The Final Problem
The last problem (also his last case, the last case or Sherlock Holmes ' demise OT: The Final Problem ) is the title of a Sherlock Holmes short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the last of the band The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and dates from 1893.
The story involves the struggle of the master detective against his enemy Professor Moriarty criminal, which ends with the fatal fall of the two men in the Reichenbach Falls near Meiringen in Switzerland.
Action
Sherlock Holmes is to pin down the most dangerous man in London. Professor Moriarty and his gang terrorizing London for a long time with their covert operations. Holmes is able now to make all members of the gang arrest, only Moriarty himself escapes. Since Holmes fears that Moriarty wants to take revenge on him, he travels with Watson across Europe. In Meiringen in Switzerland Holmes and Moriarty finally meet again. One last fight to the death takes place on the remote Reichenbach Falls that eventually overthrow both in depth. Watson, who was previously recalled by a fictitious medical emergency in the village and thus has not personally observed the battle, finally closes on the death of the two. However, Holmes ' body was never found.
In the short story The Empty House ( 1903 ), finally, further details of the fight and the fall are disclosed.
Background
The story should be the end of Sherlock Holmes series with the death of the protagonist, as Doyle the regular compose new detective stories was too time consuming. The mother of the writer, an avid reader of the stories tried in vain to dissuade her son from the project.
The great popularity that Holmes had now achieved, led to a public mourning for the fictitious person, so that disappointed reader black ribbons tied around the upper arm in London. Many customers canceled the subscription of the magazine The beach. Conan Doyle received letters in which he was abused as a monster or beast.
After a break from writing sat Doyle series from 1901 with the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles continued. Doyle had been made aware of a legend from a friend after a family was persecuted in Dartmoor by a mysterious ghost dog. Doyle realized that this would be an ideal Holmes novel that would play before his death in the last short story. Following the success of the novel, Doyle was persuaded by his publishers, new stories about Sherlock Holmes to write for an enormously high fee.
Holmes ' death in 1903 in The Empty House (German: The Empty House ) revised literary, with this story Doyle began second creative period in relation to Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes against Moriarty
Although Moriarty in Doyle's original work only in this story and the novel The Valley of Fear (English: The Valley of Fear ) makes its appearance, it was made in the literary reception and in the Sherlock Holmes pastiche, for the most adversary Holmes '. The popularity Moriarty meant that the character also appeared in many films, for example in the feature film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by 1939, which is loosely based on a play by William Gillette. George Zucco, who plays Moriarty, one of the most famous actors in the role.
Films
- 2012 sent the BBC in the TV series Sherlock a series based on this story. The Reichenbach Falls ran as a season finale of the second season.