The Strand Magazine. The issue flew all around the world at lightning speed, by post or whatever other means presented itself. Of course, it got to Russia. The success abroad was reflected in Russia, where it swept up and down the land. Russian publishers reacted instantaneously. There is a saying to the effect that, while it takes a while to harness horses, the actual ride is swift. This is how it was with this new Sherlock Holmes. The first edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles came out in London on 25 March 1902 and by 10 April the Panteleyeff brothers had already received the necessary official permission from the Russian censor to publish a Russian translation. Less than a month later, the Panteleyeff brothers published, in the May edition, a new, fairly exact translation of it. One thousand copies were set side and sold in book form in June. A third edition of three thousand was published in September by D. Yefimoff’s publishing house in Moscow.
The success of the story (read Sherlock Holmes) amongst Russian readers was breathtaking and saw the start of Sherlockomania. Publishers began to publish anything they could lay their hands on and, during the short period between the summer of 1902 and the end of 1903, a score of books emerged. Incomplete data, just for the five years between 1902 and 1907, shows that no less than twenty publishers issued Sherlock Holmes. As regards the actual texts, one has to admit that, on the whole, the translations were weak, many were garbled, with bits and pieces of their own manufacture thrown in by translators. Few were worthy of the original. Amongst those that were an exception to the general rule, was a four-volume edition from V.I. Gubinsky entitled The Adventures of the Detective Sherlock Holmes, which came out in Petersburg between 1902 and 1905. Every volume had a print run of 3,500, considerable for Russia in those days. This edition went into three further printings in nearly double figures. A particular feature of this edition was that it was the first illustrated edition, showing the canonical ‘portrait’ of Sherlock Holmes by the German painter Richard Gutschmidt. The illustrations were taken from the 3-volume 1902 German edition published in Stuttgart by Robert Lutz Verlag.
In December, 1893, English and American readers were in a state of shock to read, in The Adventure of the Final Solution, of the premature death of Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls. Russian readers did not register the same sense of loss and shock because they had become acquainted with Sherlock Holmes later. Despite this, when Sherlock Holmes miraculously survived and returned, the interest and affection displayed was no less considerable than elsewhere. His triumphant return was now greeted with no less acclaim in Russia than abroad. The Adventure of the Empty House, which records Holmes’s return, appeared in New York in Colliers Weekly Magazine on 26 September 1903, and already on 13 November of the same year, Soikin, in his magazine Nature & People published a translation.
The ‘resurrection’ of Sherlock Holmes only increased the sensational excitement in connection with him. New publishers, their finger on the public pulse, published Conan Doyle’s stories as soon as they appeared. For example, between January and September, 1904, the Panteleyeff brothers, in their revamped New Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, published twelve of the thirteen stories which later became the collection known as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Except that this time, Russian publishers decided to forestall events. The first edition of this collection of stories came out in New York in February, 1905, but in Russia it was already out in October, 1904 (but without The Adventure of the Second Stain).
The name of the private detective from Baker Street was not just a matter of renown, but it came to be used as a common noun. For three decades, a synonym for the word ‘detective’ had been Monsieur Lecoq, agent of the Criminal Investigation police from the works of Emile Gaboriau, but now it became the eponym (and is still so to this very day), Sherlock Holmes. He cast a spell over the hearts and minds of thousands of Russian fans. He was no longer a creature of his creator, but now belonged to everybody, a supranational phenomenon. Wildly successful plays were staged of his exploits, little boys imitated him, adults tried to imitate his methods, he was parodied, his name graced signboards and goods labels. And everyone read accounts of his adventures, even members of royal families. The diary of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, records that he read the following (in the original) to his family, The Valley of Fear, The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The Emperor read so-called ‘continental’ editions, published in English in Leipzig by the heirs of Baron von Tauchnitz. Today they have become priceless collectors’ pieces, though at one time the ones that got to Russia were sold abroad for pennies by ignorant and uncultivated Bolsheviks. Today they are safeguarded by the library of the University of Minnesota.
Sherlock Holmes became more than a literary hero. He became virtually real, an outstanding contemporary, a great expert in crime detection, a psychologist of great depth and a zealous man of science. There is an unusual brochure by the psychiatrist Michael Mayevsky, Conan Doyle: The Adventures of the Detective Sherlock Holmes, Vilna, 1904. The psychiatrist had made a detailed study of the Sherlock Holmes stories, a detailed analysis of the psychological and professional aspect of the detective’s personality, examined his work methods in detail, and their underlying scientific basis. He pays particular attention to his powers of observation, logic, deductive and inductive thinking, how he comes to make correct conclusions. ‘These stories,’ writes Mayevsky, ‘represent a eulogy in praise of logic, in honour of man’s acute powers of observation, trained by considerable human experience … an example of penetration into a single chosen sphere of knowledge … clearly, precisely and entertainingly set out … a collection of … subtle and witty intellectual conclusions.’ Holmes, says the author of the brochure, might be an amateur in his profession, however ‘by no means a dilettante, but a scholar of depth’.
However, other times were approaching; mass culture had arrived and in 1907, in Russia, a Sherlock Holmes to whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had no connection, was fated to appear.
Roman Kim, a wonderful Russian writer, who also popularized detective fiction, has a story, The Case of the Murder of the Great Detective, (1966). It tells a story which ostensibly took place in April, 1906, on the estate of Conan Doyle. This is the plot. Once, his mother appears without warning, accompanied by an unknown young American lady. His mother explains that the lady is Aurora Killarney, that she teaches algebra in a Philadelphia suburb, and that she is a great fan of Sherlock Holmes. The old lady adds that Aurora persuaded her to introduce her to her son and they both intend to stay with him the whole of the coming week. In the course of that week, a series of mysterious happenings occur and there are a number of conversations the substance of which Conan Doyle cannot comprehend at first. In the end, it transpires that during Conan Doyle’s absence (which was a carefully put-up job), someone had gone through his study, rummaged through all the cupboards and examined all his manuscripts. Conan Doyle is perplexed, but at the end of the story, two days after the uninvited American guest has gone, he gets a letter from her which explains everything. It transpires that Aurora worked for an American publisher. In the wake of the success of ‘Dime novels’ featuring Nick Carter, which is published by their rival, they had decided to publish their own series. But, so as not to have to publicize the name of an unknown detective, they had decided to give him the world famous name of Sherlock Holmes. There was, however, one thing which stood in the way. Sir Arthur was not to kill off Sherlock Holmes as had already happened once. To ensure this, Aurora was despatched across the ocean. Meeting Mrs Doyle, she had charmed her with her incredible knowledge of Sherlockiana and told the old lady the dreadful (untrue) secret, that rumour had it that her son planned to kill off Sherlock Holmes for the second time, and this time for good. Mrs Doyle, who had always been against her son’s intention, got terribly angry and accepted the suggestion made by the American to search the writer’s study and find either the proof or disproof of this dreadful rumour. Mrs Doyle, under an invented pretext, sends her son and his secretary away. She lets in the wily American and stands watch at the door. When Aurora has completed her search, she gives Mrs Doyle the dreaded news: Conan Doyle, in fact, has a story all ready in which the great detective perishes right under the eyes of his friend, Dr Watson. Moreover, he dies a terrible death. Mrs Doyle nearly faints, but now she must carry out the last item in the plan laid by the crafty American. The mother must make Conan Doyle swear under oath never to kill off Sherlock Holmes. This is done. Now the American publisher can be easy in his mind. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes will live and, thereafter, their own Sherlock Holmes can flourish.
There is no way of telling whether any of this is true and, if so, is this how it all took place? Was it the plot that worked?
Conan Doyle’s literary agent was the exceptional A.P. Watt. It is unlikely he would have allowed this. But whatever it was that occurred, a False Sherlock Holmes appeared up and down Europe, especially in Germany. Dime novels became all the rage in Germany and, very quickly, this example of mass culture spread like a tidal wave to Russia.
