Introduction

For international readers, Sherlock Holmes has always been considered the epitome of English culture. We picture him riding in a hansom cab through London, investigating dark alleys and tracing clues at a crime scene near the Thames. Throughout the years, pastiche writers have reworked the Sherlock Holmes stories by relating its main character to the cultural history of Britain and Europe, to other fictional texts such as gothic novels, or by introducing him to local detectives such as Arsène Lupin and scientists such as Freud (Boef, 2005). The staff of the BBC series Sherlock (2010) explicitly revises this characterization and chooses to portray Holmes in a contemporary setting. Writer Mark Gatiss stresses in the documentary Unlocking Sherlock (2010): “Sherlock Holmes has become so much about the trappings, about the hansom cabs, about the costumes, the fog, Jack the Ripper will creep in here. It's become a strange maelstrom of stuff.” In contrast, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat give a fresh spin in a new time and setting.

Sherlock transforms some of the recognizable Sherlock Holmes features while simultaneously echoing an awareness of the stories and the history of their reception. International readers often have their own ideas of Holmes as a figure that are not influenced by the novels but by popular and local culture. Some audiences know him from movies, such as Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2009) or The Case of the Silk Stocking (2004).