ON THE IRREGULAR CHRONOLOGY OF MY CASES
My dear Watson, I have often allowed you free rein in the ordering of my adventures, trusting that your instincts as a storyteller would capture the imagination of the public. Yet I cannot fail to observe that the chronology of your published accounts is, to put it mildly, a puzzle. Cases that occurred within months of one another are separated by years on your printed page. Adventures solved in my youth are recorded when I was a man of advancing years. And, conversely, incidents that occurred later in my career are occasionally presented as if they were among the earliest. Let us, then, examine this irregularity with the calm detachment that we should bring to any case.
The first point to consider is your narratives were never intended as a complete or consecutive history of my work. They are, rather, a selection of what you deemed most suitable for the public. You have, on occasion, acknowledged as much. In more than one preface you hint at a long series of notes that remain locked in your dispatch-box, unpublished because they contain matters too delicate, or persons too prominent, to be revealed. It follows, therefore, that your publication order cannot mirror the order of occurrence. Selection imposes distortion.
Secondly, your role as a practicing physician often drew you away from Baker Street. When you returned to my side, you naturally preferred to recount cases that interested you most, rather than those that followed in strict sequence. A man does not arrange his reminiscences with the exactitude of a railway timetable; he arranges them to please himself and his audience. Thus it is that a case from my early career, such as The Gloria Scott, may be set down years later, when you happened to recall it, while cases of more recent date might be held back because of private griefs or professional obligations.
Thirdly, we must reckon with discretion. Many of our adventures touched upon the highest in the land. You yourself have written of a case involving the Pope, and of another concerning the second stain which nearly imperiled the peace of Europe. Such cases, when first resolved, could not be made public without scandal. You therefore altered their order, sometimes delaying publication for decades. A man of your principles would not betray a confidence, even at the cost of confusing posterity.
Finally, there is the human element—memory itself. You, my dear fellow, have a soldier’s straightforward honesty, but you are not immune from the fallibility of recollection. On more than one occasion you have dated an event imprecisely, or placed it in the wrong season. A witness may swear that an incident occurred in the spring, when in truth it was winter. Such errors are natural, and to me they do not detract from the truth of your record; they only remind us that the chronicler is a man, not a machine.
What conclusions may be drawn from this inquiry? Not that your narratives are false, as some pedantic critics would insinuate, but that they bear the marks of authenticity. Life is not lived in perfect sequence. It is remembered in fragments, arranged according to relevance, propriety, or the dictates of circumstance. The irregular chronology of my cases is therefore a sign of their genuineness. Had you arranged them too neatly, like specimens in a cabinet, the effect would have been artificial. Their very disorder is evidence that they are drawn from life.
I therefore commend you, Watson, for your fidelity. You may not have produced an exact diary of my career, but you have produced something of greater value—a living, breathing record of crime and detection, coloured by memory, shadowed by discretion, yet infused with the truth. The reader who puzzles over chronology is, in a sense, missing the point. What matters is not the precise year in which a client knocked upon our door, but the fact that, having knocked, he or she received justice.
Thus I set the matter down here, so that posterity may know that the irregularities of your ordering are not a weakness but a strength—the natural outcome of a truthful man recalling a remarkable career.
— Sherlock Holmes
Paul Bishop is the author of fifteen novels, including the award winning Lie Catchers. He is also the editor of 52 Weeks 52 Sherlock Holmes Novels—a multi-author compendium of essays regarding fifty-two of the best Sherlockian pastiches plus much more—Available on Amazon or from Genius Books...
52 Weeks * 52 Sherlock Holmes Novels
