Dear Sherlockians,

This has reference to Mr. Johnny’s question regarding “The Tangled Skin”. I do
not think “The Tangled Skin” was to have any supernatural connotation. From the
draft of the story (Arthur Conan Doyle started writing it on 8 March 1886), a
copy of which Allen Eyles has provided in the 12th page of “Sherlock Holmes: A
Centenary Celebration” (London: John Murray, 1986), it appears that Doyle was
initially without any particular idea about how the detective story would
develop, but obviously he had ‘murder in his mind’. Probably the mass of skin
was to be of a victim brutally annihilated by an initially-unknown assailant. It
is interesting that Doyle aimed, even from the first draft, at demeaning
detective characters created by other writers like Poe and Gaboriau. The writer
had scribbled, “Lecoq was a burglar – Dupin was better.” In the first draft of
that story, John H. Watson and Sherlock Holmes appeared respectively as ‘Ormond
Sacker’ and ‘Sherrinford Holmes’. The story was
purchased for a mere 25 pounds by M/s. Ward, Lock and Company, and was
published as “A Study in Scarlet” in “Beeton’s Christmas Annual”, November 1886.
And the rest, as we know, is history.

Sumal, I think this topic may be
taken up for discussion. Though D.H.Friston was the first artist to depict
Sherlock Holmes, followed by Charles Doyle, most of the Sherlock Holmes
illustrations in “The Strand Magazine” were drawn by Sidney Paget (for 38
adventures). It is often put forward as hypothesis that Sidney Paget modelled
Sherlock Holmes on his brother Walter, whereas for Watson, he employed a
slightly-modified image of Doyle himself. I ask for the Sherlockians’ valuable
opinion regarding how much have had our conception about the detective in his
deerstalker and wooden pipe been influenced by Sidney Paget’s illustrations.

Yours sincerely,

(Pinaki Roy, Ph.D.)





---------------------------------
Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]