David Cox

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Dr. Anita Wilson

Term Paper – Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown

Between 1887 and 1935, G.K. Chesterton and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought

two unique characters into the world that were not forgotten. Doyle introduced the

famous Sherlock Holmes whose keen perception and wide library of knowledge

made him the go-to detective for all unsolvable crimes. Sherlock Holmes made his

appearances for over 20 years, often being published serially in The Strand magazine

though first introduced in Doyle's novel, The Scarlet Letter (Roberts 3). The

character began as simply a way for Doyle to bring in extra money to support

himself and his schooling. However, after a hard case of influenza, Doyle decided

writing was freer than the medical studies he was pursuing (Orel 21). Sherlock

Holmes became a full-time character. Audiences fell in love with the eccentric

Holmes and though Doyle eventually killed him off for tiring of inventing mystery

plots, his immense fan club begged for him to live again. Sherlock Holmes

miraculously came back to life eleven years later and again thrilled readers to the

end (Orel xv).

Chesterton similarly introduced his own unique character, Father Brown.

Like Holmes, Brown also enjoyed a long life, surprising his readers for 25 years,

solving the most riddling of crimes (Gardner 2). At first glance, Father Brown was

only a short and senile priest, but under this guise Father Brown was capable of

uncovering the most evil of human inventions. He was dedicated to correcting the

wrongs of criminals and transforming them into good men.

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Authors almost always have created in some degree, if even in the smallest,

an autobiography out of every work they produce. This is especially true in the

Victorian age where many novels written were outcries about the shifts in society--

cries begun in the minds of writers and voiced through the mouths of their

characters. But even apart from any serious social commentary, an author is bound

to leave traces of himself in any work. In certain ways, both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

and G. K. Chesterton have created characters that reflect themselves. In this essay I

will explore the different ways that the characters represent their creators and how

both of them incorporate their own personalities somehow into their novels. I've

chosen these mystery novels because they allow a great degree of observation upon

their characters, Sherlock Holmes and Watson in one case and Father Brown in the

other.

Doyle was before anything a medical student. He studied at the University of

Edinburgh, instructed by who he found to be the most "remarkable men," admiring

many of the great professors there though knowing few if any of them personally

(Orel 4). Still, he wasn't an exceptional student, saying of himself, "I was always one

of the ruck, neither lingering or gaining - a 60 per cent. man at examinations" (Orel

6). Upon these facts alone one begins to suspect that Doyle was not the prototype for

the Holmes character he had created, but perhaps for another character. First,

because we see that Holmes was a brilliant man, one that would stand in the top 95

per cent. of men, not among the average. But additionally, because Doyle was such an

admirer of others, rapt by their accomplishments and genius, Doyle seems to liken

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himself more to Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick. Meeting Oscar Wilde once,

Doyle could not cease to praise his virtue and superiority, saying of him, "He towered

above us all, and yet had the art of seeming to be interested in all that we could say"

(Orel 18). Was not Watson too more the admirer of genius? Even when odds were

against Sherlock's conclusions, as in the The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Watson

confessed his trust in Holmes saying, "I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes'

insight that I could not lose hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his

conviction of young McCarthy's innocence" (Doyle 93). You can almost see here,

Doyle, looking up at one of his Edinburgh professors, Dr. Joseph Bell, admiring the

technique he used to teach students about diagnosis via perception. Doyle recalls

Bell with a story in an interview, telling how this professor would in the outpatient

center, nearly without mistake, deduce the character and illness of each man (Orel

6). Many believe that Joseph Bell was indeed the true Sherlock Holmes. Doyle says

himself that Bell was a heavy influence in the development of Sherlock Holmes’

character. "It is no wonder that after the study of such a character [Bell] I used and

amplified his methods” (Orel 6).

Among other things, Doyle and Watson were both doctors. More, the two had

less of the brash and sometimes rude temperament of Holmes. Doyle was married

twice, unlike Holmes, but similar to Watson. Sherlock Holmes simply wasn't a

person that would marry himself--too logical, precise for that kind of habit. In

Doyle’s second 1890 book, The Sign of Four, Holmes remarks, "Love is an emotional

thing…opposed to that true, cold reason which I place above all things. I should

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never marry myself lest I bias my judgment." But while more sentimental than

Holmes, Doyle and Watson were both certainly of the adventurous type. We know

how much Watson enjoyed his adventures with Holmes. We see that same

adventurous spirit in Doyle. Just coming out of his medical studies he joined the

Hope, a whaler sailing to the Arctic for seven months (Orel xiv). After this, he served

in Africa. No, Doyle was not Sherlock Holmes, but certainly he left part of himself in

Dr. Watson and so, wrote a large part of himself into the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

There were of course similarities between Sherlock Holmes and his maker

and indeed, to Doyle, it was necessary that there would be. He said, "A man cannot

spin a character out of his own inner consciousness and make it really lifelike unless

he has some possibilities of that character within him" (Orel 24). There are two

traits in particular where the character does mirror his master. First, though Doyle

had never been as perceptive as the Sherlock Holmes in his stories, Doyle was just as

scientific in his views. From a young age at Jesuit schools, Doyle decidedly vowed,

"Never will I accept anything which cannot be proved to me. The evils of religion

have all come from accepting things which cannot be proved" (Orel 11). There is no

doubt that this statement has rang from the voice of that man who created that solid,

reasoning detective, Sherlock Holmes. That second trait was oddly, in Art. Doyle had

come from a family that was known precisely because they were an artistic family.

His grandfather, migrating from England in the early nineteenth century, became a

popular caricaturist and artist focusing on the political themes and public

personalities of the time (Orel xiii). Doyle himself, trying to dodge that familial gene,

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could not and switched from his medical studies and became a writer. This love of

art found its way inside the personality of Holmes. Sherlock Holmes often took his

most meaningful breaks to appreciate art, suggesting to Watson in The Five Orange

Pips, that they let the case lie, and play violin. It wasn't uncommon for him to speak

to Watson about art either. In the Adventure of the Copper Beaches, Holmes says to

him, "To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important

and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived." Just as art

found its way into Doyle’s blood in the midst of his very scientific and rigid studies,

so too did it find expression in the midst of Holmes’ busy mind. How he loved

poetry! It isn’t illustrated elsewhere any more clearly than towards the end of The

Boscombe Valley Mystery. Sherlock boards the train with his friend Watson and

reclines with his poetry, “And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and not another word

shall I say of this case until we are on the scene of action.” We can now have no doubt

then that in some sense, those famous stories by Doyle were too an autobiography,

and whether those stories spoke of their author through one character or another,

one could by reading them discover the real Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

G.K. Chesterton also, and more clearly, wrote himself into his books.

Chesterton’s father was a cleric in the Unitarian church and so like Doyle, inherited

the family gene. He was a strong member and critic of Christianity, authoring

numerous books on the faith (Hollis 23). He wrote about waking society and

bringing them a fresh, unpolluted second look at religion. In his very popular 1925

essay, An Everlasting Man, he says, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a

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living thing can go against it.” He thought that you must be “alive” to really see the

obvious truths all around you.

From the beginning then, we have evidence that Father Brown is heavily

influenced by the personality and character of his author. First and most obviously,

Father Brown is a priest in the Roman Catholic Church from Essex. But his style is

what reminds us of Chesterton. He too claimed that you must take a fresh-look too

see the truths around you, especially those case-breaking truths. Asked what was his

best turn of luck, Father Brown would reply “that upon the whole his best stroke

was at the Vernon Hotel, where he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul,

merely by listening to a few footsteps” (Gardner 64). Chesterton was known to be able

to cut through any argument and divide its pieces such that his peers sought

continuously to be in his favor. As president of the Junior Debating Society,

Chesterton “pondered its decisions almost as if they were divine edicts. He

concerned himself about the behaviour of members and their possible expulsion as

if he were excommunicating them from a Church” (Hollis 26). More, even the strange

behavior sometimes demonstrated by Father Brown seemed to have its roots in

Chesterton’s own psychological struggles. Scholars write that Chesterton’s

loneliness “turned him in on himself and he passed through a phase of nihilistic

introspection” (Hollis 27). He admits this nearly drove him mad. From one of

Chesterton’s mysteries, The Secret Garden, we glimpse those same psychological

struggles in Father Brown.

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Stop, stop, stop!" he cried; "stop talking a minute, for I see half. Will God give

me strength? Will my brain make the one jump and see all? Heaven help me! I

used to be fairly good at thinking. I could paraphrase any page in Aquinas

once. Will my head split--or will it see? I see half--I only see half." (Gardner

57)

Unlike Doyle, it wasn’t in Chesterton’s supporting characters that he shined through

the most, but in the hero, Father Brown.

It is hard to say why either author chose to identify strongly with one

character or the other. But I do think that the content and goals of the stories offer

some insight. Doyle was writing stories chiefly for entertainment. We do not quite

find Doyle in the character of Sherlock Holmes because he was creating a character

that was not someone to live up to, but to admire. He then made himself into Watson

and, narrating the story, was simply Sherlock’s great admirer. Chesterton however,

was not simply writing for entertainment. He wrote because he was making a point

for his faith. He was writing about righting men’s wrongs and giving them another

chance at virtue. Indeed, if the Father caught a criminal, he would sit with him and

talk in an effort to save his soul. Many times the Father protected the criminals from

persecution while they worked on their salvation. For Chesterton, Father Brown was

not simply an ideal, but a character than anyone could, and should, model. It was

necessary for Father Brown to have very human characteristics so that readers

could identify with him. For this reason I believe Chesterton chose to put himself

into his main character and not another. He was telling readers that Father Brown

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was as real as anyone else, as real as himself, and yet, still capable of immense good.

As stated from the start, authors cannot help but infuse themselves into their stories.

Here in the stories of Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown, that statement has proven

true.

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Annotated Bibliography

Doyle, Sir. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 1st Edition. Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 2010.

This served as my original text for Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

Gardner, Martin. The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown. Oxford: Oxford

This annotated text of Chesterton’s mysteries help to clarify the mind of the
author for purposes of comparison.

Hollis, Christopher. The Mind of Chesterton. London: Tinling & Co., 1970.

This text was a guide into the character of Father Brown and Chesterton’s life
experiences. It was used to draw a comparison between the two authors and
between Chesterton and Father Brown.

Orel, Harold. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. New York: St. Martin, 1991.

This book was a collection of interview of Doyle. It helped to identify him with
the character of Sherlock Holmes and get an inside view about his own
personality.

Roberts, S. Holmes & Watson, a Miscellany. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1972.

The book was a reference guide for the life and statements of Holmes and
Watson. It was used to clarify meanings behind the story lines and character
development.