Customer Reviews

Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective

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There are those who believe, or perhaps I should say, 'believe', that Sherlock Holmes was (or, sometimes, is) a real historical figure. In this magnificent biography of the great detective, William S. Baring-Gould wrote that none of the characters in his book are fictional, 'although the author should very much like to meet any who claim to be.'

William S. Baring-Gould (1913-1967) was one of the greatest Sherlock Holmes scholars ever. Publishing several works on Holmes publically and privately, this biography was published in 1962, a few years before his great, two-volume annotated edition of the canon of Sherlock Holmes, which still remains a standard bearer. Baring-Gould himself was a life-long devotee of Holmes in particular, and mysteries in general. He is also noted for the fictional biography of Nero Wolfe, which continues the idea presented in this volume that Nero is the son of Holmes and THE woman, Irene Adler, of 'A Scandal in Bohemia' fame.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the best known detectives in the world -- so famous in fact, that 221B Baker Street in London continues to get mail adddressed to this fictional character almost a century after he would have died had he been a real person. There are groups of people -- Sherlockians and Holmesians, the distinction between which is rather subtle -- who delight in retelling the tales. There are forever questions and debates about the ordering of the stories; Baring-Gould is one authority often referred to in these debates, thanks to his work on the Chronology of Holmes, used as an organising principle behind this book.

Baring-Gould draws on the canonical texts and some clever speculations and deductions to piece together a rather complete biographical sketch. As almost every major Sherlock Holmes scholar does, Baring-Gould fills in the gaps in the data. He postulates the birth, childhood and education of Holmes, which is never made explicit in the text of the stores. His idea for Irene Adler as Holmes' lifelong love is not original, but his development of the affair, including the outcome of the son (Nero Wolfe) with the familial characteristics similar to both Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes is ingenious.

Baring-Gould develops details about Watson and Conan Doyle, too, but the primary emphasis here is on Holmes. Baring-Gould argued strongly (some would say convincingly) that this is not a work of fiction. His research was very exacting -- the biography includes two appendices, one of which is a chronology (Baring-Gould had a private published chronology of Holmes) of Holmes' life, according to Baring-Gould (a generation of scholars have debated its merits, but none have ignored it), and a second appendix is a select bibliography, now out of date somewhat, but a great list showing the major works of the first generation of Sherlock Holmes scholars.

Every Sherlockian/Holmesian will want to read this book. It is fascinating for those who love the stories, well written and authoritative.

Baring-Gould is the greatest chronicler of the Holmesian canon. His annotated version is a must for every enthusiast. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street is the biography of the man, put together from the many stories. "It was the year in which Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden...."."Unaccountably, the Almanac fails to list perhaps the most memorable event of that same memorable year. It was the birth, in the early hours of the morning of Friday, January 6, of a third and last son to Siger and Violet Holmes, at the farmstead of Mycroft in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, a district famous for its horse-breeding stables and its wind-swept--"wuthering" - heights." You will read about the birth of the man, his family, his brother, etc. You will enter with him into his friendship with Watson (also Watson's youth) and their adventures. Please bring this book back in print. It is a must.

I first read Baring-Gould's biography back in 1975, and it was my first REAL exposure to The Game -- the treatment of Sherlock Holmes as a living person and the art of speculating about The Master's life from the clues dropped by Watson in the original stories. I'm delighted that this book is still available.

Baring-Gould presents as good a chronology of the Doyle tales as anyone, and he "fills in the blanks" delightfully. (Imagine Holmes fighting a prehistoric bird in hand-to-talon combat on the deck of a freighter! It's true!!)

Baring-Gould obviously had a damn good time writing this extraordinary, and definitive, biography of Sherlock. And if you've already devoured the original 60 stories, dive into this book. Then set it alongside your copies of the Doyle books. It deserves a place there.

This book is indeed the most complete overview of the life and times of the world's first consulting detective to be published to date. From the early days of Holmes' childhood traveling about Europe, to his first (The Gloria Scott) and last cases (His Last Bow)and even on to his life after retirement and other little known information of The Great Detective, Mr. Baring-Gould has indeed captured the essence of the grand character of Sherlock Holmes.

Mr. Baring-Gould has been hailed as one of the most scholarly and well-read Sherlockian scholars of his time; having annotated the complete Holmes Canon with many notes, theories, chronological dating of the cases and other suggestions & ideas upon the cases, characters and time period that Holmes and Watson lived and worked in. It is little wonder that he has put his Holmesian knowledge to work in this certain volume; creating this book which some consider to be "The Sherlock Holmes Bible"

I must say that this is one of the, if not the _one_, complete writing upon the life of Sherlock Holmes. One can safely say that Mr. Baring-Gould has out done himself by compiling such a wealth of information into this one volume. This incredible Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street should be considered required reading for all scholars of Sherlockiana as well as those wishing to better understand and follow the exploits and adventures of the Great Detective.

Since it's first publication in 1962, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street has most certainly become one of the great foundational resources on the character of Holmes. This is a must and most informational read for those wishing to better their knowledge of The Great Detective; and it will give the reader all the pertinent, as well as impertinent, information they could ever need or want.

Marquetta Pisarcik

In this fictional biography of Sherlock Holmes, Baring-Gould makes his attempt at unraveling and chronicling Holmes' sometimes mysterious life. The book begins with a short history of Holmes' childhood and family, all of which comes from Baring-Gould's imagination and a few tantalising scraps of information from Canon. It matches nicely with what we already know of Holmes, fleshing out his character and adding motive for his eccentricities and habits as an adult.

Baring-Gould continues by covering Holmes and Watson's first meeting and Holmes' earliest cases, much of which is quoted directly from Canon. Baring-Gould also goes on to describe Holmes' brush with Jack the Ripper in 1888, an interesting but not wholly satisfying account.

The longest departure from Canon - and the silliest and most unlikely bits - come during Holmes' disappearance after his plunge over Reichenbach Falls with Moriarty. Baring-Gould tells of Holmes re-meeting Irene Adler, with whom he has a love affair and a son (who grows up to be the famous and corpulent American detective Nero Wolfe, no less!), travelling to Tibet, where he becomes a Buddhist under the discipleship of the Dali Lama, capturing the Abominable Snowman in Nepal, and nearly managing to scale Everest single-handedly, before finally returning to England to resume his detective practice.

The book concludes with an account of Holmes' final cases, before his retirement to the Sussex Downs to become a beekeeper, from whence he helps the British Government to win both World Wars and lives to the estimable age of 103 (thanks to his discovery of Royal Jelly!!).

Sarcasm aside, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street is an interesting read for any Holmes aficionado, and if one can overlook Baring-Gould's attempts to sensationalise, he has done an excellent job of detailing Holmes' life and sorting out the often-confusing dates and time lines of the Holmesian Canon.

It's simply fan fiction in its highest form, and as such I can't knock it.

W.S. Baring-Gould's classic biography of Holmes is brilliant from start to finish. Arguably the greatest Sherlockian scholar ever, Baring-Gould assembles the details of Holmes's life from isolated references in the canonical stories and indulges himself in some inferential reasoning as to some of the missing information: he contends, for example, that a certain well-known U.S. consulting detective is actually the child of Holmes and Irene Adler. (Some of his speculations on other matters have been borne out by the discovery of a lost manuscript published by Nicholas Meyer under the title _The Seven Per Cent Solution_.)

Readers of this work will also want to find a copy of Baring-Gould's masterly _The Annotated Sherlock Holmes_ if possible. These kids writing Holmes pastiches today just don't know what the hell they're doing :-).

It's been said that Sherlock Holmes has had more written about him than any other person alive or dead except perhaps Shakespeare, and given the long list of pastiches, both novel- and story-length, by various authors, I can well believe it. This volume is the first instance I know of in which someone attempted to compile a biography of a character generally held to be fictional (although, like all true devotees, Baring-Gould, grandson of Victorian occultist Sabine Baring-Gould, distinguished Sherlockian (and author as well of Nero Wolfe of West 35th Street), maintains that Holmes really existed, although he seems to conclude that neither Poe's Dupin nor Gaboriau's Lecoq were). Working from hints thrown out in the Canon and from speculations by fellow scholars, he follows Holmes from his birth in 1854, through his rather odd boyhood and education, his decision to set up as a consulting detective, and many of his major cases, to his death at the age of 105 in his beloved haven of Sussex. Along the way he introduces us to Holmes's parents (and traces through his father a blood-link to Professor Challenger of The Lost World), strews occasional bits of information about the historical background against which he moved, points out connections he had to other notable persons (such as C. L. Dodgson, best known to most people as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and Karl Marx, the father of Communism), traces his relationship with Prof. Moriarty, explains how he acquired some of his signature possessions (like his beloved Stradivarius), casts some light on the origins of Dr. Watson, speculates upon the actual identity of various eminent persons disguised for discretion's sake in the Doctor's memoirs of Holmes's cases (including the "King of Bohemia"), describes Holmes's handling of the case of Jack the Ripper (the perpetrator is *not* who you might think), explains just what he was doing in Tibet during "the Hiatus," the three years following his supposed death at Reichenbach Falls, and even reveals that in this period he also reconnected with Irene Adler, had a love affair with her, and fathered her son, whose identity is also disclosed. And he shows that Watson wasn't entirely without some gift for deduction--a fact that may have saved Holmes's life at least once. Painstakingly detailed and entirely plausible, this book may make you rethink the notion that Holmes and Watson were nothing but literary creations.

Although the canon of original Sherlock Holmes stories was fixed and defined upon the death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there seems to be no limit to the secondary literature inspired by the great detective and his "friend and colleague," Dr. Watson. William Baring-Gould's "biography" of Holmes is among the best of the Holmesian pastiches.

Baring-Gould shows himself to be one of the supreme Holmesian scholars, and his knowledge of the "canon" seems to have no limits. Thus his biography is thoroughly tied back to actual details contained not only within the original Holmes stories, but also within the secondary literature.

The quirks of Holmes's personality, and his eventual decision to become the world's first consulting detective, are traced back to the formative influences of his youth and college years. This is done without resorting to a crude reductionism which would make Holmes a mere product of his environment.

Inevitably, perhaps, Baring-Gould fills in the gaps regarding Holmes's admiration for "the woman," Irene Adler, and provides information about their relationship which some Holmes fans might regard as being too much of a departure from the Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. That is a matter about which opinions will vary.

We also find Holmes crossing paths with some of the more famous personalities of his time, up to and including Karl Marx. (Since Marx was - like Holmes - a denizen of London's libraries and museums, a meeting with Holmes is not at all forced or improbable.) These various encounters with well-known personalities strike me as most believable, consistent with what we know about Holmes and his world.

One reviewer objected to Baring-Gould's treatment of Holmes's sojourn in Tibet, where Holmes meets the Dalai Lama, converts to Buddhism, and tracks down the abominable snowman. As described by that reviewer, it does indeed seem highly improbable, but that is not the sense I had when reading it from Baring-Gould. I find it easy to imagine Holmes becoming attracted to Buddhism; his Christianity always seemed rather tenuous, and Buddhism emphasizes cultivating the mind, stripping away illusions, sentiment, and false-thinking, which I can easily imagine appealing to Holmes. As for tracking the abominable snowman, is that any more fantastic than what we find in many of the actual Holmes stories?

Baring-Gould also takes up the question of why Holmes was never consulted in the case of Jack the Ripper. Well, according to Baring-Gould, Holmes WAS consulted, and nailed the culprit. Baring-Gould explains how all this happened without the public's knowledge, and why it is generally assumed that Jack the Ripper was never caught.

So, all in all, this is an entertaining read, and a believable pastiche of a Holmes biography. I take away one star because I found the lengthy, verbatim, excerpts from the original Holmes stories to slow things down a bit. To one already familiar with the stories, these excerpts really didn't add anything new, and they tested my patience a bit.

This "biography" of one of fiction's greatest detectives is an inspired piece of work. It truly breaths life into Sherlock Holmes by filling in the gaps which were basically left unsaid in the stories written by A. Conan Doyle. The book presents Sherlock Holmes as if he were a living and breathing person and not simply a figment of Doyle's imagination. Because of the way it was written, it simply glues the reader to his seat in learning about this literary icon and further encourages the reader to go back to the Doyle stories. Though this book dates back to over forty years ago, it is still as fresh today as when it was first published.

This "biography" of one of fiction's greatest detectives is an inspired piece of work. It truly breaths life into Sherlock Holmes by filling in the gaps which were basically left unsaid in the stories written by A. Conan Doyle. The book presents Sherlock Holmes as if he were a living and breathing person and not simply a figment of Doyle's imagination. Because of the way it was written, it simply glues the reader to his seat in learning about this literary icon and further encourages the reader to go back to the Doyle stories. Though this book dates back to over forty years ago, it is still as fresh today as when it was first published.