Legend has it that young men throughout London wore black mourning crêpes on their hats or around their arms for the month of Holmes’ death, though that has recently been questioned. (Some Holmes aficionados have suggested the story could have been an exaggeration perpetuated by Conan Doyle’s son in interviews.) Outraged readers wrote to the magazine in protest: “You brute!” one letter addressed to Conan Doyle began. Americans started “Let’s Keep Holmes Alive” clubs. Conan Doyle stuck to his guns in the face of the protests, calling the death “justifiable homicide” – referring, presumably, to his own justifications, not Moriarty’s.

This sounds, of course, like just another day on the internet in 2015. But at the time, Conan Doyle had every reason to be shocked by the torrent of vitriol. Fans simply did not do this before then. (In fact, they weren’t even called “fans” yet. The term, short for “fanatic”, had only recently begun use in reference to American baseball enthusiasts.) Readers typically accepted what went on in their favourite books, then moved on. Now they were beginning to take their popular culture personally, and to expect their favourite works to conform to certain expectations. They seemed to actually expect a reciprocal relationship with the works they loved.

Fan frenzy

Sherlock Holmes’ avid readers helped to create the very modern practice of fandom. Interestingly enough, Holmes’ intense following continues to this day, spawning endless reimaginings, such as the US crime-solving series Elementary and the BBC’s Sherlock, which returned with a highly-anticipated special on New Year’s Day, its modern-day Sherlock and Watson returning to Victorian times.