By Katie Rodriguez

It’s not often that any one person is remembered for generations beyond their time, let alone an entirely fictitious character out of the pages of a paperback magazine. How rare it is then that nearly a century and a half after he made his first appearance, Sherlock Holmes is still just as beloved and globally renowned as he’s ever been. Holmes may be best known as the world’s first and only consulting detective, but he was also the world’s first literary celebrity, foremost of his kind and unparalleled even to this day.

It would have been nearly impossible for the then 27-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle to imagine the pop culture force he was about to create as he sat down in early 1886 to pen his first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet. Serialized in 56 original short stories and four full-length novels before Doyle hung up the deerstalker in 1927, Holmes was a cultural icon unlike any other of his time. As one of the first literary sagas to amass a uniquely passionate fan base, he and his readers were hugely influential in developing modern fan culture as we now understand it, much to the chagrin of the author himself, who made it well known that he never set out to make this character his life’s work. The fans, of course, would have otherwise.

Readers were so deeply devoted to their favorite sleuth’s escapades that when Doyle attempted to kill Holmes off in 1893, throwing him off the Reichenbach Falls in an epic battle with his archnemesis Moriarty in “The Adventure of The Final Problem,” publisher The Strand Magazine lost tens of thousands of subscribers practically overnight. Fans instantly clamored for Holmes’s return, writing angry letters to the magazine and to Doyle himself, calling him “a brute” for what he had done. Legend has it that some devotees went so far as to wear black mourning crapes and black arm bands to publicly display their lamentation.

The return of Sherlock Holmes, in what is now widely considered the best and most famous of the detective’s novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901), came to fruition almost entirely to placate the hordes of distraught readers who could not tolerate a life without Holmes and his trusted partner, Dr. John Watson. The success of the novel kick-started Holmes’s revival and ushered in another 26 years of original Doyle content, which the author simply could no longer deny his devoted readership.

Holmesian societies began to sprout up around the globe in the wake of the detective’s colossal rise to fame. Though in the 1890s readers largely engaged with Doyle’s stories individually rather than in a formal group or communal gathering, as the century turned fans began to officially assemble. Both the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the New York City–based Baker Street Irregulars were early bastions of community for dedicated readers. Established in 1934, these groups each provided a space for like-minded mystery fans to analyze their favorite stories at intimate dinner parties.

Over the last 90 years, The Baker Street Irregulars have evolved from a small gathering of friends into a legitimate institution for lovers of Sherlock Holmes—one part literary salon, one part social soiree. Members must be invited to join after demonstrating their ability to be accomplished members of society, both professionally and as dedicated Holmes enthusiasts. The organization proudly boasts over 300 members from across the globe and continues to host annual dinners every January in New York City, a tradition that dates all the way back to 1938.

Those who lived through the golden age of the 2010s internet may recall the intense Sherlock Holmes fandom that resurged on the microblogging social media platform Tumblr. Users took to the site in droves to profess their love of the BBC’s 2010 contemporary television series “Sherlock,” led by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Mountainous quantities of artwork, complex character theories, and fanfiction were created by fans as they waited at the edge of their computer screens for the next episode to drop. Though none of these behaviors is new to the world of Sherlockian fanaticism, the digital age has allowed for devotees to find community and connection on a new, global scale.

Since their official retirement in 1927, the iconic duo of Holmes and Watson has been revisited across countless film, television, theatrical, radio, and literary adaptations. The intense following has not faltered in the face of more than a century of reimaginings, rather growing stronger as new and younger fans build their own connections to the characters. Even as recently as the 2020s, the popular Netflix franchise Enola Holmes—which imagines a world where Sherlock has an equally deductive younger sister—goes to show that not only can these characters be adapted time and time again, but they flourish as they do so.

Holmes and Watson, though brought to life by Doyle, have stood the test of time because their fans have refused to let them go quietly into the night. Molded alongside an audience that clamors to revisit them, no twist is ever too far out there. Even poking a bit of fun at the source material offers a chance to open these characters up for contemporary audiences. Playwright Kate Hamill herself refers to Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B as “a cheerful desecration of the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” bringing the beloved sleuth into the modern age in a wild romp of a female-driven buddy comedy. From being brought back from over the edge of the Reichenbach Falls to planted in a 2021 steampunk hipster flat in London, Sherlock Holmes has more than transcended the typical arc of the average literary hero.