesham house in Crowborough with his second wife Jean Leckie and their family from 1907 until his death in July 1930.

Marriages and family

In 1885 Conan Doyle married Louisa (or Louise) Hawkins, known as "Touie". She suffered from tuberculosis and died on 4 July 1906. The next year he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie, whom he had first met and fallen in love with in 1897. He had maintained a platonic relationship with Jean while his Louisa was still alive, out of loyalty to her. Jean died in London on 27 June 1940.

Conan Doyle fathered five children. He had two with his first wife: # Mary Louise (28 January 1889 – 12 June 1976) # Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, known as Kingsley (15 November 1892 – 28 October 1918)

and three with his second wife: # Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 – 9 March 1955), second husband of Georgian Princess Nina Mdivani # Adrian Malcolm (19 November 1910 – 3 June 1970) # Jean Lena Annette (21 December 1912 – 18 November 1997).

"Death" of Sherlock Holmes

In 1890 Conan Doyle studied ophthalmology in Vienna, and moved to London in 1891 to set up a practice as an ophthalmologist. He wrote in his autobiography that not a single patient crossed his door. This gave him more time for writing, and in November 1891 he wrote to his mother: "I think of slaying Holmes ... and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things." His mother responded, "You may do what you deem fit, but the crowds will not take this lightheartedly."

In December 1893, in order to dedicate more of his time to more "important" works—his historical novels— Conan Doyle had Holmes and Professor Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths together down the Reichenbach Falls in the story "The Final Problem". Public outcry, however, led him to bring the character back in 1901, in ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''. In "The Adventure of the Empty House", it was explained that only Moriarty had fallen; but since Holmes had other dangerous enemies—especially Colonel Sebastian Moran—he had arranged to also be temporarily "dead". Holmes ultimately was featured in a total of 56 short stories and four Conan Doyle novels, and has since appeared in many novels and stories by other authors.

Political campaigning

Following the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century and the condemnation from around the world over the United Kingdom's conduct, Conan Doyle wrote a short pamphlet titled ''The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct'', which justified the UK's role in the Boer War and was widely translated. Doyle had served as a volunteer doctor in the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein between March and June 1900 .

Conan Doyle believed it was this pamphlet that resulted in his being knighted in 1902 and appointed Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey. Also in 1900 he wrote the longer book, ''The Great Boer War''. During the early years of the 20th century, Sir Arthur twice ran for Parliament as a Liberal Unionist—once in Edinburgh and once in the Hawick Burghs—but although he received a respectable vote, he was not elected.

Conan Doyle was involved in the campaign for the reform of the Congo Free State, led by journalist E. D. Morel and diplomat Roger Casement. During 1909 he wrote ''The Crime of the Congo'', a long pamphlet in which he denounced the horrors in that country. He became acquainted with Morel and Casement, and it is possible that, together with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, they inspired several characters in the 1912 novel ''The Lost World''.

He broke with both when Morel became one of the leaders of the pacifist movement during the First World War, and when Casement was convicted of treason against the UK during the Easter Rising. Conan Doyle tried unsuccessfully to save Casement from the death penalty, arguing that he had been driven mad and was not responsible for his actions.

Correcting injustice

Conan Doyle was also a fervent advocate of justice and personally investigated two closed cases, which led to two men being exonerated of the crimes of which they were accused. The first case, in 1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were set on Edalji's conviction, even though the mutilations continued after their suspect was jailed.

It was partially as a result of this case that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907, so not only did Conan Doyle help George Edalji, his work helped establish a way to correct other miscarriages of justice. The story of Conan Doyle and Edalji was fictionalised in Julian Barnes's 2005 novel ''Arthur & George''. In Nicholas Meyer's pastiche ''The West End Horror'' (1976), Holmes manages to help clear the name of a shy Parsee Indian character wronged by the English justice system. Edalji himself was a Parsee.

The second case, that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in Glasgow in 1908, excited Conan Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution case and a general sense that Slater was not guilty. He ended up paying most of the costs for Slater's successful appeal in 1928.

Spiritualism

Following the death of his wife Louisa in 1906, the death of his son Kingsley just before the end of World War I, and the deaths of his brother Innes, his two brothers-in-law (one of whom was E. W. Hornung, creator of the literary character Raffles) and his two nephews shortly after the war, Conan Doyle sank into depression. He found solace supporting spiritualism and its attempts to find proof of existence beyond the grave. In particular, according to some, he favoured Christian Spiritualism and encouraged the Spiritualists' National Union to accept an eighth precept – that of following the teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth. He also was a member of the renowned paranormal organisation The Ghost Club. Its focus, then and now, is on the scientific study of alleged paranormal activities in order to prove (or refute) the existence of paranormal phenomena.

On 28 October 1918 Kingsley Doyle died from pneumonia, which he contracted during his convalescence after being seriously wounded during the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Brigadier-General Innes Doyle died, also from pneumonia, in February 1919. Sir Arthur became involved with Spiritualism to the extent that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on the subject, ''The Land of Mist''. His book ''The Coming of the Fairies'' (1921) shows he was apparently convinced of the veracity of the five Cottingley Fairies photographs (which decades later were exposed as a hoax). He reproduced them in the book, together with theories about the nature and existence of fairies and spirits. In ''The History of Spiritualism'' (1926), Conan Doyle praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materialisations produced by Eusapia Palladino and Mina "Margery" Crandon.

Conan Doyle was friends for a time with Harry Houdini, the American magician who himself became a prominent opponent of the Spiritualist movement in the 1920s following the death of his beloved mother. Although Houdini insisted that Spiritualist mediums employed trickery (and consistently exposed them as frauds), Conan Doyle became convinced that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers—a view expressed in Conan Doyle's ''The Edge of the Unknown''. Houdini was apparently unable to convince Conan Doyle that his feats were simply illusions, leading to a bitter public falling out between the two.

Richard Milner, an American historian of science, has presented a case that Conan Doyle may have been the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912, creating the counterfeit hominid fossil that fooled the scientific world for over 40 years. Milner says that Conan Doyle had a motive—namely, revenge on the scientific establishment for debunking one of his favourite psychics—and that ''The Lost World'' contains several encrypted clues regarding his involvement in the hoax.

Samuel Rosenberg's 1974 book ''Naked is the Best Disguise'' purports to explain how, throughout his writings, Conan Doyle left open clues that related to hidden and suppressed aspects of his mentality.

Death

Conan Doyle was found clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham, his house in Crowborough, East Sussex, on 7 July 1930. He died of a heart attack at the age of 71. His last words were directed toward his wife: "You are wonderful." The epitaph on his gravestone in the churchyard at Minstead in the New Forest, Hampshire, reads:

STEEL TRUEBLADE STRAIGHTARTHUR CONAN DOYLEKNIGHTPATRIOT, PHYSICIAN & MAN OF LETTERS

Undershaw, the home near Hindhead, south of London that Arthur Conan Doyle had built and lived in for at least a decade, was a hotel and restaurant from 1924 until 2004. It was then bought by a developer, and has since been empty while conservationists and Conan Doyle fans fight to preserve it.

A statue honours Conan Doyle at Crowborough Cross in Crowborough, where Conan Doyle lived for 23 years. There is also a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, close to the house where Conan Doyle was born.

Bibliography

See also

Physician writer

William Gillette, a personal friend who performed the most famous stage-version of ''Sherlock Holmes''

References

External links

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – His life, all his works, and more

Arthur Conan Doyle Online Exhibition

Conan Doyle in Birmingham

The Arthur Conan Doyle Society

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

Works at Project Gutenberg Australia

Online works available from The University of Adelaide Library

''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'', full text with embedded audio (PDF).

Works of Arthur Conan Doyle available as freely downloadable eBooks at University of Virginia EText Center

"A Case of Considerable Interest" an exhibition celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection of the Toronto Public Library

C. Frederick Kittle's Collection of Doyleana at the Newberry Library

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name	Mark Twain
birth name	Samuel Langhorne Clemens
pseudonym	Mark Twain
birth date	November 30, 1835
birth place	Florida, Missouri, U.S.
death date	April 21, 1910
death place	Redding, Connecticut, U.S.
occupation	Writer, lecturer
nationality	American
genre	Fiction, historical fiction, children's literature, non-fiction, travel literature, satire, essay, philosophical literature, social commentary, literary criticism
signature	Mark Twain Signatures-2.svg
notableworks	''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer''
spouse
children	Langdon, Susy, Clara, Jean }}

thumb|right|265px|~ Mark Twain ~~ aka ~~ Samuel Clemens ~[[Postage stamps and postal history of the United States#Famous Americans Series of 1940|National Honor given to TwainUS Commemorative Issue of 1940]]

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876), and its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel."

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for ''Huckleberry Finn'' and ''Tom Sawyer''. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, ''The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County'', which became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.

He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.

However, he lacked financial acumen. Though he made a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures, in particular the Paige Compositor, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. With the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers, however, he eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility.

Twain was born during a visit by Halley's Comet, and predicted that he would "go out with it" as well. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age," and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."

Early life

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, to a Tennessee country merchant, John Marshall Clemens (August 11, 1798 – March 24, 1847), and Jane Lampton Clemens (June 18, 1803 – October 27, 1890).

Twain was the sixth of seven children. Only three of his siblings survived childhood: his brother Orion (July 17, 1825 – December 11, 1897); Henry, who died in a riverboat explosion (July 13, 1838 – June 21, 1858); and Pamela (September 19, 1827 – August 31, 1904). His sister Margaret (May 31, 1830 – August 17, 1839) died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin (June 8, 1832 – May 12, 1842) died three years later. Another brother, Pleasant (1828–1829), died at six months. Twain was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley's Comet. On December 4, 1985, the United States Postal Service issued a stamped envelope for "Mark Twain and Halley's Comet."

When Twain was four, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' and ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''. Missouri was a slave state and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he would later explore in his writing.

Twain’s father was an attorney and a local judge. The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was organized in his office in 1846. The railroad connected the second and third largest cities in the state and was the westernmost United States railroad until the Transcontinental Railroad. It delivered mail to and from the Pony Express.

In March 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia. The next year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the ''Hannibal Journal'', a newspaper owned by his brother Orion. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. He joined the union and educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. At 22, Twain returned to Missouri.

On a voyage to New Orleans down the Mississippi, steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby inspired Twain to become a pilot himself. As Twain observed in ''Life on the Mississippi'', the pilot surpassed a steamboat's captain in prestige and authority; it was a rewarding occupation with wages set at $250 per month, roughly equivalent to $}} a year today. A steamboat pilot needed to know the ever-changing river to be able to stop at the hundreds of ports and wood-lots. Twain studied 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the Mississippi for more than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859.

While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry was killed on June 21, 1858, when the steamboat he was working on, the ''Pennsylvania'', exploded. Twain had foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology; he was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research. Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. He continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the American Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi was curtailed.

Missouri was considered by many to be part of the South, and was represented in both the Confederate and Federal governments during the Civil War. Twain wrote a sketch, "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed," which claimed he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before disbanding their company.

Travels

Twain joined Orion, who in 1861 became secretary to James W. Nye, the governor of Nevada Territory, and headed west. Twain and his brother traveled more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake City. The experiences inspired ''Roughing It'' and provided material for ''The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County''. Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, where he became a miner. Twain failed as a miner and worked at a Virginia City newspaper, the ''Territorial Enterprise''. Here he first used his pen name. On February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous travel account ''"Letter From Carson – re: Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music"'' with "Mark Twain."

Twain moved to San Francisco, California in 1864, still as a journalist. He met writers such as Bret Harte, Artemus Ward, and Dan DeQuille. The young poet Ina Coolbrith may have romanced him.

His first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was published in a New York weekly, ''The Saturday Press'', on November 18, 1865. It brought him national attention. A year later, he traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the ''Sacramento Union''. His travelogues were popular and became the basis for his first lectures.

In 1867, a local newspaper funded a trip to the Mediterranean. During his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a popular collection of travel letters, which were later compiled as ''The Innocents Abroad'' in 1869. It was on this trip that he met his future brother-in-law.

Upon returning to the United States, Twain was offered honorary membership in the secret society Scroll and Key of Yale University in 1868. Its devotion to "fellowship, moral and literary self-improvement, and charity" suited him well.

Marriage and children

Charles Langdon showed a picture of his sister, Olivia, to Twain; Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight. The two corresponded throughout 1868, but Olivia rejected his first marriage proposal. Two months later, they were engaged and a year later married in February 1870 in Elmira, New York, where he had courted her. She came from a "wealthy but liberal family," and through her he met abolitionists, "socialists, principled atheists and activists for women's rights and social equality," including Harriet Beecher Stowe (his next door neighbor in Hartford, Connecticut), Frederick Douglass, and the writer and utopian socialist William Dean Howells, who became a longtime friend.

The couple lived in Buffalo, New York from 1869 to 1871. Twain owned a stake in the ''Buffalo Express'' newspaper, and worked as an editor and writer. While living in Buffalo, their son Langdon died of diphtheria at 19 months.

Olivia gave birth to three daughters: Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962) and Jean (1880–1909). The couple's marriage lasted 34 years, until Olivia's death in 1904. All of the Clemens family are buried in Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery.

Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where starting in 1873, he arranged the building of a home (local admirers saved it from demolition in 1927 and eventually turned it into a museum focused on him). In the 1870s and 1880s, Twain and his family summered at Quarry Farm, the home of Olivia' sister, Susan Crane. In 1874, Susan had a study built apart from the main house so that her brother-in-law would have a quiet place in which to write. Also, Twain smoked pipes constantly, and Susan Crane did not wish him to do so in her house. During his seventeen years in Hartford (1874–1891) and over twenty summers at Quarry Farm, Twain wrote many of his classic novels, among them ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876), ''The Prince and the Pauper'' (1881), ''Life on the Mississippi'' (1883), ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1885) and ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' (1889).

Twain made a second tour of Europe, described in the 1880 book ''A Tramp Abroad''. His tour included a stay in Heidelberg from May 6 until July 23, 1878, and a visit to London.

Love of science and technology

Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla, and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory.

Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace suspenders) and a history trivia game. Most commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages only needed to be moistened before use.

His book ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' features a time traveler from contemporary America, using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of storyline would later become a common feature of a science fiction sub-genre, alternate history.

In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in ''The Prince and the Pauper'' (1909), a two-reel short film.

Financial troubles

Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through investments, mostly in new inventions and technology, particularly the Paige typesetting machine. It was a beautifully engineered mechanical marvel that amazed viewers when it worked, but was prone to breakdowns. Twain spent $300,000 (equal to $}} today) on it between 1880 and 1894, but before it could be perfected, it was made obsolete by the Linotype. He lost not only the bulk of his book profits but also a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance.

Twain also lost money through his publishing house, which enjoyed initial success selling the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, but went broke soon after, losing money on a biography of Pope Leo XIII; fewer than two hundred copies were sold.

Twain's writings and lectures, combined with the help of a new friend, enabled him to recover financially. In 1893, he began a 15-year-long friendship with financier Henry Huttleston Rogers, a principal of Standard Oil. Rogers first made Twain file for bankruptcy. Then Rogers had Twain transfer the copyrights on his written works to his wife, Olivia, to prevent creditors from gaining possession of them. Finally, Rogers took absolute charge of Twain's money until all the creditors were paid.

Twain embarked on an around-the-world lecture tour in 1894 to pay off his creditors in full, although he was no longer under any legal obligation to do so. In mid-1900, he was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House. Twain wrote of Dollis Hill that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world." He then returned to America in 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts.

Speaking engagements

Twain was in demand as a featured speaker, and appeared before many men's clubs, including the Authors' Club, Beefsteak Club, Vagabonds, White Friars, and Monday Evening Club of Hartford. He was made an honorary member of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. In the late 1890s, he spoke to the Savage Club in London and was elected honorary member. When told that only three men had been so honored, including the Prince of Wales, he replied "Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine." In 1897, Twain spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest, following diplomat Charlemagne Tower, Jr.. In German, to the great amusement of the assemblage, Twain delivered the speech "''Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache''" ("The Horrors of the German Language").

Later life and death

Twain passed through a period of deep depression, which began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died of meningitis. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened his gloom. On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly. In 1906, Twain began his autobiography in the ''North American Review''. In April, Twain heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith had lost nearly all she owned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and he volunteered a few autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith, George Wharton James visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. Initially resistant, Twain admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him.

Twain formed a club in 1906 for girls he viewed as surrogate granddaughters, the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club. The dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and the theatre and to play games. Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight."

Oxford University awarded Twain an honorary doctorate in letters (D.Litt.) in 1907.

In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:

His prediction was accurate – Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said:

"Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature."

Twain's funeral was at the "Old Brick" Presbyterian Church in New York. He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. His grave is marked by a 12-foot (i.e., two fathoms, or "mark twain") monument, placed there by his surviving daughter, Clara. There is also a smaller headstone.

Writing

Overview

Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but evolved into a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, with ''Huckleberry Finn'', he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism. Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various reasons. ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' has been repeatedly restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word "nigger," which was in common usage in the pre-Civil War period in which the novel was set.

A complete bibliography of his works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces written by Twain (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or were not written down; thus, the collection of Twain's works is an ongoing process. Researchers rediscovered published material by Twain as recently as 1995.

Early journalism and travelogues

While writing for the Virginia City newspaper, the ''Territorial Enterprise'' in 1863, Clemens met lawyer Tom Fitch, editor of the competing newspaper ''Virginia Daily Union'' and known as the "silver-tongued orator of the Pacific." He credited Fitch with giving him his "first really profitable lesson" in writing. In 1866, Clemens presented his lecture on the Sandwich Islands to a crowd in Washoe City, Nevada. Clemens commented that, "When I first began to lecture, and in my earlier writings, my sole idea was to make comic capital out of everything I saw and heard." Fitch told him, "Clemens, your lecture was magnificent. It was eloquent, moving, sincere. Never in my entire life have I listened to such a magnificent piece of descriptive narration. But you committed one unpardonable sin—the unpardonable sin. It is a sin you must never commit again. You closed a most eloquent description, by which you had keyed your audience up to a pitch of the intensest interest, with a piece of atrocious anti-climax which nullified all the really fine effect you had produced."

Twain's first important work, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was first published in the ''New York Saturday Press'' on November 18, 1865. The only reason it was published there was that his story arrived too late to be included in a book Artemus Ward was compiling featuring sketches of the wild American West.

After this burst of popularity, the ''Sacramento Union'' commissioned Twain to write letters about his travel experiences. The first journey he took for this job was to ride the steamer ''Ajax'' in its maiden voyage to Hawaii, referred to at the time as the Sandwich Islands. These humorous letters proved the genesis to his work with the San Francisco ''Alta California'' newspaper, which designated him a traveling correspondent for a trip from San Francisco to New York City via the Panama isthmus. All the while, Twain was writing letters meant for publishing back and forth, chronicling his experiences with his burlesque humor. On June 8, 1867, Twain set sail on the pleasure cruiser ''Quaker City'' for five months. This trip resulted in ''The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress.''

In 1872, Twain published a second piece of travel literature, ''Roughing It'', as a semi-sequel to ''Innocents''. ''Roughing It'' is a semi-autobiographical account of Twain's journey to Nevada and his subsequent life in the American West. The book lampoons American and Western society in the same way that ''Innocents'' critiqued the various countries of Europe and the Middle East. Twain's next work kept ''Roughing It'''s focus on American society but focused more on the events of the day. Entitled ''The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today'', it was not a travel piece, as his previous two books had been, and it was his first attempt at writing a novel. The book is also notable because it is Twain's only collaboration; it was written with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner.

Twain's next two works drew on his experiences on the Mississippi River. ''Old Times on the Mississippi'', a series of sketches published in the ''Atlantic Monthly'' in 1875, featured Twain’s disillusionment with Romanticism. ''Old Times'' eventually became the starting point for ''Life on the Mississippi.''

''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn''

Twain's next major publication was ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'', which drew on his youth in Hannibal. Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of two schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. The book also introduced in a supporting role Huckleberry Finn, based on Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship.

''The Prince and the Pauper'', despite a storyline that is omnipresent in film and literature today, was not as well received. Telling the story of two boys born on the same day who are physically identical, the book acts as a social commentary as the prince and pauper switch places. ''Pauper'' was Twain's first attempt at historical fiction, and blame for its shortcomings is usually put on Twain for having not been experienced enough in English society, and also on the fact that it was produced after a massive hit. In between the writing of ''Pauper,'' Twain had started ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (which he consistently had problems completing) and started and completed another travel book, ''A Tramp Abroad'', which follows Twain as he traveled through central and southern Europe.

Twain's next major published work, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', solidified him as a noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel, and the book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States. ''Huckleberry Finn'' was an offshoot from ''Tom Sawyer'' and had a more serious tone than its predecessor. The main premise behind ''Huckleberry Finn'' is the young boy's belief in the right thing to do though most believed that it was wrong. Four hundred manuscript pages of ''Huckleberry Finn'' were written in mid-1876, right after the publication of ''Tom Sawyer.'' Some accounts have Twain taking seven years off after his first burst of creativity, eventually finishing the book in 1883. Other accounts have Twain working on ''Huckleberry Finn'' in tandem with ''The Prince and the Pauper'' and other works in 1880 and other years. The last fifth of ''Huckleberry Finn'' is subject to much controversy. Some say that Twain experienced, as critic Leo Marx puts it, a "failure of nerve." Ernest Hemingway once said of ''Huckleberry Finn'':

If you read it, you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating.

Hemingway also wrote in the same essay:

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Near the completion of ''Huckleberry Finn,'' Twain wrote ''Life on the Mississippi,'' which is said to have heavily influenced the former book. The work recounts Twain's memories and new experiences after a 22-year absence from the Mississippi. In it, he also states that "Mark Twain" was the call made when the boat was in safe water – two fathoms ().

Later writing

After his great work, Twain began turning to his business endeavors to keep them afloat and to stave off the increasing difficulties he had been having from his writing projects. Twain focused on President Ulysses S. Grant's ''Memoirs'' for his fledgling publishing company, finding time in between to write "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" for ''The Century Magazine''. This piece detailed his two-week stint in a Confederate militia during the Civil War. The name of his publishing company was ''Charles L. Webster & Company,'' which he owned with Charles L. Webster, his nephew by marriage.

Twain next focused on ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'', which featured him making his first big pronouncement of disappointment with politics. Written with the same "historical fiction" style of ''The Prince and the Pauper'', ''A Connecticut Yankee'' showed the absurdities of political and social norms by setting them in the court of King Arthur. The book was started in December 1885, then shelved a few months later until the summer of 1887, and eventually finished in the spring of 1889.

Twain had begun to furiously write articles and commentary with diminishing returns to pay the bills and keep his business projects afloat, but it was not enough. He filed for bankruptcy in 1894.

His next large-scale work, ''Pudd'nhead Wilson'', was written rapidly, as Twain was desperately trying to stave off the bankruptcy. From November 12 to December 14, 1893, Twain wrote 60,000 words for the novel. Critics have pointed to this rushed completion as the cause of the novel's rough organization and constant disruption of continuous plot. There were parallels between this work and Twain's financial failings, notably his desire to escape his current constraints and become a different person.

Like ''The Prince and the Pauper'', this novel also contains the tale of two boys born on the same day who switch positions in life. Considering the circumstances of Twain's birth and Halley's Comet, and his strong belief in the paranormal, it is not surprising that these "mystic" connections recur throughout his writing.

The actual title is not clearly established. It was first published serially in ''Century Magazine'', and when it was finally published in book form, ''Pudd'nhead Wilson'' appeared as the main title; however, the disputed "subtitles" make the entire title read: ''The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of The Extraordinary Twins''.

Twain's next venture was a work of straight fiction that he called ''Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc'' and dedicated to his wife. Twain had long said that this was the work he was most proud of, despite the criticism he received for it. The book had been a dream of his since childhood. He claimed he had found a manuscript detailing the life of Joan of Arc when he was an adolescent. This was another piece Twain was convinced would save his publishing company. His financial adviser, Henry Huttleston Rogers, quashed that idea and got Twain out of that business altogether, but the book was published nonetheless.

During this time of dire financial straits, Twain published several literary reviews in newspapers to help make ends meet. He famously derided James Fenimore Cooper in his article detailing Cooper's "Literary Offenses." He became an extremely outspoken critic not only of other authors, but also of other critics, suggesting that before praising Cooper's work, Professors Loundsbury, Brander Matthes, and Wilkie Collins "ought to have read some of it."

Other authors to fall under Twain's attack during this time period (beginning around 1890 until his death) were George Eliot, Jane Austen, and Robert Louis Stevenson. In addition to providing a source for the "tooth and claw" style of literary criticism, Twain outlines in several letters and essays what he considers to be "quality writing." He places emphasis on concision, utility of word choice, and realism (he complains that Cooper's ''Deerslayer'' purports to be realistic but has several shortcomings). Ironically, several of his works were later criticized for lack of continuity (''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'') and organization (''Pudd'nhead Wilson'').

Twain's wife died in 1904 while the couple were staying at the Villa di Quarto in Florence, and after an appropriate time Twain allowed himself to publish some works that his wife, a ''de facto'' editor and censor throughout his life, had looked down upon. Of these works, ''The Mysterious Stranger'', depicting various visits of Satan to the Earth, is perhaps the best known. This particular work was not published in Twain's lifetime. There were three versions found in his manuscripts made between 1897 and 1905: the Hannibal, Eseldorf, and Print Shop versions. Confusion between the versions led to an extensive publication of a jumbled version, and only recently have the original versions as Twain wrote them become available.

Twain's last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order. Some archivists and compilers have rearranged the biography into more conventional forms, thereby eliminating some of Twain's humor and the flow of the book. The first volume of autobiography, over 736 pages, was published by the University of California in November 2010, 100 years after his death as Twain wished. It soon became an unexpected best selling book, making Twain one of very few authors publishing new best-selling volumes in all 3 of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Friendship with Henry H. Rogers

While Twain credited Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive, with saving him from financial ruin, their close friendship in their later years was mutually beneficial. When Twain lost three of his four children and his beloved wife, the Rogers family increasingly became a surrogate family for him. He became a frequent guest at their townhouse in New York City, their 48-room summer home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and aboard their steam yacht, the ''Kanawha''.

The two men introduced each other to their acquaintances. Twain was an admirer of the remarkable deafblind girl Helen Keller. He first met Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan at a party in the home of Laurence Hutton in New York City in the winter of 1894. Twain introduced them to Rogers, who, with his wife, paid for Keller's education at Radcliffe College. Twain is credited with labeling Sullivan, Keller's governess and companion, a "miracle worker." His choice of words later became inspiration for the title of William Gibson's play and film adaptation, ''The Miracle Worker''. Twain also introduced Rogers to journalist Ida M. Tarbell, who interviewed him for a muckraking expose that led indirectly to the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust. On cruises aboard the ''Kanawha'', Twain and Rogers were joined at frequent intervals by Booker T. Washington, the famed former slave who had become a leading educator.

While the two famous old men were widely regarded as drinking and poker buddies, they also exchanged letters when apart, and this was often since each traveled a great deal. Unlike Rogers' personal files, which have never become public, these insightful letters were published. The written exchanges between the two men demonstrate Twain's well-known sense of humor and, more surprisingly, Rogers' sense of fun, providing a rare insight into the private side of the robber baron.

In April 1907, Twain and Rogers cruised to the opening of the Jamestown Exposition in Virginia. Twain's public popularity was such that many fans took boats out to the ''Kanawha'' at anchor in hopes of getting a glimpse of him. As the gathering of boats around the yacht became a safety hazard, he finally obliged by coming on deck and waving to the crowds.

Because of poor weather conditions, the steam yacht was delayed for several days from venturing into the Atlantic Ocean. Rogers and some of the others in his party returned to New York by rail; Twain disliked train travel and so elected to wait and return on the ''Kanawha''. However, reporters lost track of his whereabouts; when he failed to return to New York City as scheduled, ''The New York Times'' speculated that he might have been "lost at sea." Upon arriving safely in New York and learning of this, the humorist wrote a satirical article about the episode, offering to "...make an exhaustive investigation of this report that I have been lost at sea. If there is any foundation for the report, I will at once apprise the anxious public." This bore similarities to an earlier event in 1897 when he made his famous remark "The report of my death was an exaggeration," after a reporter was sent to investigate whether he had died. In fact, it was his cousin who was seriously ill.

Later that year, Twain and Rogers's son, Henry Jr., returned to the Jamestown Exposition aboard the ''Kanawha''. The humorist helped host Robert Fulton Day on September 23, 1907, celebrating the centennial of Fulton's invention of the steamboat. Twain, filling in for ailing former U.S. President Grover Cleveland, introduced Rear Admiral Purnell Harrington. Twain was met with a five-minute standing ovation; members of the audience cheered and waved their hats and umbrellas. Deeply touched, Twain said, "When you appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal to my heart, I do feel it."

In April 1909, the two old friends returned to Norfolk, Virginia for the banquet in honor of Rogers and his newly completed Virginian Railway. Twain was the keynote speaker in one of his last public appearances, and was widely quoted in newspapers across the country.

A month later, Twain was ''en route'' from Connecticut to visit his friend in New York City when Rogers died suddenly on May 20, 1909. Twain arrived at Grand Central Station to be met by his daughter with the news. Stricken with grief, he uncustomarily avoided news reporters who had gathered, saying only "This is terrible...I cannot talk about it." Two days later, he served as an honorary pallbearer at the funeral in New York City. However, he declined to join the funeral party on the train ride for the interment at Fairhaven. He said "I cannot bear to travel with my friend and not converse."

Views

Twain's views became more radical as he grew older. He acknowledged that his views changed and developed over his life, referring to one of his favorite works:

Anti-imperialist

In the ''New York Herald'', October 15, 1900, he describes his transformation and political awakening, in the context of the Philippine-American War, from being "a red-hot imperialist":

Before 1899 Twain was an ardent imperialist. In the late 1860s and early 1870s he spoke out strongly in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands. In the mid-1890s he explained later, he was "a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming over the Pacific." He said the war with Spain in 1898 was "the worthiest" war ever fought. In 1899 he reversed course, and from 1901, soon after his return from Europe, until his death in 1910, Twain was vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the United States and had "tens of thousands of members." He wrote many political pamphlets for the organization. The ''Incident in the Philippines'', posthumously published in 1924, was in response to the Moro Crater Massacre, in which six hundred Moros were killed. Many of his neglected and previously uncollected writings on anti-imperialism appeared for the first time in book form in 1992.

Twain was critical of imperialism in other countries as well. In ''Following the Equator'', Twain expresses "hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all stripes." He was highly critical of European imperialism, notably of Cecil Rhodes, who greatly expanded the British Empire, and of Leopold II, King of the Belgians. ''King Leopold's Soliloquy'' is a stinging political satire about his private colony, the Congo Free State. Reports of outrageous exploitation and grotesque abuses led to widespread international protest in the early 1900s, arguably the first large-scale human rights movement. In the soliloquy, the King argues that bringing Christianity to the country outweighs a little starvation. Leopold's rubber gatherers were tortured, maimed and slaughtered until the turn of the century, when the conscience of the Western world forced Brussels to call a halt.

During the Philippine-American War, Twain wrote a short pacifist story entitled ''The War Prayer'', which makes the point that humanism and Christianity's preaching of love are incompatible with the conduct of war. It was submitted to ''Harper's Bazaar'' for publication, but on March 22, 1905 the magazine rejected the story as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Daniel Carter Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Twain could not publish ''The War Prayer'' elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1923. It was republished as campaigning material by Vietnam War protesters.

Twain acknowledged he originally sympathized with the more moderate Girondins of the French Revolution and then shifted his sympathies to the more radical Sansculottes, indeed identifying as "a Marat." Twain supported the revolutionaries in Russia against the reformists, arguing that the Tsar must be got rid of, by violent means, because peaceful ones would not work. He summed up his views of revolutions in the following statement:

Civil rights

Twain was an adamant supporter of abolition and emancipation, even going so far to say “Lincoln's Proclamation ... not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also.” He argued that non-whites did not receive justice in the United States, once saying “I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature....but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him.” He paid for at least one black person to attend Yale University Law School and for another black person to attend a southern university to become a minister.

Mark Twain was a staunch supporter of women's rights and an active campaigner for women's suffrage. His "Votes for Women" speech, in which he pressed for the granting of voting rights to women, is considered one of the most famous in history.

Helen Keller benefited from Twain's support, as she pursued her college education and publishing, despite her disabilities and financial limitations.

Twain's views on race were not reflected in his early sketches of Native Americans. Of them, Twain wrote in 1870:

As counterpoint, Twain's essay on "The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper" offers a much kinder view of Indians. "No, other Indians would have noticed these things, but Cooper's Indians never notice anything. Cooper thinks they are marvelous creatures for noticing, but he was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them." In his later travelogue ''Following the Equator'' (1897), Twain observes that in colonized lands all over the world, "savages" have always been wronged by "whites" in the most merciless ways, such as "robbery, humiliation, and slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whiskey"; his conclusion is that "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages."

Labor

Twain wrote glowingly about unions in the riverboating industry in ''Life on the Mississippi'', which was read in union halls decades later. He supported the labor movement, especially one of the most important unions, the Knights of Labor. In a speech to them, he said:

Vivisection

Twain was opposed to the vivisection practices of his day. His objection was not on a scientific basis but rather an ethical one. He specifically cited the pain caused to the animal as his basis of his opposition.

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. ... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.

Religion

Although Twain was a Presbyterian, he was sometimes critical of organized religion and certain elements of Christianity through his later life. He wrote, for example, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so," and "If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian." Nonetheless, as a mature adult he engaged in religious discussions and attended services, his theology developing as he wrestled with the deaths of loved ones and his own mortality. His own experiences and suffering of his family made him particularly critical of "faith healing," such as espoused by Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. His more inflammatory work on religion require a nuanced understanding of his theological arguments and criticism.

Twain generally avoided publishing his most heretical opinions on religion in his lifetime, and they are known from essays and stories that were published later. In the essay ''Three Statements of the Eighties'' in the 1880s, Twain stated that he believed in an almighty God, but not in any messages, revelations, holy scriptures such as the Bible, Providence, or retribution in the afterlife. He did state that "the goodness, the justice, and the mercy of God are manifested in His works," but also that "the universe is governed by strict and immutable laws," which determine "small matters," such as who dies in a pestilence. At other times he wrote or spoke in ways that contradicted a strict deist view, for example, plainly professing a belief in Providence. In some later writings in the 1890s, he was less optimistic about the goodness of God, observing that "if our Maker ''is'' all-powerful for good or evil, He is not in His right mind." At other times, he conjectured sardonically that perhaps God had created the world with all its tortures for some purpose of His own, but was otherwise indifferent to humanity, which was too petty and insignificant to deserve His attention anyway.

In 1901 Twain criticized the actions of missionary Dr. William Scott Ament (1851–1909) because Ament and other missionaries had collected indemnities from Chinese subjects in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising of 1900. Twain's response to hearing of Ament's methods was published in the ''North American Review'' in February 1901: ''To the Person Sitting in Darkness'', and deals with examples of imperialism in China, South Africa, and with the U.S. occupation of the Philippines. A subsequent article, "To My Missionary Critics" published in ''The North American Review'' in April 1901, unapologetically continues his attack, but with the focus shifted from Ament to his missionary superiors, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

After his death, Twain's family suppressed some of his work that was especially irreverent toward conventional religion, notably ''Letters from the Earth'', which was not published until his daughter Clara reversed her position in 1962 in response to Soviet propaganda about the withholding. The anti-religious ''The Mysterious Stranger'' was published in 1916. ''Little Bessie'', a story ridiculing Christianity, was first published in the 1972 collection ''Mark Twain's Fables of Man''.

Despite these views, he raised money to build a Presbyterian Church in Nevada in 1864, although it has been argued that it was only by his association with his Presbyterian brother that he did that.

Twain created a reverent portrayal of Joan of Arc, a subject over which he had obsessed for forty years, studied for a dozen years and spent two years writing. In 1900 and again in 1908, he stated, "I like ''Joan of Arc'' best of all my books, it is the best."

Those who knew Twain well late in life recount that he dwelt on the subject of the afterlife, his daughter Clara saying: "Sometimes he believed death ended everything, but most of the time he felt sure of a life beyond."

Mark Twain's frankest views on religion appeared in his final Autobiography, which was published 100 years after his death, in November 2010. In it, he said,

Twain was a Freemason. He belonged to Polar Star Lodge No. 79 A.F.&A.M.;, based in St. Louis. He was initiated an Entered Apprentice on May 22, 1861, passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on June 12, and raised to the degree of Master Mason on July 10.

Legacy

Twain's legacy lives on today as his namesakes continue to multiply. Several schools are named after him, including Mark Twain Elementary School in Houston, Texas, which has a statue of Twain sitting on a bench, and Mark Twain Intermediate School in New York. There are several schools named Mark Twain Middle School in different states, as well as Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, near San Antonio, Texas. There are also other structures, such as the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge.

Mark Twain Village is a United States Army installation located in the Südstadt district of Heidelberg, Germany. It is one of two American bases in the United States Army Garrison Heidelberg that house American soldiers and their families (the other being Patrick Henry Village).

Awards in his name proliferate. In 1998, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts created the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded annually. The Mark Twain Award is an award given annually to a book for children in grades four through eight by the Missouri Association of School Librarians. Stetson University in DeLand, Florida sponsors the Mark Twain Young Authors' Workshop each summer in collaboration with the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal. The program is open to young authors in grades five through eight. The museum sponsors the Mark Twain Creative Teaching Award.

Buildings associated with Twain, including some of his many homes, have been preserved as museums. His birthplace is preserved in Florida, Missouri. The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal, Missouri preserves the setting for some of the author's best known work. The home of childhood friend Laura Hawkins, said to be the inspiration for his fictional character Becky Thatcher, is preserved as the "Thatcher House." In May 2007, a painstaking reconstruction of the home of Tom Blankenship, the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn, was opened to the public. The family home he had built in Hartford, Connecticut, where he and his wife raised their three daughters, is preserved and open to visitors as the Mark Twain House.

Actor Hal Holbrook created a one-man show called ''Mark Twain Tonight'', which he has performed regularly for about years. The broadcast by CBS in 1967 won him an Emmy Award. Of the three runs on Broadway (1966, 1977, and 2005), the first won him a Tony Award.

Additionally, like many influential individuals, Twain was honored by having an asteroid, 2362 Mark Twain, named after him.

Often, Twain is depicted in pop culture as wearing a white suit. While there is evidence that suggests that, after Livy's death in 1904, Twain began wearing white suits on the lecture circuit, modern representations suggesting that he wore them throughout his life are unfounded. However, there is evidence of him wearing a white suit before 1904. In 1882, he sent a photograph of himself in a white suit to 18-year-old Edward W. Bok, later publisher of the "Ladies Home Journal," with a handwritten dated note on verso. It did eventually become his trademark, as illustrated in anecdotes about this eccentricity (such as the time he wore a white summer suit to a Congressional hearing during the winter). McMasters' "Mark Twain Encyclopedia" states that Twain did not wear a white suit in his last three years, except at one banquet speech. In 2011, the US Postal Service plans to release another stamp in his honor.

Pen names

Twain used different pen names before deciding on ''Mark Twain''. He signed humorous and imaginative sketches ''Josh'' until 1863. Additionally, he used the pen name ''Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass'' for a series of humorous letters.

He maintained that his primary pen name came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats, where two fathoms, a depth indicating safe water for passage of boat, was measured on the sounding line. A fathom is a maritime unit of depth, equivalent to two yards (1.8 m); ''twain'' is an archaic term for "two." The riverboatman's cry was ''mark twain'' or, more fully, ''by the mark twain'', meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]," that is, "The water is deep and it is safe to pass."

Twain claimed that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In ''Life on the Mississippi'', he wrote:

Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN," and give them to the ''New Orleans Picayune''. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; ... At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands – a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.

Twain's version of the story about his pen name has been questioned by biographer George Williams III, the ''Territorial Enterprise'' newspaper, and Purdue University's Paul Fatout. which claim that ''mark twain'' refers to a running bar tab that Twain would regularly incur while drinking at John Piper's saloon in Virginia City, Nevada.

Bibliography

See also

American realism

''Christian Science (essay)

Bernard DeVoto (historian)

List of premature obituaries

''Mark Twain's Library of Humor'' (anthology)

Regionalism (literature)

''Warsaw Signal'' (newspaper)

References

Further reading

Lucius Beebe. ''Comstock Commotion: The Story of the Territorial Enterprise and Virginia City News.'' Stanford University Press, 1954 ISBN 112218798X

Louis J. Budd, ed. ''Mark Twain, Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays 1891–1910'' (Library of America, 1992) (ISBN 978-0-94045073-8)

Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan, and Geoffrey C. Ward, ''Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography.'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001 (ISBN 0-3754-0561-5)

Gregg Camfield. ''The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 (ISBN 0-1951-0710-1)

Guy Cardwell, ed. ''Mark Twain, Mississippi Writings'' (Library of America, 1982) (ISBN 978-0-94045007-3)

Guy Cardwell, ed. ''Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad & Roughing It'' (Library of America, 1984) ISBN 978-0-94045025-7

James M. Cox. ''Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor.'' Princeton University Press, 1966 (ISBN 0-8262-1428-2)

Everett Emerson. ''Mark Twain: A Literary Life.'' Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-8122-3516-9)

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, ed. ''A Historical Guide to Mark Twain.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 (ISBN 0-1951-3293-9)

Susan K. Harris, ed. ''Mark Twain, Historical Romances'' (Library of America, 1994) (ISBN 978-0-94045082-0)

Hamlin L. Hill, ed. ''Mark Twain, The Gilded Age and Later Novels'' (Library of America, 2002) ISBN 978-1-93108210-5

Jason Gary Horn. ''Mark Twain: A Descriptive Guide to Biographical Sources.'' Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-8108-3630-0)

William Dean Howells. ''My Mark Twain.'' Mineloa, New York: Dover Publications, 1997 (ISBN 0-486-29640-7)

Fred Kaplan. ''The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography.'' New York: Doubleday, 2003 (ISBN 0-3854-7715-5)

Justin Kaplan. ''Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography.'' New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966 (ISBN 0-6717-4807-6)

J. R. LeMaster and James D. Wilson, eds. ''The Mark Twain Encyclopedia.'' New York: Garland, 1993 (ISBN 0-8240-7212-X)

Jerome Loving, ''Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens'' (University of California Press; 2010) 491 pages, ISBN 9780520252578; Draws on newly discovered archival materials in a detailed biography

Bruce Michelson. ''Mark Twain on the Loose.'' Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995 (ISBN 0-8702-3967-8)

K. Patrick Ober. ''Mark Twain and Medicine: "Any Mummery Will Cure."'' Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003 (ISBN 0-8262-1502-5)

Albert Bigelow Paine. ''Mark Twain, A Biography: The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.'' Harper & Bros., 1912. ISBN 1847029833

Ron Powers. ''Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain.'' New York: Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN 0306810867

Ron Powers. ''Mark Twain: A Life.'' New York: Random House, 2005. (0-7432-4899-6)

R. Kent Rasmussen. ''Critical Companion to Mark Twain: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work.'' Facts On File, 2007. Revised edition of ''Mark Twain A to Z'' ISBN 0816062250

R. Kent Rasmussen, ed. ''The Quotable Mark Twain: His Essential Aphorisms, Witticisms and Concise Opinions.'' Contemporary Books, 1997 ISBN 0809229870

External links

;Works by Mark Twain

Mark Twain Classics - Twain's Speeches, Essays, Stories, and Quotes.

Mark Twain Project Online

38 Facsimile copies of 1st editions

. More than 60 texts are freely available.

''Mark Twain's letters'' ed. by Albert Bigelow Paine (2 vol 1917) vol 2 online

Mark Twain Library, University of California Press. This series re-prints texts from the Papers and Works for students and the general reader.

The Works of Mark Twain, University of California Press. This series prints authoritative critical editions of Mark Twain's published works.

Mark Twain Papers, University of California Press. This series publishes Mark Twain's private papers–his letters, notebooks, unpublished literary works, and autobiography.

Jumping Frogs: Undiscovered, Rediscovered, and Celebrated Writings of Mark Twain, University of California Press. The Jumping Frogs series of books brings neglected Mark Twain treasures—stories, tall tales, novels, travelogues, plays, imaginative journalism, speeches, sketches, satires, burlesques, and much more—to readers.

A True Story, Repeated Word for Word As I Heard It. From The Atlantic Monthly. Nov. 1874: 591–594. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Co., November 1874. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Co., November 1874.

;Academic studies

The Mark Twain Papers and Project of the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley. Home to the largest archive of Mark Twain's papers and the editors of a critical edition of all of his writings.

Buffalo Library Mark Twain Room, which houses the manuscript of ''Huckleberry Finn''

Mark Twain Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

;Life

Full text of the biography ''Mark Twain'' by Archibald Henderson

Obituary in San Francisco Call

Mark Twain's Mississippi at Northern Illinois University Libraries

;Other

Literary Pilgrimages – Mark Twain sites

PBS Twain Interactive Scrapbook and San Francisco Chronicle article documenting that Clemens did not say "The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco."

The Fountain Pens used by Mark Twain

Images of First Appearances of Mark Twain Works

article and rare pictures of Mark Twain and photographer Napoleon Sarony

Google map with placemarks for places in America associated with Twain

Category:1835 births Category:1910 deaths Category:American humorists Category:American memoirists Category:American novelists Category:American satirists Category:American short story writers Category:American travel writers Category:Alternate history writers Category:American autobiographers Category:Writers from Connecticut Category:Writers from Missouri Category:Writers from Nevada Category:Holy Land travellers Category:People of the Philippine–American War Category:People of the California Gold Rush Category:People from Elmira, New York Category:People from Hannibal, Missouri Category:People from St. Louis, Missouri Category:People from Monroe County, Missouri Category:Lecturers Category:Critics of Christian Science Category:Pseudonymous writers Category:American Presbyterians

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