The Sherlock Holmes File

This book is a pictorial survey of the many impressions of Sherlock Holmes and his world that have been presented to the public. The figure in a deerstalker and Inverness cape, smoking a curly pipe and saying ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’, needs no identification.

The image of Sherlock Holmes is unmistakable, and yet none of those features can be found in Conan Doyle.

They have been introduced by artists who illustrated the stories and actors who played the part. The comments from many actors on the problems of portraying the great detective and his long-suffering friend and colleague Dr Watson are included. But most important of all, The Sherlock Holmes File contains the largest picture gallery of Holmes impersonators ever assembled — an amazing collection of more than seventy Sherlocks, in and out of disguise, in and out of Baker Street, with and without Watson, and particularly when tackling that demonic dog in the sleuth’s most popular exploit, The Hound of the Baskervilles. The file even has a first-hand account of that unique expedition of 1968, when Holmes, Watson and a covey of characters from the adventures journeyed through Switzerland to re-enact the Holmes-Moriarty death struggle at the Reichenbach Falls.