Table Of ContentThe Gestalt
Shift in Conan
Doyle’s Sherlock
Holmes Stories
Michael J. Crowe
The Gestalt Shift in Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes Stories
Michael J. Crowe
The Gestalt Shift
in Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes
Stories
Michael J. Crowe
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-98290-8 ISBN 978-3-319-98291-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98291-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952291
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This book is dedicated to two wonderful friends,
both Sherlockians:
Denis P. Burke
and
Frederick J. Crosson (1926–2009)
P
reface
Numerous readers view Arthur Conan Doyle as the most skillful creator of
detective fiction who ever put pen to paper. Doyle’s four novels and fifty-
six short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes are available in numerous lan-
guages, and his famous characters appear in dozens of plays and hundreds
of films and television shows. Moreover, the studies of these stories num-
ber in the thousands. Hundreds of scholars and authors have sought the
sources of Doyle’s highly successful Sherlockian writings and investigated
how Doyle achieved this extraordinary level of success. Such information
makes one hesitant to propose a new analysis of Doyle’s skills. Such, how-
ever, is the goal of this book, which draws on insights that emerged mainly
in the latter half of the twentieth century in an area far from traditional
literary studies. My book draws on a book published in 1962 by University
of Chicago Press in an obscure series of volumes designed to be read
mainly by philosophers and historians of science. In fact, the reaction to
and interest in the book was extraordinary. As we shall later see in detail,
one source of this book was ideas developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, a
German philosopher teaching in England, who himself dealt with ideas
studied by perceptual psychologists. Another source was studies done by
historians of science investigating the nature of scientific change; for
example, the adoption of the Copernican theory. The author of this rela-
tively short volume was Thomas Kuhn, who titled it The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions. Gradually Kuhn’s book caught on. As of 2010, sales
reached over 1.4 million copies. Many scholars believe it is the most influ-
ential book on the nature of scientific development published in the last
half of the twentieth century. Moreover, scholars began applying Kuhn’s
vii
viii PREFACE
approach to nearly every area of intellectual inquiry. One exception has
been literature. My goal in this book is to suggest that Kuhn’s ideas may
significantly illuminate the study of Doyle’s Sherlockian stories. My chief
credential for attempting this is that for over four decades while teaching
at the University of Notre Dame, I taught courses and published a number
of books and essays on the development of astronomy, physics, and math-
ematics, many of which drew on Kuhn’s writings.
Potential readers of this book may feel more confident that it is worth
their time when I report on the reaction to it that came from a highly
respected scholar who seemed to me to be the ideal judge of whether my
thesis is plausible. This was not a personal friend; rather, what led me to
contact him was that he is a highly respected scientist and historian of sci-
ence as well as an active Sherlockian. This is Dr. Bradley Schaefer,
Distinguished Professor at Louisiana State University and the author of a
widely republished and now classic article on Sherlock Holmes and astron-
omy. A month after receiving my request and manuscript, he sent me a
long email that began:
I read your book fast, because it was a fun read. As a life-long Sherlockian,
the whole discussion was dear to my heart. Your basic thesis is completely
new, both within the Sherlockian literature, and within the literature about
detective stories. (And coming up with anything new under the Sun within
the Sherlockian literature is hard and rare.) I am convinced by your basic
thesis. And I can see applications going past the Sherlockian stories.
Near the end of the letter, he added:
I expect that your book will be comparable in sales to the best of the second-
ary Sherlockian literature. You are offering a completely new idea and of
broad application, so I expect that every Sherlockian will want a copy.
I don’t know numbers, but this is not a small market.
My hope is that his endorsement will give readers confidence that my the-
sis merits their attention.
Various persons at the University of Notre Dame also contributed to
the composition of this book. Notre Dame recognizes that emeritus fac-
ulty can still contribute to scholarship by supplying an office and some
support for those who continue to wish to contribute. Moreover, various
individuals at Notre Dame have been helpful in significant ways. Among
PREFACE ix
these are Thomas Stapleford, Chair of the Program of Liberal Studies, my
office mate Rev. Nicholas Ayo, C.S.C., and Denise Massa, Curator at
Notre Dame’s Visual Resource Center, who prepared most of the illustra-
tions. Dr. Daniel Johnson, who is Notre Dame Digital Humanities
Librarian and also teaches in the English Department, contributed signifi-
cantly to locating publications relevant to my project. Elizabeth Sain very
carefully indexed this volume.
For the last six years, I have co-taught a course on Sherlock Holmes at
Forever Learning Institute, a local senior center, with Denis Burke, a
retired attorney, who has been wonderfully supportive of my efforts to
teach these materials. So has my wife, Dr. Marian Crowe, whose doctorate
is in English and who has frequently supplied highly useful insights. Allie
Troyanos and Rachel Jacobe of Palgrave Macmillan skillfully and gra-
ciously guided my efforts to put my manuscript into final form.
Notre Dame, IN Michael J. Crowe
c
ontents
1 I ntroduction 1
2 The Four Holmes Novels 37
3 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) 53
4 The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) 81
5 The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905) 109
6 His Last Bow (1917) 143
7 The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927) 163
8 Conclusion: The Sixty Holmes Stories 187
Appendix A: G. K. Chesterton’s “The Blue Cross” (1910) 197
Appendix B: Some Questions and Some Answers 201
xi
xii CONTENTS
Appendix C: Table of the Types of the Sixty Sherlock Holmes
Stories in Terms of Their Gestalt Shifts 211
Bibliography Appendices 215
Index 223
