What's In a Name?
What's In a Name? The genesis of Sherlock is an article written by Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 3, 1992).
This article argues that the name "Sherlock" may derive from Conan Doyle's reading of Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq, suggesting that anglicising the French title helped shape the detective's final Christian name. Drawing on notebooks, publication history, and linguistic reasoning, it proposes a fresh perspective in the longstanding debate over the genesis of Sherlock Holmes's name.
What's In a Name?
The genesis of Sherlock
- Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. 'Lecoq was a miserable bungler,' he said, in an angry voice; 'he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill.'
- A Study in Scarlet
A miserable bungler he may have been, but it seems that Monsieur Lecoq played an even greater part in the origins of Sherlock Holmes than that for which we have, until now, been prepared to grant him credit. Indeed, it appears to me that Monsieur Lecoq provided Conan Doyle with his final choice of Christian name for the Great Detective.
Emile Gaboriau's works first saw publication in France in 1865 with the serialisation of L'Affaire Lerouge in Le Pays, but it was not until 1883, when his writings began to appear in Vizetelly's Sensational Novels that Gaboriau first came to the attention of the British reading public. As E. F. Bleiler points out (1): 'Some of the translations may have been taken from American piracies; others may have been British in origin.'
Pierre Nordon, who had access to Conan Doyle's notebooks during the preparation of his biography, (2) tells us: 'His notebooks from 1885 and 1886 tell us what he was reading, and among the novels almost the only detective stories were by Gaboriau, whose work impressed him favourably. On the very page where Gaboriau's name figures, he wrote some interesting notes about the genesis of Dr Watson's character. ... Except for Gaboriau, the notebooks make no reference whatever to any detective-stories read by Conan Doyle at this time or earlier.'
Nordon goes on to note Conan Doyle's own words in his Southsea Notebook No.1: 'I have read Gaboriau's Lecoq the Detective and a story concerning the murder of an old woman, the name of which I forget. All very good. Wilkie Collins but more so.' One has to wonder whether Conan Doyle was being characteristically careless when he wrote 'Lecoq the Detective. Bleiler tells us that Monsieur Lecoq was first published in Paris, in two volumes, in 1869. The first part. L'Enquête, was variously translated as Monsieur Lecoq, Monsieur Lecoq. Part One, The Detective's Dilemma. or Lecoq the Detective. It is probable that Conan Doyle would have been familiar with some, or all. of these variants, but it is my belief that the volume or serialisation which he actually read was entitled Monsieur Lecoq.
There were two translations of the novel into English: the first American translation was prepared by Mrs Laura E. Kendall, and published in 1879. This, or a piracy of it would have been the translation which Conan Doyle used: the first British translation by Sir Gilbert Campbell did not appear until 1888-9.
But where does all this lead us, and what is the connection with Holmes' Christian name? There have. over the years, been many discussions as to the origin of the name Sherlock. Commentators quote Conan Doyle's own words (3) from 1921 when he recalled two cricketers by the name of Attewell and Sherlock, and this association was discussed in greater depth by John M. Gibson (4). Richard Lancelyn Green has detailed most of the contenders (5) and it may well be that all of the Sherlocks, Shurlocks and Shacklocks played their part after Conan Doyle had the outline of the name fixed in his mind.
Owen Dudley Edwards noted (6): 'The borrowings from Poe, from Gaboriau, and from Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife are famous and blatant: it has also to be said that their influence is very strongly acknowledged. Dupin and Lecoq are discussed at the opening: ... Gaboriau's title L'Affaire Lerouge is deliberately invoked in the words A Study in Scarlet, a remarkable bilingual pun.'
Edwards observation does not go quite far enough. To complete the story one has to break down the title of Gaboriau's novel into something resembling the manner in which a Briton would speak it: Mee-sher-le-cock. Does the thesis become a little clearer? Despite his later translation of Leon Denis' The Mystery of Joan of Arc from the original French, it is doubtful whether Conan Doyle could be credited with more than average pronunciation talents and there is, therefore, no reason to assume that his efforts at the French tongue would have been anything other than ordinary. Dame Jean Conan Doyle has confirmed that ACD read French well but that he was by no means fluent in the language: so whereas the Frenchman would say Mesiewerlecok, Conan Doyle would have introduced the sh so prevalent in the British attempt of the word Monsieur.
Bear in mind that Conan Doyle was studying Gaboriau's novel in quite some detail at the time; that he was noting details of Watson's genesis on the same page in his notebook where Gaboriau was mentioned, and that he was struggling to find a name for his detective creation which would be more memorable than the Sherrinford of his first jottings. Where would this name come from? From no other source than the book at his fingertips: Monsieur Lecoq.
All that he had to do was drop the first syllable and anglicise the remainder. It is a simple step from Sher-le-cock to Sherlock and a fitting tribute to one whose style he admired.
'...Gaboriau had rather attracted me by the neat dovetailing of his plots...' Conan Doyle wrote. I suggest that in the end Gaboriau was as much a source of inspiration as he was an attraction, and that it was from Gaboriau that Conan Doyle gleaned the idea of the name Sherlock. But no doubt the debate will continue.
References
1. Gaboriau, E.: Monsieur Lecoq: Edited and with an introduction by Bleiler, E. F.; 1975: Dover Publications.
2. Nordon, P.: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - L'homme et l'oeuvre: 1964: Didier, Paris.
3. From a speech at the Stoll Convention Dinner, 28 September 1921.
4. Gibson, J. M.: 'Shacklock to Sherlock'; Sherlock Holmes Journal. Voi.14, Nos.3 & 4. pps.86-7.
5. Green, R. L.: 'What's in a Name?'; The Musgrave Papers The Annual Journal of the Northern Musgraves, Fourth Issue, 1991; pps 56-59.
6. Edwards, O. D.: The Quest for Sherlock Holmes; 1983; Mainstream, Edinburgh.
7. Doyle, A. C. (trans.): Denis, L.: The Mystery of Joan of Arc: 1924: John Murray. London.
8. Doyle, A. C.: Memories and Adventures; 1924: Hodder & Stoughton, London.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
