HOLMES IN NUMBERS
THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ
CHERRYWOOD: VERY GOOD
Smoking is an integral part of Holmes ' thinking process in the books and he refers to particularly thorny puzzles as a ' three pipe problem ' such as in The Red Headed League. In A Case of Identity we learn from Watson that Sherlock, musing a problem, ' took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face.' These smoky scenes are vivid and intimate and some of my favourites in the stories. Here we see Holmes doing what he does best: thinking. And it is impossible to separate that from smoking.
Smoking is not only an aid to Holmes ' lateral crime-solving abilities but sometimes the solution to the problem itself, and in The Boscombe Valley Mystery we learn of Holmes ' encyclopaedic knowledge of tobaccos and their ashes: '" I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam.”'
There is also the sheer joy of describing smoking. In The Five Orange Pips ' he lit his pipe, and leaning back into his chair he watched the blue smoke- rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.' Smoking is not only shorthand for the pensive Holmes but it is also a valuable writer ' s tool to add visual interest
HOLMES IN NUMBERS
There are 4 novels and 56 short stories in the Sherlock Holmes series
The word ' cigarette ' is used a total of 53 times
He is mentioned smoking his clay pipe 6 times
THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ
Sherlock ' s chain-smoking of Alexadrian cigarettes proves crucial to solving this case
CHERRYWOOD: VERY GOOD
Holmes ' cherrywood pipe is mentioned only once, in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
to scenes that essentially comprise people sitting and and thinking or sitting and talking. The languid appearance of the life of the mind lacks visual interest but, as a natural bedfellow of smoking which has aesthetic appeal in spades, it is logical that Doyle made Holmes a compulsive smoker.
However, smoking is not only associated with the thinking Holmes. When Holmes is in need of mental ' refreshment ', as he calls it, he smokes a pipe. When he is agitated he smokes cigarettes. By the end of the 1880s cigarette production was happening on a massive scale in England and cigarette smoking was a common and popular pastime, replacing the ubiquitous disposable clay pipes that are regularly found washed up from the Thames. Even doctors would recommend smoking for the treatment of asthma and bronchitis. As a doctor himself, Arthur Conan Doyle had no qualms about giving Holmes ' smoking many indulgent words, and cigarettes are just as useful to Doyle ' s writing as the pipe as a signal to the reader. When Holmes is about to explain to Watson the importance of ' observing as well as seeing ' in A Scandal in Bohemia he is shown ' lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair '. Holmes ' inward frustration is captured by the ' throwing ' of himself into the armchair- surely no model of patience- an by the smoking of a cigar- rette which, through repeated association, comes to be read as a manic tic. A few paragraphs later, when Holmes has a breakthrough, ' His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette.' It is a scene of energy, a far cry from the smokers ' manifesto 06