Women in the Sherlock Holmes canon

‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches' Re-Imagined

A young lady named Violet Hunter visits Baker Street seeking the advice of Sherlock Holmes on whether to accept a job as governess which commands a generous salary, but with some peculiar conditions. Two weeks after ultimately accepting the position, Miss Hunter calls Holmes to The Copper Beeches, an estate in Hampshire, to look into the singular, and at times terrifying, behaviour of her employers.

“Capital.”

Sherlock Holmes's female clients

Although most of the primary characters in the original Sherlock Holmes stories are men, there are a number of female clients and secondary individuals throughout the canon, such as the famed housekeeper of 221B Baker Street, Mrs Hudson, and Dr Watson’s wife, the former Miss Mary Morstan. In fact, in the twelve adventures that comprise the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series a woman is central to the plot in no less than half of them, including Miss Irene Adler in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ and Miss Helen Stoner in ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’. The action in ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’ also revolves around a young woman, Miss Violet Hunter (one of four women named Violet featuring in cases investigated by Holmes and Watson), who greatly impresses the Great Detective with her intelligence and composure. 

“You villain! said he. ‘Where’s your daughter.”

A central plot point in ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’ involves an electric blue dress which Violet Hunter is requested by her employer to wear while sitting in front of a window. Therefore, when rendering the illustrations for this story into LEGO®, a dress fitting this description was required for a couple of the models. On this occasion it was possible to find a colour to closely match the description in the story text; however, this is not always the case as LEGO® has not produced very many minifigures with dress or skirt pattered slope pieces with matching torsos. Moreover, as with male torso designs (see earlier post: ‘The varied clients of Sherlock Holmes’), none of the current dress designs are particularly Late Victorian in style. The two dresses appearing in the current story are from a medieval castle playset (red queen’s dress in the first photo) and a playset from The LEGO Movie, namely a barmaid from the American Old West (blue dress in the second photo).

Can I see more information about your book series?

Please visit our webpage and Facebook page for more information regarding the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, including news, reviews and free downloads.

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.

The varied clients of Sherlock Holmes

‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet' Re-Imagined

Banker Alexander Holder has been entrusted with the safekeeping of the precious Beryl Coronet, one of the most valuable treasures of the nobility. Afraid to leave the valuable piece of jewellery at the bank, he brings it home, only to have a piece of the crown broken off and three beryls stolen. Holder appeals to Sherlock Holmes to help recover the precious stones and thus avoid a personal and national scandal.

“Oh, any old key will fit that bureau.”

Sherlock Holmes's clients

In this adventure Holmes’s ultimate client is an exalted member of the nobility, which we are lead to believe is the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. However, the Great Detective accepts cases for a wide variety of clients ranging from simple governesses and pawn brokers to kings (see earlier post: ‘Sherlock Holmes, the king, and the woman’). Therefore, throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon we are introduced to characters from the upper classes and also the working class. Depiction of these various individuals necessitates many different clothing styles, such as the image below from ‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’ of Sherlock Holmes disguised as a common loafer, or someone suspiciously unemployed, of which Watson states: “With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class”.

“Dressed as a common loafer.”

Although LEGO® has not produced any Victorian based playsets, there have been a few minifigure themes for which one or more torso designs could be adequately used to represent the clothing fashions of the late 1800s. Among these, minifigures accompanying playsets for the Harry Potter and Indiana Jones film series as well as The Lone Ranger movie have been quite useful. The torso with dark brown jacket and dark bluish grey vest in the photo above is an example of the latter, which is set in the 1870s, although in the Western United States and not England. For many characters in the stories comprising the Sherlock Holmes Reimagined book series, it is not possible to closely match Watson’s descriptions of their clothing in terms of style or colour with a minifigure torso currently available. However, for some individuals there are LEGO® torso designs that are somewhat similar to the apparel described in the text, or at least that depicted in the illustrations by Sidney Paget, such as the image below of George Burnwell wearing an astrakhan coat. Fortunately, as with minifigure heads (see earlier post: ‘Disguises in the Sherlock Holmes canon’), LEGO® has produced a very large quantity of minifigure torsos, now in fact numbering over 3000, and every year sees the release of many more.

“I clapped a pistol to his head.”

Can I see more information about your book series?

Please visit our webpage and Facebook page for more information regarding the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, including news, reviews and free downloads.

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.

Foreign connections in the Sherlock Holmes canon

‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor' Re-Imagined

Sherlock Holmes is consulted by Lord Robert St. Simon whose wife, Hatty Doran, disappeared shortly after their wedding. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard is convinced that culpability rests with Miss Flora Millar, a former acquaintance of Lord St. Simon. Holmes, though, quickly discerns the true fate of Miss Doran as he realizes that the solution to this delicate problem resides in her past back in the United States.

“She was ejected by the butler and the footman.”

Villains and clients from abroad

Sherlock Holmes and the adventures he shared with Dr Watson are intimately associated with Victorian England and London in particular, as mentioned in last week’s post. However, throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon, many references are made to people and places, as well as the sometimes nefarious activities that took place, abroad. Included among these foreign locations are the United States, and also Australia and India, both colonies of the British Empire during the late nineteenth century. In the current story, the intended wife of the titular noble bachelor, Lord St Simon, hails from the USA, and her apparent disappearance is tied to earlier events in her native country. Australia and India also feature in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, namely in the ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ and ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ respectively, as does America again in ‘The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips’.

“The gentleman in the pew handed it up to her.”

Although Sherlock Holmes is not present, I think perhaps my favourite illustration from ‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor’ Re-Imagined is the photograph of Flora Miller being escorted from the premises of Lord St Simon by the butler and footman (see first photo above). I quite like the composition of the illustration as well as the various colours utilized in the model. LEGO® produces many more colours for their bricks and parts than the six primary ones from my childhood 30 years ago (read, yellow, blue, green, black, white). Some of the more useful of these additional colours when creating the models for the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series include several shades of brown (brown, reddish brown, dark brown), used to build wooden floors and furniture, as with the church pew in the photo above. Other rather new colours appearing frequently in illustrations throughout the book series include darker shades of various colours such as dark red, dark orange, and dark bluish grey (see first photo above for examples), as well as dark green (suit of Frank Moulton in photo above) and dark tan (hair of Lord St Simon in photo above).

Can I see more information about your book series?

Please visit our webpage and Facebook page for more information regarding the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, including news, reviews and free downloads.

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.