The valley of fear

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Illustrated book title of the original English edition The Valley of Fear .

The Valley of Fear (original title: The Valley of Fear ) is the fourth novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , in which the characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson show up. The story was first published between September 1914 and May 1915 in Strand Magazine , England , and was published in book form in London and New York in 1915.

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The work is made up of two parts:

  • Part 1: The Birlstone Tragedy
  • Part 2: The Scowrers

The main storyline , which is described in the first part, takes place in 1888 in the English county of Sussex , while the second part consists of a flashback to 1875. The second part is geographically located in the American Pennsylvania .

In the first part, Sherlock Holmes uses his detective skills of deduction and logic to solve the murder of Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor House . The dead man was killed in his home by a sawed-off shotgun shot in the head, completely disfiguring the dead man's face. Holmes finally finds out that the dead man is not Douglas at all, but a certain Ted Baldwin, whom the fatal shot hit in the scuffle. Douglas himself had then, in agreement with his wife and his friend Cecil Barker, hid in the house in order to make the public believe he was dead Secret society .

After the identity of the deceased has been established, the storyline turns to the connection between victim and perpetrator. The motif of the bloody act is revealed by means of a flashback into the past of an initially unknown person. The criminally run " Masonic Lodge 341, Vermissa" in the Vermissa Valley coalfield, Pennsylvania, is decisive for the course of history . The reader participates in detail in the rise of the apparently Chicago forger and murderer Jack McMurdo within this Masonic lodge, which terrorizes a mining region with mafia-like methods and frequent assassinations. Only recently it turns out that McMurdo is actually a Pinkerton detective named Birdy Edwards, who convicts the Masonic gang known as the "Scowrers". While their infamous boss McGinty is hanged, others escape the gallows, including McMurdos / Edwards' rival for the beautiful Ettie Shafter, Ted Baldwin.

The further prehistory is told in summarized form. Edwards married Ettie, who died a few years later. He himself then lived under the name John Douglas in California , where he met his business partner Cecil Barker and amassed a fortune. Constantly on the run from the surviving, vengeful lodge members, he then moved to Sussex, where he found his second wife and lived as a squire for five years. The attack described in the first part took place there.

The ultimate fate of Douglas is added in an epilogue . On Holmes' advice, he and his wife left England for Cape Town , but in the storm off St. Helena Douglas went overboard under mysterious circumstances. Holmes is certain that it was the work of his archenemy Professor Moriarty , as he received a corresponding tip at the beginning of his research.

The structure of this last novel with Sherlock Holmes - d. H. a crime whose backgrounds become apparent only after a sprawling flashback - are aware of the first novel to the detective, A Study in Scarlet , ajar.

Film adaptations

The 1962 German-language Sherlock Holmes and the Collar of Death by director Terence Fisher with Christopher Lee in the lead role is loosely based on the novel The Valley of Fear . There is also a cartoon version of the novel.

This story of the Molly Maguires - the historical predecessor of Scowrers - was in the US with Sean Connery after a drawing by Arthur H. Lewis entitled The Molly Maguires (Engl .: The Molly Maguires ; filmed USA, 1970).

German-language editions

  • The valley of horror . Dürr & Weber, Berlin 1926
  • The valley of fear . German by Heinz Kotthaus. Blüchert, Hamburg 1960
  • The valley of fear . Newly translated by Hans Wolf. Haffmans , Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-251-201034
  • Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes - The Novels - A Study in Scarlet Red - The Sign of Four - The Dog of the Baskervilles - The Valley of Horror (translation by Margarete Jacobi, HO Herzog), Anaconda-Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3730600306
  • Arthur Conan Doyle: The Valley of Fear: Illustrated Edition (translation: Hannelore Eisenhofer), 2014, ISBN 978-3868201970
  • The valley of fear. Translated by Henning Ahrens, Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2017, ISBN 978-3-596-03567-0

Web links

Wikisource: The Valley of Fear  - Sources and full texts (English)