Did You Know? The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

This week Did You Know? features little known facts about The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Did You Know?

• Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary my dear Watson" in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories?
• Sherlock Holmes' address, 221B Baker Street, never existed? Arthur Conan Doyle made it up. The Sherlock Holmes Museum displays the 221B address out front, but is actually located at 239 Baker Street.
• The first story to feature Sherlock Holmes--A Study in Scarlet--was first published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887?
• Sherlock Holmes died, then was brought back? In 1893's The Final Problem, Holmes and his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty went over a waterfall in a battle to the death. Public outcry was so strong, that Doyle wound up bringing Holmes back.
• When Holmes was killed off, the magazine in which the stories appeared, The Strand, saw subscriptions drop by 20,000?
• The first two Holmes stories, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, didn't sell very well, and Doyle almost didn't continue with them?
• Sherlock Holmes was modeled after Conan Doyle's mentor in medical school, Dr. Joseph Bell, who was said to be able to deduce a patient's illness simply by looking at them?
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was friends with Harry Houdini? They were both Spiritualists who believed they could contact dead family members and friends through a "medium".
• Arthur Conan Doyle was a doctor? After graduating from medical school, he served as ship's doctor on a voyage to West Africa?
• In real life, Doyle helped free two men wrongfully charged with murder by conducting his own investigation?
• Doyle believed in fairies and ghosts, and was a member of the British Society for Psychical Research? He and other members would investigate supposed psychic happenings wherever they occurred.