A scandal in Bohemia

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Watson (left) and Holmes, illustration by Sidney Paget
The King of Bohemia reveals his identity
Holmes disguised as a stable boy

A Scandal in Bohemia (Original title: A Scandal in Bohemia ) is a short story by the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle , which first appeared in July 1891 in Strand Magazine . This is the first story that Doyle starred with the characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson wrote. In 1887 and 1890, the two novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four laid the foundation for the main canon of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

A scandal in Bohemia was also published in the anthology The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892 and is one of the most popular Sherlock Holmes stories. In 1927 she personally listed Conan Doyle at number 5 of his favorite Holmes stories.

action

On the evening of March 20, 1888, Sherlock Holmes was visited by his friend Doctor Watson at 221B Baker Street . Holmes received an ominous letter earlier. Shortly afterwards the client arrives. Holmes was able to identify him early on as the reigning King of Bohemia and Moravia , although the client originally wanted to keep his true identity a secret. The case is quickly explained. The King of Bohemia intends to marry, but fears that his former lover Irene Adler will counter this by publicizing a photograph of the two of them, thereby making the former romance accessible to the public. Holmes should now get this photograph. Several attempts on the part of the king to get hold of the photograph by burglars failed.

Holmes disguises himself as a stable boy and as an old clergyman for his purposes in order to get information about Irene Adler. He even manages to get to the hiding place by means of a ruse, but is exposed by Adler. She recently married Godfrey Norton in the course of the plot and eventually leaves the country. She takes the photograph with her so that she can protect herself from the king in the future if he plans to attack her. She communicated all of this to Holmes and the others in a letter that she left where she had kept the photograph until before. Holmes finds him there, hoping to come across the photo.

So Holmes does not manage to close the case successfully because the actual goal of getting the photography failed. Still, there is a victory in defeat as the photography is not published.

Dr. At the end of the story, Watson reports that Irene Adler will always be the woman for Sherlock Holmes .

Film adaptations

A scandal in Bohemia has often been adapted for television and radio. As early as 1899, the stage actor William Gillette used elements of the story for his play Sherlock Holmes , which was also filmed several times.

The 1946 Sherlock Holmes film Hunt for Music Boxes also contained elements from A Scandal in Bohemia . Alan Wheatley played the lead role in 1951 in the first television adaptation of A Scandal in Bohemia as part of the TV series Sherlock Holmes .

Wassili Borissowitsch Liwanow and Witali Mefodjewitsch Solomin played Holmes and Watson in a Soviet Russian adaptation of some Holmes stories ( The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson ), including A Scandal in Bohemia .

An extremely realistic film adaptation of the material was made in 1984 in the course of the television series Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett and David Burke , and Gayle Hunnicutt as Irene Adler .

A transformation into modern times can be found in Sherlock - A Scandal in Belgravia from 2012. The film is part of the BBC television series Sherlock . In the modern television series Elementary , Irene Adler and Jamie [sic] Moriarty are one and the same person.

Pastiches

A continuation of the story can be found in the short story collection by Rolf Krohn Sherlock Holmes and the colors of crime (Blitz-Verlag No. 3019) published in 2016 . The short story The Yellow drop plays in the period in which Sherlock Holmes under the pseudonym Sigerson in Europe was staying to rest after his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls before the henchmen Professor Moriarty to hide. In Salzburg he meets the meanwhile widowed opera singer Irene Norton, née Adler, who appears there under the stage name Aurelia Silverstrom and almost fell victim to a murder attack. The story is told from the perspective of a gendarme assigned to protect the singer.

Holmes uncovered the plot that went out from the then duped in Bohemia in order to finally eliminate the incriminating witness of his affair at the time. The nobleman and his murderer die themselves. After the case has been clarified, Holmes / Sigerson accompanies the singer to her next engagement in Brussels. Apparently the final punch line at that time was Dr. Watson, “the woman” died in Japan, wrong (and probably served her protection from persecutors).

Web links

Commons : A Scandal in Bohemia  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A Scandal in Bohemia in the Internet Movie Database (English)