Gateways To Geekery: Sherlock Holmes

Geek obsession: Sherlock Holmes

Why it’s daunting: Everyone knows who Sherlock Holmes is, and it seems like everyone has written about him, too. It’s amazing just how much Holmes material is out there. The London sleuth, invented by Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1887 novel A Study In Scarlet, has come to personify the very idea of the private detective who relies on logic and deductive reasoning to solve the most baffling crimes. Conan Doyle wrote relatively few Holmes tales—four novels and 56 short stories that fans collectively call “the canon”—but that’s just the tip of it. Holmes wasn’t the first fictional detective, but he was far and away the most influential, and it’s impossible to overstate his importance to the mystery genre. His continuing adventures in the hands of subsequent authors and filmmakers have been estimated to number at least 25,000 novels, movies, TV shows, radio plays, cartoons, games, and other media over the last century.

Originally published on avclub.com June 17, 2010. Read the complete article.