Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Sherlock Holmes' s Birthday?

The Curious Case of a Birthday for Sherlock - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Sherlock Holmes has captured the imagination of the English reading world for well over a century now. It is but natural that several clubs honor and cherish the adventures as much as the first time reader. In fact, even in Bangalore you have a couple of societies or chapters of larger societies celebrating Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle can never be thanked enough for giving us this wonderful detective.

I did not know till I read this interesting post that Sherlock Holmes has a birthday celebration every year. And the date? January 6th or Twelfth night.

Read the interesting post to understand why this date was chosen.

I like the editions illustrated wonderfully by Sidney Paget as published in the Strand Magazine. Others just don't cut it.

And about the actors, I think Jeremy Brett portrayed Holmes best. Did you know that Roger Moore ("My name is Holmes, Sherlock Holmes") and Christopher Lee (and Saruman the white) have played Sherlock Holmes? Basil Rathbone was a favorite of Americans of the black and white generation. There were quite a few non-Conan-Doyle stories that featured Rathbone as Holmes. Personally, I have not read a non-Conan-Doyle Holmes and I don't think I will try to either.

I finish this post with a quiz: Which adventures of Sherlock Holmes have a number in their names? (No cheating...)

2 comments:

hamsanandi said...

Without searching :) I can only remember "Five Orange Pips" and "The Sign of Four".

parijata said...

'Second Stain', 'Three Gables', 'Three Students', 'Six Napoleons', 'Three Garridebs', 'Five Orange Pips', 'Sign of Four'