Two new books examine the lives of Edgar Allan Poe and the doctors who inspired Sherlock Holmes

Two new books released this month offer fresh perspectives on the origins of detective fiction and the lives of the writers who defined it. One volume focuses on the personal struggles of Edgar Allan Poe, while the other examines the real medical professionals who inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes.

Emily Ogden, a professor at the University of Virginia, published Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe. Ogden describes the book as an exploration of both Poe and the readers who have followed his work into dark places. She notes that his stories often deal with madness, loneliness, and pain.

The book frames its analysis with a specific incident from Poe's life in 1849. According to the diary of John Sartain, a Philadelphia engraver and friend of Poe, the writer visited Sartain's workshop in a distressed state. They went on a midnight walk to the Fairmount Water Works, an early municipal facility located above the Schuylkill River. Sartain kept Poe from jumping off a platform high above the river during this visit.

Ogden uses this event to explore how Poe's personal torments influenced his writing. The book also touches on his influence on later translators, including Charles Baudelaire. Ogden states that her project is about allowing Poe to be a guide into the darkness, a place many people avoid.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle regarded Poe as the father of the detective tale. Doyle wrote that Poe covered the limits of the genre so completely that he could not see how followers could find fresh ground. Despite this view, Doyle began writing mystery stories to supplement his medical practice. He published his first Sherlock Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887.

Fifty-nine more Holmes stories followed the first publication. The character of Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson have achieved a level of fame that persists more than a century later. Letters from clients seeking their advice still arrive at the fictional address of 221B Baker Street.

Medical historian Lindsay Fitzharris published Sleuth-Hound: The Case of the Real Sherlock Holmes. The book investigates the lives of two doctors who inspired Doyle's characters. Surgeon Joseph Bell and forensics expert Henry Duncan Littlejohn worked at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary, where Doyle studied medicine.

Doyle based the character of Sherlock Holmes on Bell and Dr. Watson on Littlejohn. Bell was known as the demon of diagnosis and could often identify a patient's occupation by reading the scars on their hands. Fitzharris details Bell's investigative work with Littlejohn on several murder cases in Scotland, including the Jack the Ripper case.

The book also includes brief histories of toxicology, anesthesiology, and public health. Both new works suggest that even well-known stories contain details that may have been overlooked by previous scholars.