A reporter asked Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1894 if he had been influenced by the
work of Edgar Allen Poe. The creator of Sherlock Holmes replied, “Oh,
immensely! His detective is the best detective in fiction.” The reporter asked
if that assessment included Sherlock Holmes. “I make no exception…,” Conan
Doyle declared. “Dupin is unrivalled.”

Perhaps Holmes calling Dupin an "inferior fellow" was only a way to make it
clear to his readers that his creation was only inspired by Dupin, not an
Anglicized double. Like all authors, Conan Doyle was proud of what he created
and wanted his originality acknowledged.

Holmes also looked down upon the French criminal-turned-detective Lecoq. Both
Lecoq and and Dupin are French and are inspired from the real life detective
Eugène François Vidocq. Most likely Conan Doyle was well aware of Vidocq’s
renown, but whether his inspiration for Holmes came second-hand from Poe and
Gaboriau (creator of Lecoq) or directly from Vidocq’s Mémoires as well as other
writings about him, there is no question that Sherlock Holmes’s lineage
stretches back to Vidocq.

And yes, Sridhar, that poem really is cheesy. It seems that ACD was hell-bent on
proving to everybody that he did not hold the same opinions as Holmes about the
matter. I mean a poem...? And I agree when you said that it was a good thing he
never decided to be a poet. Not all geniuses can be good writers, poets and
illustrators all at once. Tolkien, however, would always be an exception.

Manraviel


rishiiyengar <no_reply@...> wrote:sridhar C <cs_gollum@y...>
wrote:

> Holmes doesn't seem to have much respect for "the Granddaddy of
detective fiction's" sleuth, Auguste Dupin, though. :)

Yup. In fact, the whole *point* of Holmes' little demonstration was
to prove that Dupin's lil' trick of reading minds was no big deal.
That "inferior fellow"!

ACD himself always admired Dupin, though. In fact, he composed a
little doggerel about Holmes' conceit:

Pray master this, my esteemed commentator,
That the created is not the creator,
Just grasp this fact with your cerebral tentacle,
That the doll and its maker are never identical.

Good thing ACD never decided to make a career in poetry.:-) "Cerebral
tentacle"? Sounds like a cranial projection of the Watcher in the
Deeps of Moria.



"...From the ashes a fire shall be woken
A light from the shadows shall spring
Renewed shall be blade that was broken
The crownless again shall be king"
---J R R Tolkein















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