The basic facts of Holmes are well-known to nearly every literate person on the globe. He was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and made appearances in fifty-six short stories and four novels. He solved cases from 221B Baker Street in London with the assistance of his faithful companion, Dr. Watson. Holmes became so popular that Doyle couldn’t get away with killing him.
Holmes is one of the few true timeless characters in literature. His canonical adventures may have been set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but in the hands of a competent author, with a few modifications, Holmes could show up at a medieval castle or on a starship and still be a powerful character.
Every detective story that enjoyed any success in the past century, even if written as the antithesis of Holmes (such as Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade), owes something of its success to Doyle’s great detective for getting the public interested in the genre. Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin may have been the first true detective in literature and an inspiration for Holmes, but even Dupin owes something to Holmes, as few people outside the academic world would care that Dupin existed without the wild success of Holmes.
Holmes has been recreated too many times to count, and each actor brings his own spin. The radio recreations of Holmes began October 20, 1930 when William Gillette, perhaps the great popularizer of Holmes, took the role to a new medium. It has continued off and on since them on a variety of networks including, NBC (1930-33) (1934-36) (1955), Blue Network (1939-42), Mutual Network (1943-46), (1947-49), ABC (1946-47) (1949-50) (1956), BBC (1954, and many more years.), BBC-WFMT Chicago (1959-69).
Host Adam Graham is your guide through every circulating old time radio Sherlock Holmes episode including programs starring Basil Rathbone, Orson Welles, Tom Conway, John Stanley, and Sir John Gielgud.