Talk:Sherlock Holmes

Proposed Edit Regarding Inspiration for the Character section

Under the "Inspiration for the Character" section it is claimed:

"Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin is generally acknowledged as the first detective in fiction and served as the prototype for many later characters, including Holmes."

This is inaccurate and should be amended to be clear that Poe's character was one of the first detective characters in ENGLISH fiction. There are a number of examples of detective characters in fiction prior to Poe's, but they are not in English. There is a separate page for "Detective Fiction" that discusses this: Detective fiction#English genre establishment 24.127.244.29 (talk) 03:45, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Bachelor's thesis on Holmes translations into Japanese

AFAIK https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A1388/datastream/OBJ/view/_You_are_the_one_fixed_point_in_a_changing_age_.pdf as this is a bachelor's thesis, it cannot be used as a reliable source. However, I think it can be used to mine for info that may be confirmed in other sources... WhisperToMe (talk) 19:51, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Sherlock Jr. film by Buster Keaton

There is a very loose adaptation - parody - meta work by Buster Keaton called "Sherlock Jr" that is worth mentioning. 45.66.42.251 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose merging a shortened version of the Popular culture references to Sherlock Holmes article into Sherlock Holmes. I think the Cultural References article can easily be made into a section inside of the Sherlock Holmes article. I believe a reader would be able to more easily acess the information if the articles are not separate. Pyrrhic victor (talk) 14:34, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Merge – A second article is unnecessary given how short it currently is compared to the main article. FaviFake (talk) 20:22, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the name

The pronunciation of the name given contains the r sound in Sherlock. Isn't the correct British pronunciation without the r sound? ~2026-17385-76 (talk) 10:40, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

More emphasis on Joseph Bell as inspiration?

There are quite a few sources which unambiguously state that Doyle was directly inspired by Edinburgh surgeon Joseph Bell, which this article covers in just four sentences, the last one of which features a dismissive quote by Bell himself (which to me reads much more like Bell being humble).

Most notably, Doyle himself recalled that when conceiving of Holmes, "I thought of my old teacher, Joe Bell, and of his eagle face, of his curious ways, or his eerie tricks of spotting details. If he were a detective, he would surely reduce this fascinating but unorganized business to something nearer to an exact science". He also wrote directly to Bell stating it was "most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes".

Bell also demonstrated some of Holmes exact techniques of observation. In one instance, he accurately deduced that a woman had been to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh from traces of red clay on her shoes, that she had left a child with a relative from the size of a coat she carried, and that she worked in a linoleum factory in Burntisland from dermatitis on her right hand.

Would there be opposition if I emphasized this connection with another sentence or two in the Inspiration section? — Arcaist ^{(contr—talk)} 14:23, 12 May 2026 (UTC)