‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’
Re-Imagined
In this fourth adventure, Inspector Lestrade of
Scotland Yard summons Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to Herefordshire to
investigate the murder of a wealthy landowner named Charles McCarthy. Holmes,
donning his “travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap”, carefully examines
the crime scene and soon unravels the mystery involving a secret criminal past,
thwarted love, and blackmail.
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| “He stood behind that tree.” |
The depiction of Sherlock Holmes
The very first illustration of this adventure by Sidney Paget, which is presented below along with my LEGO® rendering of this
drawing, is quite notable in that Paget chose to depict Sherlock Holmes wearing
a deerstalker cap and Inverness cloak. As many Sherlockians know, this was
solely a decision of the artist as Arthur Conan Doyle never specifically
mentions Sherlock Holmes wearing these two items of clothing in any of the
stories. In ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, for example, Conan Doyle only
describes Holmes as wearing a “long gray travelling-cloak and close-fitting
cloth cap”. Likewise, in ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’ Doctor Watson describes the Great Detective as wearing “his ear-flapped travelling
cap”. Considering that the deerstalker was the most common cap of the
period matching both of these descriptions, it is unsurprising that Sidney Paget depicted Holmes wearing such a hat. But of course, as a deerstalker was
typically worn only in rural areas, such as in Herefordshire, the setting
of ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, it would not have been Holmes’s daily choice
of headgear while investigating cases in and about London. However, many
subsequent artists, including Sidney Paget himself on at least one occasion,
depicted Holmes donning his deerstalker cap in the city leading to the popular
image of Holmes persisting to today.
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| “We had the carriage to ourselves.” |
As for the LEGO® version of this now famous attire,
the LEGO Group fortuitously released a ‘Detective’ minifigure in 2011, two
years after I conceived the idea of my Re-imagined book series. Although it was
not referred to specifically as Sherlock Holmes, the minifigure consisted of a Victorian-style
detective complete with a deerstalker cap (see photo above),
Inverness-cloak-patterned torso (see photo below), and magnifying glass. This
minifigure has been of obvious use to me when creating and photographing models
for the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined
book series, and it even served as the model for creating the silhouette of
Holmes featured on the cover of each of the books in the series (see cover
image below).
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| “Lestrade shrugged his shoulders.” |
Can I see more information about your book series?
All 12 books in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, as well as a complete collector’s edition incorporating all of the stories, are available for purchase on Amazon UK, the Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery), and the MX Publishing website.
LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.
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