John H Watson, known as Dr Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
32 Facts About Dr Watson
2.
Dr Watson was probably inspired by one of Doyle's colleagues, Dr James Watson.
3.
The year of Dr Watson's birth is not stated in the stories.
4.
William S Baring-Gould and Leslie S Klinger estimate that Watson was born in 1852.
5.
June Thomson concludes that Dr Watson was probably born either in 1852 or 1853.
6.
In 1881, Dr Watson is introduced by his friend Stamford to Holmes, who is looking for someone to share rent in rooms in 221B Baker Street.
7.
When Dr Watson notices multiple eccentric guests frequenting the rooms, Holmes reveals that he is a "consulting detective" and that the guests are his clients.
8.
In "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier", Holmes mentions that "Dr Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife", but this wife was never named or described.
9.
The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it"; whereupon Dr Watson admits, "I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him.
10.
At the beginning of "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger", Dr Watson makes strong claims about "the discretion and high sense of professional honour" that govern his work as Holmes's biographer, but they do not keep Dr Watson from expressing himself and quoting Holmes with candour of their antagonists and their clients.
11.
Dr Watson used to be an athlete: it is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" that he used to play rugby union for Blackheath, but he fears his physical condition has declined since that point.
12.
Dr Watson is well aware of both the limits of his abilities and Holmes's reliance on him:.
13.
For example, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Dr Watson efficiently clears up several of the many mysteries confronting the pair, including Barrymore's strange candle movements turning out to be signals to his brother-in-law Seldan, and Holmes praises him for his zeal and intelligence.
14.
However, because he is not endowed with Holmes's almost-superhuman ability to focus on the essential details of the case and Holmes's extraordinary range of recondite, specialised knowledge, Dr Watson meets with limited success in other cases.
15.
At the beginning of "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger," Dr Watson makes strong claims about "the discretion and high sense of professional honour" that govern his work as Holmes's biographer, but discretion and professional honour do not block Dr Watson from expressing himself and quoting Holmes with remarkable candor on the characters of their antagonists and their clients.
16.
The Holmes-Dr Watson partnership, consisting of a "brilliant yet flawed detective" and a "humbler but dependable and sympathetic sidekick", influenced the creation of similar teams in British detective fiction throughout the twentieth century, from detective Hercule Poirot and Poirot's companion Captain Hastings, to Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis, introduced in 1975.
17.
The series of Holmes films with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson portrayed the doctor as a lovable but incompetent assistant.
18.
Dr Watson was played by actor Andre Morell in the 1959 film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, wherein Morell preferred that his version of Dr Watson should be closer to that originally depicted in Doyle's stories, not Nigel Bruce's interpretation.
19.
Dr Watson continues the "lie" of Holmes's existence after he fails to get the post.
20.
The film portrays Watson as having a gambling problem, which William S Baring-Gould had inferred from a reference in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" to Holmes keeping Watson's cheque book locked in a drawer in his desk.
21.
Dr Watson appears on the 2010 direct-to-DVD Asylum film Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, a science fiction reinvention in which he was portrayed by actor Gareth David-Lloyd.
22.
At the beginning of the film, Dr Watson is an elderly man portrayed by David Shackleton during the Blitz in 1940.
23.
Dr Watson tells his nurse the tale of the adventure which he and Holmes vowed never to tell the public.
24.
Dr Watson is a skilled gunman and is loyal, if often irritated by Holmes's methods.
25.
Dr Watson, portrayed by Colin Starkey, appears briefly in the 2015 film Mr Holmes.
26.
Dr Watson was voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya in Japanese, and Jason Liebrecht in the English dub.
27.
Dr Watson was portrayed by David Burke and later by Edward Hardwicke in the 1980s and 1990s television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, all starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes.
28.
The character of Holmes is created and Dr Watson is made his sidekick at Dr Watson's request to Doyle.
29.
Dr Watson was portrayed by English-born actor Michael Williams for the BBC Radio adaptation of the complete run of the Holmes canon from November 1989 to July 1998.
30.
Dr Watson appears alongside Holmes in multiple Sherlock Holmes video games, such as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and its two sequels, and The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes and its sequel.
31.
Dr Watson appears with Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes series of video games developed by Frogwares.
32.
Dr Watson appears at the start of The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures, where he is murdered while teaching in Japan.