Irene Adler

The Woman who outsmarted Sherlock Holmes.

The Woman Herself – Irene Adler: The famous quote from “A Scandal in Bohemia,” – “I have seldom heard him mention her by any other name,” elevates Irene from a mere adversary to an enduring force in his life. She outwits him not through force or deception, but through her sheer intellectual prowess and a deep understanding of human nature. This legacy is also explored by our own community of female authors, with some authors like  Gretchen Altabef exploring a different path for the relationship between Holmes and “the woman,” adding a modern perspective to her captivating character.” SHERLOCK HOLMES BOOKS.

The year was 1894, nine years after she baffled Holmes and left London; Irene Adler returned. And Sherlock wasted no time.

In my novel, Remarkable Power of Stimulus, Holmes and Adler courted in London and married amid a city in turmoil, anarchist-ridden Paris.

Like Sherlock Holmes himself, Irene Adler was drawn from a real person who lived in Arthur Conan Doyle’s day. For Holmes it was the magnificent Scottish surgeon and lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh of Edinburgh Medical College, Doctor Joseph Bell, FRCSE. Bell was a brilliant diagnostician and teacher. He used his exceptional abilities in observation and deduction to diagnose his patients and to solve crime in Edinburgh, including the death of Elizabeth Shantrell. He was instrumental in the development of forensic science and wore a deerstalker and cape before Holmes did. Bell was, of course, a much more rounded person than Holmes. A loving husband and father, he had a great sense of humor and a loving personality. Radical at the time, he invited Florence Nightingale to create with him a nursing school at the Edinburgh Medical College. I have added to my characterisation of Sherlock Holmes more from Dr Bell’s exceptional life. Good characterisation depends on knowing your characters well and going back to the source when necessary. Otherwise, they’re in danger of becoming the same old thing.

Many damsels looked to Mr Holmes for help, and some, like Violet Hunter and Mary Morstan, showed promise. “I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way.” Yet, Irene Adler matched him in intelligence and beat him on his own terms.

The character of Irene Adler was patterned after some of the famous women of Dr Doyle’s day, yet he never told us who. Of the one I’ve chosen, Oscar Wilde said, “I would rather have discovered Mrs Langtry than to have discovered America.” Lily Langtry was the celebrated beauty of her time. A self-made woman during the height of the Victorian era, who defied conventions and was lover and friend to the Prince of Wales. She hired the leading actress of the day to coach her as an actress and was captivating on stage. Later she became the Actor-Manager of the Imperial Theatre. Who better to be the basis for Irene Adler, the celebrated opera diva, known around the world for her beautiful contralto and her grace and beauty? And who captivated the King of Bohemia.

Irene Adler and Lili Langtry taught me how important historical richness was in building characters. As an author, it was possible to reveal more of the story of her bountiful life and her resilience. Since The Keys Of Death, portrayed an earlier Holmesian time period, I included Lily Langtry herself as one of my characters. When women were most constricted in Britain and America, she had the courage to free herself from that lifestyle, as most actresses were granted such freedom.

Irene Adler possessed the intelligence to see through Sherlock Holmes’s machinations. It was this that threw him. He never suspected it. His view of women was similar to the Victorian model. Most women of his time were uneducated, domesticated, simple-minded, tied to their homes and children, subservient, isolated, corseted, and boring to Holmes. “How can you build on such quicksand?” In my stories, Irene got past this by communicating on the level of music. Sherlock was interested in her voice and in her as a fellow musician. This way, she cut right through the misogyny. In the world of opera, she was undeniably his master.

Love and marriage to Holmes was “an emotional thing, opposed to that true, cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.” Well, of course he would say that. Marriage in Victorian times was slavery in a sense for both partners. The couple entered into a severely restricted union, regulated by the requirements of society and ruled by convention. How more unlike Holmes can you get? Husbands had their clubs to escape to and their mistresses (who were often actresses.) But they also had the expense of a home, entertaining, schooling for the children, servants, and their wives. Each of these had requirements of its own, and standing in society depended upon strictly following the rules.

That was what Holmes found was “opposed to that true, cold reason.” Following the rules. Holmes was not a follower of other people’s rules. As a genius, he made his own, and this was necessary to his science. It was impossible for him to be tied down and to have the imagination to “fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results…”

But to join with Irene as a musician, to let “the most perfect happiness” of music move them, and to rewrite the marriage contract to support the freedom of their union (like the suffragists were doing.) Afterall, Irene travelled to the cities of Opera, and Sherlock travelled for his cases. I imagined that in joy, they returned home to each other. Briony Lodge and No. 221B Baker Street remained to continue to provide the solitude necessary in their careers, and nothing was sacrificed to societal mores.

In my novels, Irene has her own adventures. In Five Miles of Country, she battles against segregationist Broadway and shares her welcoming attitude towards new music in her theater.

Gretchen Altabef is an award-winning author of new Sherlock Holmes stories. THESE SCATTERED HOUSES brings Holmes to New York during his ‘great hiatus’. REMARKABLE POWER OF STIMULUS follows in London. During the investigation of a gruesome murder, Sherlock seizes a second chance with the woman, and they marry in anarchist-ridden Paris. The trilogy continues with FIVE MILES OF COUNTRY. Holmes is called in by Thomas Edison to solve a murder in his premier film studio, and Mrs Irene Adler-Holmes triumphs on Broadway. THE KEYS OF DEATH is a genesis story of 221B Baker Street and its inhabitants, as told by Mrs Hudson. Sherlock Holmes FAR & WIDE, nine stories and one play, including the award-winning, “Sir Arthur and the Time Machine”.