By Steven Carroll
Arthur & Sherlock
Michael Sims
Arthur & Sherlock by Michael Sims.
Bloomsbury, $29.99
Echoing Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet, Michael Sims' volume might have been called A Study in Sherlock. It's an informed, entertaining and fittingly forensic examination of the origins of, arguably, the most famously enduring character in English fiction. Joseph Bell, Doyle's lecturer at the medical school, University of Edinburgh, was famous for deducing a patient's history by observing them: tell-tale red clay on the shoes, factory-stained fingers, and accents. Doyle became his assistant and often wrote down in detail Bell's "elementary" reasoning, all of which was invaluable when, working as a GP, Doyle created Holmes: the name derived from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sherlock from a variety of sources. Sims delves into Doyle's influences, a widely read mother, and writers from Flaubert to Poe.