Research-reading Sherlock: Holmes and the Agony Columns

Research-reading Sherlock: Newspapers part 2 by Alicia Rasley

Sherlock Holmes and the Agony Column

Last post, I discussed how Holmes and Watson used the many London newspapers for “clients, clues, and crimes.” They also made great use of a peculiar feature of Victorian newspapers, the personal advertisements. These ads were, apparently, the way Londoners connected with unknown others encountered on the omnibus or spotted in the Underground, and were displayed in the aptly named and widely read “agony columns”.

In “Sherlock Holmes and the Agony Column: A Study in Convergent Media,” Keaghan Turner observes, “By the second half of the nineteenth century, the agony column typically occupied several rows of prime real estate on the front page of the period’s major media source under the heading of PERSONAL, &c.”

Holmes’s obsession with these columns is evident in many stories.  In “The Adventure of the Red Circle,” Holmes assumes correctly that his prey will be communicating with his cohort through personal ads. We get an idea of the usual contents of these agony columns as he scornfully reads and rejects most of the ads as “bleat”: “Here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black boa at Prince’s Skating Club’—that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy will not break his mother’s heart’—that appears to be irrelevant. ‘If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus’—she does not interest me. ‘Every day my heart longs—’ Bleat, Watson—unmitigated bleat!”

Then he finds the note he needs: “Ah, this is a little more possible. Listen to this: ‘Be patient. Will find some sure means of communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.’” He recognizes this as a secret correspondence between two separated lovers, and uses the exchanges of ads to reunite them.

Holmes’s Commonplace Book of Personals

In his insatiable quest to know everything that matters, Holmes has become a real packrat, assembling “a great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals.” He keeps these “commonplace books” up on a shelf, and is especially assiduous in recording intriguing personal ads.

In “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb,” Holmes uses his commonplace book and prodigious memory to locate a year-old personal ad that solves the mysterious maiming of one engineer and murder of another: “‘Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o’clock at night, and has not been heard of since. Was dressed in—’ etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I fancy.”

Sometimes the ads are so cryptic that they puzzle even Sherlock. In “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,” he has been asked by his brother Mycroft (a mysteriously powerful civil servant) to locate stolen plans for a submarine. He and Watson break into a house and find a tinbox filled with cuttings of a series of ads, complete with a false name:

“Matter presses. Must withdraw offer unless contract completed. Make appointment by letter. Will confirm by advertisement.— Pierrot.

“Monday night after nine. Two taps. Only ourselves. Do not be so suspicious. Payment in hard cash when goods delivered.— Pierrot.

(Two academics have catalogued the curious phenomenon of coded and encrypted ad in Victorian newspapers here: How encrypted Victorian newspaper personal ads shaped fiction like Sherlock and Enola Holmes. Jacquelyn Sundberg and Nathalie Cooke)

Holmes the Advertiser

Holmes doesn’t just read personal ads. He also places them when he needs to track down a clue or culprit. So in “Sign of the Four,” Holmes uses a personal ad to track down the steamboat that is carrying the murderers out of London. “Lost.—Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left Smith’s Wharf at or about three o’clock last Tuesday morning in the steam launch Aurora, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can give information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith’s Wharf, or at 221b Baker Street, as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch Aurora.”

Holmes’s brother Mycroft uses a similar ad to offer a reward to find a missing man in “The Greek Interpreter”: “Anybody supplying any information as to the whereabouts of a Greek gentleman named Paul Kratides, from Athens, who is unable to speak English, will be rewarded. A similar reward paid to any one giving information about a Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X 2473.”

(The X2473 there is the “box number” for replies, allowing both the poster and replier to remain anonymous.”)

It’s not surprising that an author like Conan Doyle (and Dr. Watson too!) would pay close attention to newspapers and other publications. After all, the Holmes stories were usually first published in periodicals before being collected into books. So naturally, the stories reflect this preoccupation with print. And there has never been a time and place more devoted to print than the publishing capital of the world, Victorian London.

In future posts, I’ll discuss other aspects of Victorian life revealed in the Sherlock stories, including money, phrenology, and gentleman’s clubs.

For many articles about aspects of Sherlock, check out The Stanford University archive of Sherlock articles.