the adventures of sherlock holmes main characters
The main characters in the collection of stories include Sherlock Holmes, his partner, and the narrator of the stories, Dr. Watson and Irene Adler.
sherlock holmes
doyle dedicated the collection of stories to dr. joseph bell, his professor at the university of edinburgh medical school. The esteemed professor’s amazing power of deduction often amazed his students and patients, as he accurately diagnosed ailments or made insightful comments on professions and lifestyle habits immediately after his presentation. Doyle modeled Holmes’s powers of observation and reasoning after Dr. bell’s legendary abilities. Watson, Holmes’ partner, also describes the crime enthusiast as possessing a fierce energy, due in part to his intense personality and sharp faculties and in part to cocaine use. However, the Doctor notes a balance in Holmes’s character between this sharp and extreme energy and a more poetic and meditative mood, which manifests itself in Holmes’s enthusiasm for music as a composer and performer. In his physical appearance, Holmes is a tall, slender figure, whose face resembles that of a hawk with its long, angular, “beaked” nose and sharp eyes.
You are reading: Sherlock holmes books summary
dr. watson
dr. Watson, the narrator and Holmes’s colleague, is a newlywed doctor with a modest practice. Before settling into his domestic life, the single doctor lived with Holmes on Baker Street. In contrast to Holmes’ sharp wit and unstoppable energy, Watson is conscientious and thoughtful, often pausing to consider the ethics of his and Holmes’s plots. Watson is a humble and loyal colleague, faithfully praising the incredible power of his colleague’s deductions.
irene adler
See Also: Curl Up with a Book: Italian Novel Even Beginners Can Read | FluentU Italian
Although irene adler only appears in “a scandal in bohemia”, her character gains enduring importance in the collection as an object of holmes’ admiration and the only woman to get the best detective hand . . Adler is an exceptionally beautiful American opera singer whose cunning surpasses Holmes’s careful planning. Modern film and television adaptations of the story often portray Adler as Holmes’s love interest, though the story explicitly distinguishes admiration for her from a love-like emotion.
the adventures of sherlock holmessummary
doyle drew inspiration for the whimsical plots from reports published in the popular penny weeklies, relying, as did his hero, on life itself for trivia and bizarre anecdotes. Some of the more notable stories in the collection include “A Scandal in Bohemia”, “The Red-Headed League”, “The Five Orange Pips”, and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”.
“a scandal in bohemia”
The first story in the collection begins with Watson reuniting with Holmes after a time apart. The two associates meet the Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, or future King of Bohemia. The Monarch incognito requires Holmes’s help to obtain an incriminating photograph of himself with Irene Adler, the American opera singer. Adler has threatened to reveal the photograph at the moment the Grand Duke announces his engagement to the Princess of Scandinavia. While exploring Adler’s residence at Briony Lodge, Holmes gathers information about her relationship with handsome bachelor Godfrey Norton. the detective follows them both to a church, where he inadvertently participates in his marriage as a witness to the secret union.
See Also: 66 books of the Bible Crossword – WordMint
That afternoon, Holmes and Watson set off for Briony Lodge to execute their plan to discover where Adler has hidden the photograph. Under the guise of a lowly clergyman and with the help of some men to organize a fight, Holmes manages to enter Adler’s house. Standing by the open window, Watson detonates a smoke rocket and raises the alarm. Confirming Holmes’ assumption that, in the event of a fire, Adler would rush to secure his most valuable possession, Adler inadvertently reveals to the observing detective the location of the photograph behind a sliding panel.
Having thus ascertained the location of the object of his quest, Holmes returns the next morning with Watson and the Grand Duke himself. The unsuspecting detective discovers that the former Miss Adler has already gone to the mainland with her new husband. behind the hidden panel he finds a different image of adler herself in an evening dress and a letter addressed to him, in which the cunning lover reveals her knowledge of his identity and collaboration with the future king of bohemia and retracts her threat of blackmail. Holmes retains Adler’s image as compensation, and Watson concludes by describing Holmes’s abiding admiration for the woman.
“the league of redheads”
mr. Jabez Wilson, a portly red-haired pawnbroker, seeks Holmes’s help to explain the mysterious dissolution of the Red-Headed League, an exclusive red-haired society in which he was briefly privileged to be a member. Mr. Wilson recounts to Holmes and Watson the events that led him to answer an ad for a vacancy in the Red-Headed League at the behest of his clerk Vincent Spaulding. Mr. Wilson managed to secure the vacancy, which required him to go to the League office every day to copy the Encyclopaedia Britannica in exchange for the lofty sum of four pounds a week. after eight weeks, mr. Wilson found the office locked, a sign reading “The Redhead League Disbands” and no trace of his association with the league.
after investigating the premises of mr. At Wilson’s pawn shop and briefly meeting assistant Spaulding, Holmes spots a more sinister crime afoot, involving wanted thief and murderer John Clay. With the help of a police officer and the bank manager, Holmes and Watson hope to trap Clay in the City and Suburban Bank Vault, where a recent deposit of French gold has been temporarily held. Proving Holmes’ deduction, Clay and his accomplice reach the vault through a tunnel dug between Mr. Wilson’s adjacent pawn shop and bank vault floor. After apprehending the robbers, Holmes explains the purpose of the Red-Headed League as a ploy to catch Mr. Wilson out of the store for several hours during the week so that Clay and his accomplice could dig their tunnel to the bank’s basement.