The Adventure of the Crooked Man
"The Adventure of the Crooked Man" | |||
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Strand Magazine | |||
Publication date | July 1893 | ||
Chronology | |||
Series | The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes | ||
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"The Adventure of the Crooked Man", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in July 1893, and in Harper's Weekly in the United States on 8 July 1893.[1]
Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" 15th in a list of his 19 favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.[2]
Synopsis
Holmes calls upon Watson at his surgery late one night to request his assistance in an investigation. Holmes explains that, in Aldershot Camp, Colonel James Barclay of The Royal Munsters and his wife Nancy DeVoy Barclay were a seemingly happy couple; however, Barclay has died, and his wife is suspected of his murder. Major Murphy, Holmes' contact in the regiment, has explained that Barclay, while completely devoted to his wife, had a rather vindictive nature elsewhere. He had also been subject to random fits of depression, and disliked being left alone at night.
Holmes found signs that a silent third party had been present; the man had left his stick in the room, his footprints in the lawn, and presumably also had taken the key. Holmes also found the pawmarks of a short-legged, long-bodied animal on the floor, as well as signs the creature had attempted to eat the Barclay's pet canary. Interrogating Miss Morrison, Holmes learned that, on the way home from the meeting, she and Nancy had encountered a deformed man with a wooden box on his back. Both he and Nancy seemed badly startled; he addressed her by name, and she addressed him as "Henry". They spoke privately for a moment, then parted, both very upset. After swearing her friend to silence, Nancy had returned home. As the man's appearance was distinctive, Holmes was soon able to discover his identity; Henry Wood, a conjurer who entertained the soldiers around Aldershot.
With Watson as a witness, Holmes visits Wood in his lodgings. Wood gladly tells his story to save Nancy from being accused of murder. Thirty years prior, he had been in
Like Wood, Holmes is hesitant to rake up a 30-year-old military scandal; learning that the
from him.Commentary
"Elementary, my dear Watson" is an often quoted line from Sherlock Holmes. However, Holmes never says this in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. In The Adventure of the Crooked Man, though, he comes his closest to it:
- "I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he.
- …
- "Excellent!" I cried.
- "Elementary," said he.
The
The exact date of this story's setting is unknown, but since Nancy had been married for "upward of thirty years" and the Indian Rebellion broke out in 1857, the date would need to be at or past 1887. The first few lines by Watson explain that this story occurred in the "summer" just after his marriage, which, according to The Sign of the Four, was sometime in 1889; this suggests the story is set in either 1889 or 1890. [3]
Publication history
"The Adventure of the Crooked Man" was published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in July 1893, and in the US in Harper's Weekly on 8 July 1893. It was also published in the US edition of The Strand Magazine in August 1893.[1] The story was published with seven illustrations by Sidney Paget in the Strand,[4] and with two illustrations by W. H. Hyde in Harper's Weekly.[5] It was included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes,[4] which was published in December 1893 in the UK and February 1894 in the US.[6]
Adaptations
Film and television
The story was adapted as a 1923 silent short film as part of the Stoll film series. It starred Eille Norwood as Holmes and Hubert Willis as Watson, and featured Gladys Jennings as Mrs Barclay and Dora De Winton as Miss Morrison.[7]
The Granada TV version with Jeremy Brett is faithful to the original — except that it has the housekeeper, instead of the coachman, tell Holmes of the clue of the missing key. It also hints that the "Mallows" are a "Lancers" regiment and that Barclay owed most of his rapid rise in ranks from Sergeant to Officer due at least in part to his marriage to the daughter of the regimental sergeant major — rather than merit, as Murphy was already a young sub-officer at the time Barclay was a Sgt; at the time of the story Murphy is still only a major in "temporary" command of the regiment. It starred Norman Jones as Henry Wood, Lisa Daniely as Nancy Barclay, Denys Hawthorne as James Barclay, Fiona Shaw as Miss Morrison, Paul Chapman as Major Murphy, Shelagh Stephenson as Jane, Michael Lumsden as young Henry Wood, Catherine Rabett as young Nancy, and James Wilby as young Barclay.
The story was adapted as a 1999 episode of the animated television series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century titled "The Crooked Man".[8]
Holmes describes this case to his addiction group in the episode "A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs" (2013) in the CBS TV series Elementary.
Radio
Edith Meiser adapted the story as an episode of the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which aired on 1 December 1930, with Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson.[9]
Edith Meiser also adapted the story as an episode of the later American radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson, that was broadcast on 10 November 1940.[10]
Michael Hardwick dramatised the story as a 1966 BBC Light Programme radio adaptation, as part of the 1952–1969 radio series starring Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson.[11]
"The Crooked Man" was dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in 1992 by Bert Coules as part of the 1989–1998 radio series starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. It featured Brian Blessed as Henry Wood and Terence Edmond as Major Murphy.[12] This adaptation contains a twist to the end of the denouement scene: after Holmes has left the room, Watson advises Wood to wait a while and then return to Nancy Barclay, that his disfigurement will not matter to her. Wood answers ambiguously, and the matter is left (as far as the audience is concerned) unresolved.
The story was adapted as an episode of
References
- Notes
- ^ a b Smith (2014), p. 88.
- ISBN 978-0517481028.
- ISBN 978-0517481028.
- ^ a b Cawthorne (2011), p. 86.
- ^ "Harper's Weekly. v.37 June-Dec.1893". HathiTrust Digital Library. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
- ^ Cawthorne (2011), p. 75.
- ISBN 0-06-015620-1.
- ISBN 9780857687760.
- ^ Dickerson (2019), p. 26.
- ^ Dickerson (2019), p. 96.
- ISBN 0-517-217597.
- ^ Bert Coules. "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes". The BBC complete audio Sherlock Holmes. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
- ^ Wright, Stewart (30 April 2019). "The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Broadcast Log" (PDF). Old-Time Radio. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
- Sources
- ISBN 978-0762444083.
- ISBN 978-1629335087.
- Smith, Daniel (2014) [2009]. The Sherlock Holmes Companion: An Elementary Guide (Updated ed.). Aurum Press. ISBN 978-1-78131-404-3.
External links
- The full text of The Adventure of the Crooked Man at Wikisource
- Media related to The Adventure of the Crooked Man at Wikimedia Commons
- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, including The Adventure of the Crooked Man at Standard Ebooks
- The Adventure of the Crooked Man public domain audiobook at LibriVox