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Conan doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes
tally was four novels and 56 short
stories, for producing most of which highly unsatisfactory for those who know the
Holmes corpus well – and many do) that there
Conan doyle became one of the best is no single living person who has ever been

paid writers in history. the last one able to create in the pubic mind a definitive
was moved to what is now the Sherlock face for Sherlock Holmes.
was published in 1927. Holmes Museum in Lucens, within the village
about mid-way between the railroad station However, almost from the start, the stories
and the castle. were brilliantly illustrated by Sidney Paget,
and it is his pen and ink depictions of Holmes
The main part of the museum is a big and Watson that have ever since stood as the
“There is a curious fact here. The reason rectangular room whose walls are covered “definitive” portrayal of the two. The museum
Warson is not present at the Reichenbach with William Morris wall paper and whose offers a dozen or more post cards reproducing
Falls to assist Holmes is that he has received center is dominated by a gigantic mahogany in high quality some of these famous
a message asking that he come at once to table from Conan Doyle’s grandfather’s house, illustrations.
the aid of lady who has been wintering at a residence that saw a long parade of some of
Davos, and who is hemorrhaging as a result the most prominent figures of the time. Around Beyond the main room, a door leads to a dark
of consumption.” the edge of the table top are 22 small silver passage one side of which is covered mostly in
plates of about eight by four centimeters with glass. The museum attendant sets in motion a
This was the unplanned opening Conan Doyle engraved on them the names of distinguished visit of the room on the other side of the glass,
needed to resurrect Holmes by revealing that persons who had dined at the table. with spot lights coming on and off focused
he had actually not fallen into the falls and on the various points being described by a
been dashed to death but had triumphed Among them one finds George Bernard Shaw, recorded voice.
over Moriarty and slipped away to track, Walter Scott, Benjamin Disraeli, William
clandestinely, the remaining members of his Gilette, Rudyard Kipling, William Thackery, The room is a “faithful” rendition of Holmes’s
gang. Charles Dickens and Count Gabriel d’Orsay. and Watson’s digs at 221B Baker Street in
London, painstakingly constituted from
Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes tally was The walls are covered by photos from both the hundreds of details in the stories for the 1951
four novels and 56 short stories, for producing professional and personal life of Conan Doyle Festival of Britain and reproduced here. It
most of which Conan Doyle became one of along with a vast panoply of artifacts. Among is very much representative of its time and
the best paid writers in history. The last one these, there is a mixture throughout of both place: Victorian England, when interior decor
was published in 1927. Holmes and Conan Doyle, and at times it is seemed to require that one cram as much as
easy to imagine Holmes as much a former possible into a room, then cram some more.
Upon his death, his children inherited his living person as his creator. The hundreds of objects therein are right
substantial estate, and his youngest son, in line with this. (Today we would call it
Adrian, upon the death of his mother in 1940, Of particular note is the large portrait of “clutter”.)
became Conan Doyle’s literary executor. He Joseph Bell, a professor at the University of be arranged at least 48 hours in advance by
used (apparently unscrupulously) money Edinburgh Medical School, under whom As was common at the time, such “rooms” (the phoning 076 583-61-33 for which a flat fee of
from the estate to buy himself a castle – not Conan Doyle had studied medicine. Bell’s sitting room and bedrooms) were overseen CHF 40 is charged. Group visits – including
in Scotland but in Switzerland in the beautiful meticulous approach to examination and by a virtuous landlady who provided meals children – are welcome. No credit cards
Vaudois village of Lucens. And thus it was diagnosis inspired Holmes’s “science of and afternoon tea (the tea tray is unavoidably accepted, but euros bills are. There is a small
that most of the elements of his father’s deduction and analysis” in pursuing his cases, visible on the center table). In the stories, the boutique with a considerable selection of
multitudinous collections ended up on the and Conan Doyle himself later admitted to landlady, Mrs Hudson, makes repeated cameo items, including the post cards with Sidney
Continent, far from their English origin. Bell that he was the person on whom Holmes appearances, adding an element of both Paget’s illustrations.
was based. continuity and realism.
In 1965, he set up the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Musée Sherlock Holmes - Lucens
Foundation in Switzerland. Upon his death, There have been so many attempts at The museum is open on Saturday and Sunday
the castle was sold, and in 2001 the collection translating Holmes into film (virtually all from 2 to 5 p.m. Visits on other days may

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