What This Book Can Do For You
“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried….
“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“Why this article.” I said, “…it is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third class carriage on the underground, and asked to give the trades of all his fellow travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against him.”
“You would lose your money.” Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for the article I wrote it myself.”
Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet
Renowned author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Dr. John H. Watson, Holmes’s fictional friend and sidekick, chronicled 4 novels and 56 short stories in which Sherlock Holmes appeared.1 The inspiration for Holmes’s fictional character came from Doyle’s association with Professor Joseph Bell. Mr. Bell was a highly respected doctor in the late 19th Century. Doctor Bell’s ability to instantly size-up his students inspired Doyle. Doyle then gave Holmes one of his greatest detective skills. In several stories, Doyle uses Holmes’s ability to size up strangers to astonish and fascinate his readers.
Over a hundred years later, readers remain fascinated with the Sherlock Holmes stories and his ability to instantly size up strangers. What person upon meeting a stranger would not want to instantly tell if he or she i
