How Arthur Conan Doyle Plotted Against Sherlock Holmes

24. Sherlock Holmes appears to be immortal

Throughout the history of Sherlock Holmes, mortal danger threatened him countless times. Probably none more so than when he faced Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls, with his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, determined to kill him forever. As his fans later learned, Holmes survived that encounter, as he did others throughout his career. Doyle wrote a greater number of short stories featuring Holmes after he failed to kill the character than he had before. He also branched off with plays, which in turn led to the earliest appearances of Holmes and Watson in the new medium of silent films.

Arthur Conan Doyle created other memorable characters, among them Professor Challenger in The Lost World, and Brigadier Gerard in a series of stories set during the Napoleonic Wars. His legacy though, is Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the foggy, smoky London they inhabit. Nearly a century and a half later, imaginations around the world are stirred by their adventures as they pursue a solution invisible to mere mortals, with Holmes calling to his companion, “The game’s afoot”. Doyle created a character which he could not kill. Nobody’s managed to kill him since.