Holmes & the "unnoticed" Little Things

IN EVERY Sherlock Holmes story, the beginning matters. The same holds true for most critical studies of Sherlock Holmes. Just as a typical Holmes story starts in the rooms at 221B, most studies of the canon open by recounting a specific scene from a specific story. Both openings provide clues, as it were, for the tales to come. In his exploration of secrets and lies in the Holmes canon, Andrew Glazzard begins with "A Case of Identity," in particular the scene where Holmes asks Watson to give his "general impressions" of their newly-arrived client, Miss Mary Sutherland. Watson tries his best to emulate Holmes's technique, looking for clues to Miss Sutherland's class and character by reading the many and varied surfaces of her body. Of course, Watson fails to discern the truth, even though, as Holmes tells him, "you have hit upon the method" of seeking out the deeper truths concealed behind the surface appearances. Unfortunately, Holmes notes, Watson has "missed everything of importance" in those surface appearances, which leaves a flabbergasted Watson to respond: "You appear to read a good deal upon her which is invisible to me." "Not invisible," Holmes admonishes, "but unnoticed."

In The Case of Sherlock Holmes: Secrets and Lies in Conan Doyle's Detective Fiction, Glazzard revisits the "unnoticed" little things that run throughout the canon, hoping to revise our appreciation of how profoundly these stories are engaged with the social and political challenges of their time. As Glazzard notes, these unnoticed things are many and are "concealed or obscured" in varied ways. Sometimes the concealment is due to Conan Doyle's artistry as he intentionally hides—or, by proxy, has Holmes intentionally hide—the deeper truth at play in a story. At other times, and perhaps more often, the tale's obscurity is the result of time and not just intention, with contemporary readers failing to notice the "frames of reference" that Conan Doyle's "first readers would have recognized." Arguing that "contextual knowledge is essential to decode the full meaning of a Sherlock Holmes story," Glazzard establishes two different contexts as essential for unlocking these tales. First, there is the "historical and social" context that will allow us to understand how "what might seem to be irrelevant or arcane topics—the price of wheat, an obscure Victorian gambling scandal, [or] the topography of a South African valley—can illuminate a story and offer ways of reading it anew." Second, there is the "literary and biographical" context. Identifying Conan Doyle as a "voracious reader" who "incorporated elements from many of his favorite works in the Holmes saga," in particular the novels and stories of Poe, Stevenson, and Collins, Glazzard notes that these elements often provide "an interpretive key to unlock … [a story's] inner meaning," and while Glazzard acknowledges that employing biographical details may be "fraught with theoretical and methodical risks," he maintains that Conan Doyle's life nonetheless "provides some valuable clues that it makes sense to explore." But just as Holmes's method in "A Case of Identity" is not just about having "knowledge," Glazzard's approach does not start and end with context. Added to knowledge must be "imagination," the approach that "allows Holmes to see the full range of possibilities, which can then be narrowed down by the patient collection of evidence and its analysis." Similarly, imagination "is equally necessary in literary criticism" because all literary texts "are open to a range of readings and the process of interpretation necessarily involves constructing as well as decoding meaning." The result of this approach—this blending of context and imagination, of decoding and constructing—is a lively study that builds a persuasive case for rereading the Holmes canon as "surprisingly open to a wide range of possible meanings."

Before discussing the content of Glazzard's study, it is necessary to say a word about its structure because the structure, while at first a bit disorienting, turns out to be the study's strength...