What first got you into Sherlock Holmes?

[Charity]

This is going to sound childish, but thats ok cause it is. My first ever exposure to Sherlock Holmes was in the form of, The Great Mouse Detective, a Disney animation that I owned on VHS growing up, and I still like it. The first live action show I saw nailed love of Sherlock stories, of all kind, in place. I was 10, up late cause I was ill and had been in bed all day. It was so late that all the channels had black and white movies on, and behold there was Sherlock for a second instance. I never found out what I was watching but I loved it.

[Mary Ellen]

I got into Sherlock Holmes as a child watching the old black-and-white shows with my dad. That led me to the mystery section of the library, and I became hooked on mysteries in general and Doyle and Christie in particular. I do have a small collection of B&W DVD's with various actors portraying Sherlock Holmes, for those times I want to relive the Sunday afternoons with my dad.

[Mitra]

Amber wrote: "My Dad, we would watch Sherlock Holmes movies on Sunday afternoons. I fell in love with Sherlock Holmes and started reading the books."

Watch Elementary on CBS, but watch it from season one. Jonny Lee Miiller's Sherlock is the closest to what Conan Doyle actually intended. Don't worry about it being a modern adaptation etc. it's wonderfully enjoyable!

[Acacia]

Charity wrote: "This is going to sound childish, but thats ok cause it is. My first ever exposure to Sherlock Holmes was in the form of, The Great Mouse Detective, a Disney animation that I owned on VHS growing up..."

I got into Holmes through Great Mouse Detective too! That was a great movie, and I think it's cool it interests kids in the subject. Still one of my favorite adaptations!

[Paula]

I first saw Basil Rathbone in Hound of the Baskervilles and was smitten. I've paid no real (fan) attention to the other versions of Sherlock on screen after reading The Adventures and The Memoirs until I saw the TV series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Cumberbatch has captured those little quirks of Sherlock's; like the way he tents his fingers and stretches out his long legs when thinkiing, even down to "landing" in a chair rather than sitting in it.

[Anna]

I agree. RDJ (OTT) and Jude Law (bland-bland) just don't cut it. Guy Ritchie = Two Smoking Guns in period costume. He doesn't get Sherlock Holmes at all. Mark Gatiss has taken Sherlock to a whole new level. We all wish we got there first.
anna

[Gerald]

Anna Guy Ritchie directed THE MAN FROM UNCLE. They said almost right off the bat, no "affair" in the title and looks like the TV theme music is being ignored. I'm a boomer and that makes me mad.

[Matt]

When I was 11, my Math teacher saw that I liked crime stories, so she lended me her full Sherlock Holmes collection for the summer vacation, alongside with some pulp magazines. It was my first contact with the detective.

[Anna]

I have recently discovered Steampunk, yeah, yeah, I'm hopeless, so apologies to all RDJ and Jude fans. I can now appreciate they were going for a whole new perspective on Holmes. As Holmes lends itself to fresh interpretation in each era, the portrayals were up with the best.

[Bonnie]

Started reading Agatha Christie when I was 8 or 9 and naturally progressed upward to Holmes.
Although, I must say, part of me still has a girlhood crush on the Belgian with the "little gray cells" (Hercule Poirot).

[Ken B]

Anna wrote: "I have recently discovered Steampunk, yeah, yeah, I'm hopeless, so apologies to all RDJ and Jude fans. I can now appreciate they were going for a whole new perspective on Holmes. As Holmes lends it..."

I have read a couple of steampunk stories recently after having several false starts over the years. I've read a couple of George Mann's Newbury and Hobbes stories and enjoyed them.

Also read James Lovegrove's The Stuff of Nightmares, a steampunk Sherlock Holmes pastiche.

I had trouble getting into steampunk because a lot of the books that I started to read were way over the top. The ones I got through seemed to more HG Wells-ish and more believable.

[Ray]

Reading the book in high school.

[Molino]

A friend of mine wanted me to start reading them, and then I saw the movies and decided that maybe I should read the books.

[David YB]

I received the complete one volume work as a birthday present when I was 14. Also, my father was very much into mysteries and detective stories. So it was a natural.

[Jennifer]

I was interested in Sherlock Holmes from a surprisingly young age, because my last name before marriage was, in fact, Holmes.
It prompted me to read the stories, and see some of the earlier black & white films.

[[deleted user]]

Hi, I'm David from Santa MOnica, CA. Around eight or so, some kid said to me, “No s***t, Sherlock.” My parents explained the origin of the slur and gave me the book. I loved the stories, of course, but also the minutia of the world, e.g. Thurston, Watson’s every Thursday billiards partner. Like everyone here, I'm sure, I've read everything many many times.

[Archie]

My dad was watching Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows and he asked if I wanted to watch it. I had no clue who anyone was and what was going on for most of the movie but I was intrigued by Holmes' genius and his powers of deduction. A week later I got A Study in Scarlet out of the library and I've been hooked ever since.

[Rebecca]

The Jeremy Brett adaptation was what convinced me to start reading Sherlock. For some reason, I had never had any desire to read the books until recently and I am officially hooked.

[Katherine]

When I was six, I watched a Japanese anime called Detective Conan, where Sherlock Holmes is mentioned, and where the main character is named after the Author, Conan Doyle. Loved Sherlock Holmes ever since.

[[deleted user]]

I got into Sherlock Holmes after the 2009 Robert Downey Jr. movie tho I have always read Doyle's classics. I recently got back into reading Sherlock Holmes books by modern authors Christmas 2015 with Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. I enjoy reading modern authors so much I have started my own blog https://sherlockianbookworm.wordpress... and a book group on this site! Please check it out https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Himanshu]

I was curious for detectives from my childhood, I even used to play detective games at my house like looking for stains and judging their origin and stuff like that. Then I saw Robert Downey Jr. play Sherlock Holmes in the movies...that is when I really got into it.
I started reading all the materials available on Holmes.

[Grace Meredith]

I'll be honest, my friends recommended BBC Sherlock to me endlessly, and when I finally watched the pilot, I was surprised that Martin Freeman was on. They hadn't told me?! The shock. He's one of my favorite actors. So then, yeah, that grew into an obsession, and pretty soon I had to read the books.

[Bethany]

I watched The Immitation Game (starring Benedict Cumberbatch which was the first film I'd seen with him in) and then binge watched BBC's Sherlock. I started reading the stories themselves and discovered Jeremy Brett's version of Holmes along the way. And the rest is history :)

[Richard]

I first read Holmes when I was a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame. I've never stopped reading Holmes stories, and now I have started writing them.

[Dan]

Holmes has always been around me. I had some of my dad's old comics since before I could read. The Basil Rathbone movies were shown often on my PBS station when I was a kid. I was in 5th grade when I read The Hound of the Baskervilles and Nicholas Meyer's The West End Horror. Not sure which I read first.

[Mark]

Basil Rathbone; I watched his films as a kid on TV, then I got hold of some Strand stories and was hooked.

[Piyumi]

So interesting to read how differently everyone here had started on Sherlock. I always imagined it were the books, as it was for me. I honestly cannot remember what made me pick up my first Sherlock novels. I was a LIt student and our English teachers always encouraged us to read as much as we can get our hands on books...so it could be just a off handed suggestion, but whatever it was, the love affair (i like to think so) has only strength through time.
As some have mentioned here, the movies of the golden years and the TV series of the good old days only helped to stir the facination for the canon.
The recent movies by Guy Ritchie and Moffat and Gatiss's Sherlock with Cumberbatch and Freeman giving a mind blowing performance has been sheer delight.
What kept me going was not only the 'deduction thing' as Freeman's Watson put it, but also the bromance between the two leads.

[Liawèn]

Hello everybody.
My first exposure to Holmes and Watson was through Jeremy Brett (in Germna, can you imagine^^) And an English Leaner book my mum bought me. It was a simplified version of the Holmes' story 'The Red Headed League'. It was written with the vocabulary suitable for my age.
Brett played Holmes like no one else and will probably always be my favourite Holmes. A close second is of course Benedict but that's another story^^
After watching Brett I read some of the short stories in German and when I got older I got the whole volume in English. Ever since I've been rereading it, listening to it, watching it and reading new takes on holmes, like Anthony Horowitz stories or the Young Sherlock series.
I actually liked the 2009 movie and am still rooting for a third one ;-) It was a new take on Holmes and Watson and I loved the story telling. Well, I like Guy Ritchie movies, so there's that^^

[em~thatdemmedelusivemurderess~]

My first experience of Sherlock Holmes would probably have been either the Great Mouse Detective or the Robert Downey Jr version, but I didn't even think about reading the original stories until I watched some of the Basil Rathbone versions. In retrospect, having read about a third of the existing stories, I can't stand the 2009 version or its sequel. As movies, they're wonderful (although the last one wasn't as good, in my opinion), but Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock is not the Sherlock I know and love.
Don't get me wrong, Robert Downey Jr is a great actor, and I like a lot of his roles, but the characters he plays are Robert Downey Jr, and in connection to Sherlock Holmes, it was never meant to be.
Of course, Basil Rathbone wasn't exactly accurate at times, but I can't think of any particular trait which he regularly exhibited that would be unfaithful to the true Holmes. Robert Downey Jr came off as cocky (which is practically his signature in any role), and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I cannot in memory recall any instance of the original Sherlock Holmes being cocky.

[Sarah]

I enjoyed the RDJ Holmes depiction. It's definitely its own thing - but it does get people in the door and loving Holmes and ACD always intended Holmes to be a popular character. Brett is my personal favourite though I believe Rathbone is the portrayal most true to the original - too handsome but a spit of the Paget illustrations (which ACD also thought too handsome for his gargoyle Holmes!).

How come no one is talking about the Brent Spiner Holmes? ❤

[Tara]

When I was in 5th grade, my parents told me that I could have a present for getting a good report card (I don't recall if this was a regular thing or a one-time treat, but this is the only particular instance that sticks in my mind). I have always been a book lover, and I choose the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, which was a paperback edition in a slipcase. Over the years I have read the books so many times that the spines are completely torn asunder, and are taped just to hold them together. I recently got a beautiful hardcover edition for Christmas, but I will always keep and cherish those books for the emotional significance they hold in my heart.

[Emma]

I initially became intrigued when I began watching BBC's Sherlock. When the show ended, I felt like I wanted to see more. So I bought the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock BBC is actually what got me into reading crime and mystery books.

[Bruce]

It was so long ago, and I was so young at the time, I don’t remember specifically. I remember just hearing about him as a a character, and the famous image and that he was a fictional hero. I don’t remember what came first for me, the books or the movies. I got a paperback classics illustrated Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It partly did the job of introducing me to the stories, but it was abridged, and turned into the third person. I never read it afterwards. Only the actual book. Around that time, maybe before, maybe after, I saw two movies, but of those, I don’t remember what I saw first. They were the Hammer Films The Hound of the Baskervilles with Peter Cushing as Sherlock, and the Pearl of Death. I quickly became hooked to the books and movies and tv versions.

[Rohit]

Emma wrote: "I initially became intrigued when I began watching BBC's Sherlock. When the show ended, I felt like I wanted to see more. So I bought the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock BBC is actually ..."

Almost same here. The only difference is that I got inspired by the 2009 RDJ movie instead of the BC series. I watched the BBC series though, but afterwards.

[S.]

I first got into Sherlock Holmes because of reading the unabridged Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Doyle at ten years old. After that, I was completely hooked. Looking back, if my parents knew that there was drug content in the books, I may not have been allowed to read it that young, but I didn't care, haha.

[Bruce]

Lucky. You had an easier time with the unabridged books. Hahahahaha 😹

[Barbara]

Joanna wrote: "Strose629 wrote: "Joanna wrote: "Oh, I love Jeremy Brett! After I read a story, I would watch the episode, if there was one. I love his Holmes the best. It certainly helped that he was devastatingl..."

Late to respond but I found out that the play A Crucifer of Blood where Brett played Dr. Watson (the LA version - there were NY and London versions) was filmed for TV but with another actor as Watson. It wasn't filmed until 1991 when Brett was doing the series for Granada TV.

[Nicole]

I originally read the canon as a kid, maybe 11 or 12. I liked mysteries and my parents suggested I read the Sherlock Holmes stories. I fell in love with them and have read them all many times now.

[Timothy]

I was never particularly interested in mysteries. But when I was 21, I was living in Houston with my best friend. It was a rainy weekend. I wanted something to read and he had the Complete Sherlock Holmes. By the end of the weekend, I had read the whole thing. In the acknowledgements to my second novel, I call my friend my Stamford.

[Barbara]

I am also a fan of other classics, but I found in two groups of fans - Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen's books, especially Pride and Prejudice - there is a divide. Some started reading the books when they were young (I think I first read HOUN when I was 10 or 12) and others came to it later after watching a TV show or movie that grabbed their interest.

[Patrick]

wow timothy lucky man!

[Patrick]

Bruce wrote: "It was so long ago, and I was so young at the time, I don’t remember specifically. I remember just hearing about him as a a character, and the famous image and that he was a fictional hero. I don’t..."

yes my first holmes at the cinema was the cushing hound of the baskervilles

[Patrick]

Barbara wrote: "I am also a fan of other classics, but I found in two groups of fans - Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen's books, especially Pride and Prejudice - there is a divide. Some started reading the books wh..."
my sister read the speckled band...later 18 years old i read my first holmes stories!

[BBoz]

Thrawn books got me to finally read Sherlock, which proceeded to hook me

[Patrick]

my mother and sister interest in sherlock 1962

[Outlander]

Shanawaz wrote: "Naching wrote: "Listra wrote: "O yeah! The first JB episode that I watched was that as well. It was brilliant. I love his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. How did you write a letter to Sherlock Holmes..."

All letters sent to that address go to the S H Museum situated at 221b Baker St, Marylebone, London,NW1 6XE, website is:
https://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/

[Outlander]

Jean-Christophe wrote: "The two first book I read at school was "The Hound of Baskercilles" and "The Blue Carbuncle" but I really discovered Holmes when I saw in the 1990's in France, Granada's Jeremy Brett. Brett is and ..."

I wholeheartedly agree that Jeremy Brett is the best Holmes to date.