Books in General
Books in General is an article published in The New Statesman on 9 july 1927.
Books in General
I have been re-reading those books in which are recorded all we know of the adventures and achievements of Sherlock Holmes. As I read, I thought that by noticing certain details, which the idle reader passes over, I might possibly clear up some difficulties which I divined to be lurking in the chronology of those records. The modest concentration of this aim appealed to me. If successful in such a task, might I not go on to peg out a small and apparently barren claim among the mountains of history? Alas, my efforts have not increased my confidence in myself as a researcher. Almost at once I found myself involved in perplexities. These may seem elementary to such ripe Sherlock Holmes scholars as Father Ronald Knox, his brother "Evoe," Mr. Frank Sidgwick, Mr. Maurice Baring, Lady Kirkwhlepington and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but nevertheless I will air them.
Our records stretch from the year 1879 to the year 1914, covering thus thirty-five years; and, not counting a few uncollected stories, the canonical books are seven in number: The Study in Scarlet, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and His Last Bow. The Study in Scarlet is, of course, our earliest book. Though to be quite positive about the date of the events recorded in it, it is necessary to know the precise date of the battle of Maiwand — and I do not — I think it is fairly safe to date the installation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in their rooms in Baker Street, at the end of February, 1879: February, because it was on the morning of March 4th that Dr. Watson read in a magazine the anonymous article upon "Deduction," by Sherlock Holmes, after they had been living together a very short time; 1879 because the second Afghan war broke out in 1878. In 1878 Dr. Watson had gone straight from Netley Training College to join his brigade at Kandahar. At "the fatal battle of Maiwand" he had been struck in the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, the effect of which he was to feel when walking, even as late as 1888, in his Achilles tendon (see The Sign of Four) ; and a worse mishap had followed. At the base hospital at Peshawar he had contracted enteric fever, and for the next few months he lay between life and death. We do not know the date on which he landed from the troopship "Orontes" at Portsmouth, or, precisely, how many months were spent in London before that lucky encounter took place at the Criterion Bar which led to his introduction to his future friend; but while to project The Study in Scarlet into March of 1880 would be to allow, in my opinion, too much time for the above events, Dr. Watson's short experience as a soldier (which he was later inclined to make too much of), his confinement in hospital, his month's voyage and his sojourn in London, are compatible with the earlier date. Unless I find, on having access to books of reference, that the battle of Maiwand took place right at the end of 1878, I shall continue to believe that February 1879 is the date at which our researches should begin.
There is no difficulty in dating some of the adventures. We have, for example, in the case of The Speckled Band, Dr. Watson's definite statement as to when those events occurred: "It was early in April in the year '83, that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed." But in far the greater proportion of cases the dates of events can only be ascertained from some incident or detail mentioned in the course of the narrative, and made perhaps more precise by some reference to the weather or the season. Let me give a few examples. If it had not been for the date inscribed upon Dr. Mortimer's stick, presented to him on leaving Charing Cross Hospital, we should not know the date of the adventure of The Hound of the Baskervilles. But that date, "1884," coupled with Sherlock Holmes' comment, "he left five years ago — the date is on the stick," enables us to assert confidently that we are reading about the year 1889 ; while Dr. Watson's reflection upon the falling leaves, while driving to Baskerville Hall, "sad gifts, as it occurred to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles," shows that it was the autumn of that year. Again, although in the case of The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, the chronicler is content with saying that the events took place "a few weeks before my marriage" and that "high autumn winds" were blowing, we can discover their date. Sherlock Holmes, on looking up Lord Robert St. Simon in Debrett discovered he was born in 1846. "He is forty-one years of age," he added, "which is mature for marriage." The date of these events is therefore the autumn of 1887. This fact is of great importance, because it points to Dr. Watson's marriage having taken place in the last quarter of that year. And if we can once fix that date we can arrange a great many of the stories in chronological order, for Dr. Watson uses his own marriage as a sort of B.C., or A.D. in recounting events. But, alas, it is precisely this date which it is most difficult to determine. A slight mystery hangs over Dr. Watson's marriage.
The Sign of Four gives us the circumstances which led up to that marriage. We know with certainty the date of their engagement. When Miss Morstan called at Baker Street with the letter asking her to be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum that night, Holmes asked to see the envelope: "Postmark, London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum!" The date of her visit was therefore July 8th. Nor is the year less certain. "About six years ago — to be exact, on the 4th of May, 1882 — an advertisement appeared in the Times asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan," she told them. From this remark "six years ago" many have concluded that A Sign of Four must be assigned to 1888 ; simple arithmetic seemed to demand it. But in that case how could we account for Dr. Watson's statement that the affair of The Noble Bachelor (Autumn 1887) took place "a few weeks before his marriage"? They have failed to notice a significant fact. From May 1882, onwards, every year, on the same day, Miss Morstan had received "a very large and lustrous pearl" from an unknown benefactor. If, as in speaking hastily, she asserted, the first had arrived on May 4th, "six years ago," she would have received by July 7th, 1888, seven pearls. But the box she showed Dr. Watson only contained "six of the finest pearls he had ever seen." The date of Dr. Watson's engagement is, therefore, the second week of July, 1887. How long it lasted we do not know. But there is a second small difficulty connected with A Sign of Four. Although it was on the evening of July 8th that they accompanied Miss Morstan to the porch of the Lyceum, later to the house of Thaddeus Sholto, and finally to Upper Norwood, Dr. Watson, in describing that drive, says, "It was a September evening... and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city." What are we to make of this?
But though I am nearly at the end of the column I am far from the end of my chronological perplexities, indeed only at the beginning of them. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb "took place in the summer of '89, and long after my (Dr. Watson’s) marriage." A Scandal in Bohemia opens with the confession that he had neglected his friend. "My own complete happiness, and the home-centered interests which rise up round a man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention," which is clearly the language of a most recently married man; yet Dr. Watson continues, "One night—it was on the 20th of March, 1888....!" And I have just shown that there are good reasons for believing that the marriage took place in the late summer, or early autumn, of 1887! The biographer of Dr. Watson will no doubt clear this matter up, but until it is unraveled it is impossible to date some eight or nine of the stories with any certainty. The Crooked Man opens with the words, "One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth," which suggests that the writer had been married in the spring of that year. I confess I am looking forward with some curiosity—there is a small mystery here—to Mr. Desmond MacCarthy’s life of Dr. Watson.
Affable Hawk
