Dr. Watson
Dr. John H. Watson is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet. "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" is the last work of Doyle featuring Watson and Holmes, although their last appearance in the canonical timeline is in "His Last Bow".
As Holmes's friend and confidant, Watson has appeared in various films, television series, video games, comics and radio programmes.
Character creation
In Doyle's early rough plot outlines, Holmes's associate was named "Ormond Sacker" before Doyle finally settled on "John Watson". He was probably inspired by one of Doyle's colleagues, Dr James Watson.Watson shares some similarities with the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's stories about fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin, created in 1841, but unlike Watson, Poe's narrator remains unnamed.
Fictional character biography
Watson's first name is mentioned on only four occasions. Part one of the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, is subtitled Being a reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department. The preface of the collection His Last Bow is signed "John H. Watson, M.D.", and in "The Problem of Thor Bridge", Watson says that his dispatch box is labelled "John H. Watson, M.D." His wife Mary Watson appears to refer to him as "James" in "The Man with the Twisted Lip"; Dorothy L. Sayers speculated that Mary may be using his middle name Hamish, though Doyle himself never addresses this beyond including the initial. David W. Merrell, on the other hand, concludes that Mary is not referring to her husband at all but rather to their servant.The year of Watson's birth is not stated in the stories. William S. Baring-Gould and Leslie S. Klinger estimate that Watson was born in 1852. June Thomson concludes that Watson was probably born either in 1852 or 1853. According to Thomson, most commentators accept 1852 as the year of Watson's birth.
In A Study in Scarlet, Watson is the narrator. He states that he had studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, receiving his medical degree from the University of London in 1878 with further training at Netley as an assistant surgeon in the British Army. He was sent to India with the 5th Regiment of Foot before being attached to the 66th Regiment of Foot. Watson saw service in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand by a jezail bullet, suffered enteric fever and was sent back to England on the troopship HMS Orontes following his recovery. With his health ruined, he was then given a daily pension of 11 shillings and 6 pence for nine months.
In 1881, Watson is introduced by his friend Stamford to Holmes, who is looking for someone to share rent in rooms in 221B Baker Street. Concluding that they are compatible, they subsequently move in. When Watson notices multiple eccentric guests frequenting the rooms, Holmes reveals that he is a "consulting detective" and that the guests are his clients.
At the beginning of A Study in Scarlet, Watson states he had "neither kith nor kin in England". In The Sign of the Four, it is established that his father and older brother are deceased, and that both had the same first name beginning with "H", when Holmes examines an old watch in Watson's possession, which was formerly his father's before it was inherited by his brother. Holmes estimates the watch to have a value of 50 guineas. Holmes deduced from the watch that Watson's brother was "a man of untidy habits—very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died". Holmes explains his reasoning: the initials on the watch, "H. W.", as well as the 50-year-old date of the watch tell Holmes that it belonged to Watson's father and was passed down to Watson's elder brother; his untidiness from the fact that the outside of the watchcase is dented. His good prospects are deduced from the fact that if he inherited an expensive fifty-guinea watch, he must have inherited substantial wealth as well. His poverty is evident from the fact that inside the watch case are four claim numbers scratched by pawnbrokers; his prosperity is from the fact he was able to redeem the watch; his heavy drinking is from the fact that around the watch winding hole are scratches from the key—an unsteady drunkard's hand trying to wind the watch up at night.
Watson witnesses Holmes's skills of deduction on their first case together, concerning a series of murders related to Mormon intrigue. When the case is solved, Watson is angered that Holmes is not given any credit for it by the press. When Holmes refuses to record and publish his account of the adventure, Watson endeavours to do so himself. In time, Holmes and Watson become close friends.
In The Sign of the Four, Watson becomes engaged to Mary Morstan, a governess. In "The Adventure of the Empty House", a reference by Watson to "my own sad bereavement" implies that Morstan has died by the time Holmes returns after faking his death; that fact is confirmed when Watson moves back to Baker Street to share rooms with Holmes. In "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier", Holmes mentions that "Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife", but this wife was never named or described.
In His Last Bow, set in 1914 on the eve of World War I, Holmes notes that Watson is "joining up with old service", and they spend a "few minutes" in what Holmes described as possibly "the last quiet talk that shall ever have."
Watson as Holmes's biographer
Throughout Doyle's novels, Watson is presented as Holmes's biographer. At the end of the first published Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, Watson is so incensed by Scotland Yard claiming full credit for its solution that he exclaims: "Your merits should be publicly recognised. You should publish an account of the case. If you won't, I will for you". Holmes suavely responds: "You may do what you like, Doctor". Therefore, the story is presented as "a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson", and most other stories of the series share this by implication.In the first chapter of The Sign of the Four, Holmes comments on Watson's first effort as a biographer: "I glanced over it. Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism... The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it"; whereupon Watson admits, "I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings".
In "The Adventure of Silver Blaze", Holmes confesses: "I made a blunder, my dear Watson—which is, I am afraid, a more common occurrence than anyone would think who only knew me through your memoirs." In The Hound of the Baskervilles, chapters 5–6, Holmes says: "Watson, Watson, if you are an honest man you will record this also and set it against my successes!" Nonetheless, in his prologue to "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", Watson himself remarks, "In publishing these short sketches ... it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures."
Sometimes Watson seems determined to stop publishing stories about Holmes. For example, in "The Adventure of the Second Stain", Watson declares that he had intended the previous story "to be the last of those exploits of my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, which I should ever communicate to the public." However, Watson later decides that "this long series of episodes should culminate in the most important international case which he has ever been called upon to handle". Despite this, Watson subsequently presents twenty further cases in his stories.
In the tales written after Holmes's retirement, Watson repeatedly refers to "notes of many hundreds of cases to which I have never alluded" on the grounds that after Holmes's retirement, the detective showed reluctance "to the continued publication of his experiences. So long as he was in actual professional practice the records of his successes were of some practical value to him, but since he has definitely retired...notoriety has become hateful to him". After Holmes retires, Watson often cites special permission from his friend for the publication of further stories but also receives occasional unsolicited suggestions from Holmes as to what stories to tell, noted at the beginning of "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot".
In "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier", one of only two stories narrated by Holmes himself, the detective remarks about Watson: "I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures", but the narrative style seldom differs, and Holmes confesses that Watson would have been the better choice to write the story, noting when he starts writing that he quickly realizes the importance of presenting the tale in a manner that would interest the reader. In any case, Holmes regularly refers to Watson as my "faithful friend and biographer" and once exclaims, "I am lost without my Boswell".
At the beginning of "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger", Watson makes strong claims about "the discretion and high sense of professional honour" that govern his work as Holmes's biographer, but this does not keep Watson from expressing himself and quoting Holmes with candour regarding their antagonists and their clients. In "The Red-Headed League", for example, Watson introduces Jabez Wilson by commenting, "Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow"—wearing "a not over-clean black frock-coat".