One of the most famous detectives of all times, Sherlock Holmes has become a legendary figure in the minds of people through the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. People all over the world know him as an eccentric person, with amazing powers of concentration and brilliance. He was a detective par excellence with a superb analytical mind that smoked a pipe and played a violin – typical traits as portrayed by Sir Doyle. Sherlock Holme’s character and lifestyle are so interestingly depicted in Doyle’s novel that many of Holme’s fans have searched for his house at 221 B, Baker Street, London, which infact, did not exist.
Sherlock Holme’s house did not exist because he himself never existed in reality. He was only a fictious character born out of the imagination of the novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, making his first appearance in 1887 in one of Doyle’s works. He appeared as a detective in other subsequent works of Doyle and became a household name. But Doyle projected this character so brilliantly and vividly that people often wondered if he existed in reality. Children mistake him to be a character in flesh and blood and consider him to be their ideal whenever they aspire to be a detective.
In the novel, Sherlock Holmes used to be assisted by Dr Watson, another character in Doyle’s novel, who was rather dim and slow in comparison to Holme’s brilliance. Among these stories of Doyle, which are set in London at the end of the 19th century, the most famous is The Hound of Baskervilles.