| The images of Sherlock Holmes as drawn by Sidney
Paget have become as much a part of the canon's appeal as the text by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. In all Paget drew 537 sketches that appeared
with the Holmes stories in the Strand Magazine.
Sidney Paget was not the first choice of the editors who thought
they were commissioning his brother Walter a much better known artist who
had illustrated Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe.
He did not always please Doyle who remarked that Paget had made Holmes
much handsomer than he intended.
The independence of Paget in interpreting the stories through his images often leads to a subtle subtext that may at times be with odds with traditional interpretation of the stories. The complex relationship between the Doyle text and the Paget sketches are the subject of the series of essays linked below. This page is under intermittent construction as time and imagination permits. For comments and questions  |
Watson and Holmes by Sidney Paget From The Adventure of the Resident Patient |
