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Simran Kaur
Professor Haas
Writing 37
6 November 2014

Literature Review: The Popularity of Conan Doyle and Holmes

Edgar Allan Poe, the famous American author, poet and literary critic, invented detective
fiction with two short stories: Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined
Letter.<<adding specifics makes you even more credible as a scholar However, the detective
genre did not become famous during his time, because the American Romantic Movement was
still a major influence upon the world. Sir Arthur <<first time you introduce an author, use full
name<< Conan Doyle, the creator of the fictional Sherlock Holmes, made the detective genre
bloom during the Victorian era because he was more rational than Poe, a trait championed by the
Victorian Era. Literary critics such as Leroy Panek, George N. Dove, and TJ Binyon have
offered <<<I suggest you add this quick intro of the scholars now so that you can establish early
on that you are doing a literature review<<< sSeveral other reasons played a big role in for the
popularity of Doyle and Holmes, which includinged the incompetence of the Victorian police
force, the readers growing interest for education<<how about: the rise of the middle-class as a
reading audience, the easy availability of text, the invention of the short story and most
significantly, a form of entertainment for the middle classthe recreational value of the stories.
Doyle almost single-handedly created the detective archetype that has been and will continue to
be prominent throughout history. Leroy Panek,<<since youll intro these guys earlier, now you
just need to refer to them by last name<< the author ofin An Introduction to the Detective Story,

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explains in his chapters Beginnings and Doyle how the detective genre began and what
Doyle contributed to it respectively. T.J. Binyons , the author of the chapter Murder Will
Out, <<its also a book analyzes what made Doyles stories popular and concludes that a very
minimal number of authors have been successful in imitating Doyles elevated level of writing.
During the Victorian era, London was experiencing a wave of immigration due to the
Industrial Revolution. As the population increased, so did poverty, which triggered a surplus of
crime. <<A sentence here that introduces the concept of the incompetent police would help
transition into the Panek quote bettersomething like: However, Londons metropolitan police
force was no match for the crime in the city, and they were often cited in news stories for their
incompetence. According to Panek, Official policemen display[ed] all sorts of truculent
ignorance and wrong- headedness. They never [saw] the truth and frequently want[ed] to arrest
the wrong person (Doyle 23). Doyle also shares the same view about this Victorian
police<<you can make this sentence stronger and tie it back in to the main idea: Doyle
capitalized on the public distrust of the police, featuring incompetent police characters in all his
stories, and offered a hero-detective who could solve every case. In his short story Silver
Blaze, Doyle depicts<<use present tense (literary present)ed the polices amateurish style and
sloppy procedure of solving crimes. Inspector Gregory arrestsed the wrong man, Fitzroy
Simpson, without taking into consideration that Simpson had no advantage behindmotive for
kidnapping Silver Blaze. The lack of polices ability to solve crimes, suggests Panek, is one
properly was the reason why people, all sorts of people, willingly [took] their problems, even
trivial ones as well as big ones, to Holmes (Doyle 21). Thus, the ineptitude of the Victorian
police caused an increasing interest in Doyles detective Holmes.

Formatted: Font: Italic

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The mid-19th century was a time when most of the middle class was learning how to read,
and t. These newly educated readers were interested in stories about crimes and criminals.
<<when you have two shorter sentences that relate closely, its a good practice to try to combine
them<< According to Panek, a new class of readers who had a vague interest in crime as
subject matter but who [also wanted to] remain aloof from the serious moral and social
implications was needed in order to promote thethe perfect audience for the detective genre
(Beginnings 17). Since the middle class worked hard all day, they wanted Doyles stories to
serve as areading that would enhance their leisure time. Hence, the fact that Doyles stories were
never based on any moral tracts but provided them an escape from the everyday reality.<<note
my suggested revisions hereIm making the words more accurate so it doesnt sound like
Doyle was purposefully thinking about what the middle class wanted and then created it (because
we dont know what his intentions were)instead that his stories represented things that the
middle class readers found appealingits a slight difference, but its important to be as accurate
as possible when representing the texts << According to Dove also addresses the recreational
value of the detective story, a detective story is similarcomparing it to a crossword puzzle: in
that they are both are straight-forward, highly structured, and have no goals beyond recreation.
The structure is important: because those of entertainment and relaxation in that the reader
already knows the result of a detective story, there is no anxiety connected with anticipating the
ending. but still reads it for fun. Similarly, the puzzle solver already knows what the end product
will look like but still solves the puzzle for recreation (The Different Story 6). As Delamater
quoted LikeP.D. James in The Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction, the rational and
structured crossword puzzle, Detective stories help reassure us in the belief that the universe,
underneath it all, is rational. Theyre small celebrations of order and reason in an increasingly

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disordered world (James, qtd in Delameter and Prigozy 1). Thus, the rational structure of the
Holmes stories resonated with the Victorian readers middle class helped Doyle and Holmes
bloom in popularity during the Victorian era. desire for recreation and rationality

Readers of the Victorian era appreciated the genius as a hero. They expected an intellect
to be an important aspect of the detective story by acknowledging the originality by which
Holmes solved his cases. According to Binyon, Holmes deductions almost never prove to be
wrong. It is his signature move to magically <<but not to contradict the last sub-pointit may
seem like magic, but it is at its foundation totally rational pull out the solution to every single
case. His deductions to absurdly difficult cases seem very straightforward (Murder Will Out 11).
The classical example of this can be seen when Holmes remarks in The Red-Headed League
that beyond the obvious facts that [Jabez Wilson] has at some time done manual labour, that he
takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a
considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else. Thus, the readers who
appreciated a genius as a hero were also necessary for Doyle to bloom in the mid 19th century.
<<you should tie this point back into the incompetent policebecause they could not solve
cases, the ability of Holmes, his genius, and his rational, structured approach (the science of
deduction made him especially appealling
During the Victorian Era, Sherlock Holmes reached the peak of its popularity and the
conventions of the detective genre received their fullest expression. Since then, the audience has
known what to expect from a detective story, as Conan Doyle set the standards for the detective
genre. Overall, Panek, Dove, and Binyon mostly agree with each other about why Doyle and
Sherlock gained popularity exponentially. It seems as if Doyle wrote all his books keeping the

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middle class in mind. <<Remember that Doyle himself was middle-class--- he was not from a
noble family or from a well-monied familyso it is pretty logical that he knew how to appeal to
the middle-class malehe was writing for/to himself Doyle reflected the middle classs
perspective about the unreliability of the police force. The middle class, unable to handle the
larger volumes of books that existed beforehand, found Doyles work to be a much more precise
and pleasing alternative. To this day, Holmes is famous all over the world because he used
uncanny wit to solve every single case.
Really nice draft, Simran! This is, without a doubt, the best draft I have read out of all the
students in both my classes. The suggestions Ive made throughout are to show you how to make
the sentences even more precise and detailed, and how to focus on the important points (and stay
focused on the same point). Do this kind of editing throughout as you revise. I think you can also
do a bit more to explain how the statements of the scholars relate to each other.
At Connect, it looks like the two assignments that were most challenging for
you were Using Information Ethically and Legally and Pronounsso sometime in the
next two weeks, please go back into both of those assignments and find the
Rechargeyoull then be given a short practice follow up to help you understand
the objectives in those assignments more clearly

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Works Cited
Binyon, T.J. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989. PDF File.
Delamater, Jerome and Ruth Prigozy, eds. Theory and Practice of Classic Detective
Fiction. New York: Praeger, 1997. Print. PDF File.
Dove, George N. The Different Story. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green,
OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997. PDF File.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. "Adventure 1: Silver Blaze." The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Lit2Go Edition. 1892. Web.
<http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/32/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes/345/adventure-1-silverblaze//>. November 06, 2014.
Panek, Leroy. Beginnings. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH:
Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987. PDF File.

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Panek, Leroy. Doyle. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green State University Popular Press, 1987. PDF File.