The stories of Sherlock Holmes and his foil Watson were originally created in 1887 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The first to be written was "A Study In Scarlet" but the stories" popularity didn't take hold properly until the Strand magazine began to publish "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in 1890. When a new edition was published people rushed to buy them to find out the new story. They were read by all kinds of people, particularly poor working classes; fascinated by mysteries and murders and the lives of the upper class. Sherlock Holmes was a new experience which was an inviting reason to like him, he was so different to what people had known before. He came along just at the right time when England was progressing into an era of logic, deduction and science. It was a time of inventions as well so many new things were being discovered and that made it the exact time for him to be introduced, he fitted into the era perfectly. This would have been one of the main reasons why he was so popular at the time, the fact that he was logical and educated and this was the "in" thing in England at the time, like a new fashion. Other reasons for why he was accepted so easily could be that he was very chivalrous and gentlemanly and that was the type of man who was considered to be "perfect" in those days, the sort you"d want your daughter to marry. Although he had these characteristics, he was also brave and strong, yet clever too, so he really was the perfect Victorian. .
The main character was based on one of Conan Doyle's professors while he was at university, John Bell. Bell was an expert in the use of deductive reasoning which Conan Doyle found very impressive and obviously very inspiring as he used these same principles when creating Sherlock Holmes. Others were obviously inspired by this way of thinking as there are still huge Sherlock Holmes fans around today, and people see his adventures as classic books and are still being read by people all over the world.
