“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
I know it has been almost two months since Part 3 came out, so… my apologies if you were anxiously awaiting the final post for the series. This week, however, should make you happy. We have an interesting mix of century-plus old properties, all of which I have enjoyed to one degree or another at one time or another, so this should be fun.
Peter Pan (1902): 120 years
I have early childhood memories of watching the animated Disney Peter Pan film (1953). Can’t remember if I saw a TV broadcast of the musical Broadway production (1954) starring Mary Martin. But, I do remember TV commercials advertising a Peter Pan stage production starring comedic actress Sandy Duncan (1966, 1979-1981), then several years later starring Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby (1974, 1990, 1998-1999, 2004-2005, 2008-2009, 2011-2013).
Peter Pan (along with Wendy, Tinkerbell, Captain Hook, et al.) was the creation of J.M. Barrie, a Scottish novelist and playwright, though Barrie only produced two distinct, original works featuring the character. The first was The Little White Bird (1902), an adult novel with a section of six chapters collectively titled “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens”. It has 7-day-old Peter being taught to fly by birds and fairies. Barrie then developed a stage play around the character titled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904). Success convinced Barrie’s publisher to extract the original six chapters from his novel and publish them — with added illustrations by Arthur Rackham — as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906). He later adapted an expanded version of the play’s storyline into a novel titled Peter and Wendy (1911) (aka Peter Pan and Wendy).
Pan, adventurous leader of the Lost Boys on the mythical island of Neverland, was quite literally the “boy who never grew up” — or, at least, not past 12 or 13 years. He was “an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy” with “a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, [who] is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger.” It certainly helped that he was a skilled swordsman, mimic, could fly, and sensed danger when it was near. As such, he became “a cultural icon symbolizing youthful innocence and escapism.”
Barrie wrote a sequel play, When Wendy Grew Up – An Afterthought (1908), and Geraldine McCaughrean wrote Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), the official sequel novel, commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital who own the rights. But, there have been many more novels, both authorized and unauthorized, written about Pan and other characters from Barrie’s stories. There have been comics/manga, plays, an authorized musical radio adaptation, TV shows, video & computer games, etc., either centered on Peter Pan or featuring him (and possibly his associates). Same is true for films, both animated and live-action; the first was Paramount’s Peter Pan (1924), a silent movie starring Betty Bronson, while the most recent is Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy, due for a 2022 release. There have been non-fiction works and bio-dramas, as well as references and homages made in music of various genres. And, of course, there have been tons of related merchandise of different types over the decades.
Dracula (1897): 125 years
Whereas Peter Pan is all about maintaining childlike freedom and innocence, that is impossible to do with Dracula. (Interestingly, there is a connection between the two, as the movie The Lost Boys (1987) is about a gang of youths who are vampires — which, of course, keeps them forever young.) More on that in a minute…
Bram Stoker, personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and acting manager for London’s Lyceum Theatre, supplemented his income writing romance and sensation novels. Written as a series of letters, articles, and diary entries, Dracula has no single protagonist, but the central character is a centuries-old count who “suffers” from vampirism. The novel’s effective use of horror elements resulted in both positive and negative reviews. Stoker earned no royalties on the first 1000 copies sold. It was serialized in American newspapers, then an American edition of the novel was published in 1899. Unfortunately, due to some copyright and registration issues, Stoker didn’t make much money from the book.
Stoker drew heavily from Transylvanian folklore and history, possibly modeling his titular nobleman after the real-life figure of the Wallachian prince known as Vlad the Impaler. Categorized as “Gothic horror”, it is acknowledged as “one of the most famous pieces of English literature”, while the characters of Dracula and Abraham Van Helsing have become archetypes of the vampire and vampire hunter, respectively. Thus, Stoker’s “critical legacy” was finally established after his death in 1912.
Thematically, the topics of “sexuality and seduction” are represented throughout the novel. (Despite being married and fathering a child, some literary and behavioral evidence has led to the theory that Stoker was a repressed homosexual.) Race/ethnicity is another major theme in the novel (e.g., anti-Semitic remarks and assumptions, negative depictions of Slovaks and Romani people). Some have suggested that vampirism as a disease symbolizes Victorian anxieties about STDs and other diseases, while others see more racism in the use of vampiric “disease” (and associated animalistic traits and transformations) among certain peoples.
Dracula has had numerous plays (first being Stoker’s own Dracula, or The Undead (1897)), films (the first being the very loosely-adapted Hungarian silent film, Drakula Halála, the director/star of which later was forced to destroy all copies), TV series, video games and animation, comic books, and of course novels. Even “Sesame Street” has a character called “the Count” and General Mills has its “Count Chocula” breakfast cereal. Multiple academic studies and non-fiction books have been written on Dracula, its origins, legacy, etc. For those with an appreciation for the character and/or the Gothic horror (sub)genre, merchandise ranging from Halloween costumes and fake fangs to jewelry to coffin beds are available.
Count Dracula may not be the first vampire to appear in literature, but he has become the quintessential, iconic vampire and the inspiration for many others.
The Invisible Man (1897): 125 years
Given the era, it isn’t surprising that H.G. Wells has an entry here. (I covered The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine in previous “Notable” posts.) The original version, written between March and June 1896, was a short story titled “The Man at the Coach and Horses” — a reference to a local inn where the central character seeks lodging and tells his tale. But, Wells didn’t like how it turned out, so he (re-)wrote a longer version, i.e., the now-classic novel (novella?). As was common at the time, the story of The Invisible Man was first serialized in Pearson’s Weekly in 1897 but then published in book format later that same year. It’s one of those classics that I haven’t read but really should.
Two major influences are usually mentioned in regards to Wells’s The Invisible Man (not to be confused with Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), which is about a very different subject). The first is “The Perils of Invisibility,” one of the Bab Ballads by W.S. Gilbert. It includes the couplet, “Old Peter vanished like a shot/but then – his suit of clothes did not.” The second was Plato’s Republic, in which the legend of the Ring of Gyges postulates that a man who became invisible could act so freely that he would “go about among men with the powers of a god.”
As per Allen Grove, professor and chair of English at Alfred University:
“The Invisible Man has a wealth of progeny. The novel was adapted into comic book form by Classics Illustrated in the 1950s, and by Marvel Comics in 1976. Many writers and filmmakers also created sequels to the story, something the novel’s ambiguous ending encourages. Over a dozen movies and television series are based on the novel, including a 1933 James Whale film and a 1984 series by the BBC. The novel has been adapted for radio numerous times, including a 2017 audio version starring John Hurt as the invisible man. The cultural pervasiveness of the invisible man has led to everything from his cameo in an episode of ‘Tom and Jerry’ to the Queen song ‘The Invisible Man’.”
I remember watching and enjoying two short-lived “The Invisible Man” TV series, one starring David McCallum (1975-1976) and one starring Vincent Ventresca (2000-2002). It may be time to track those down…
Sherlock Holmes (1887): 135 years
One hundred thirty-five years ago, prolific British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published the first story starring “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes, one of the best-known and most popular fictional characters of the Victorian and Edwardian Eras. Indeed, Holmes became an icon of crime fiction, cementing Conan Doyle’s literary legacy. That first story, “A Study in Scarlet”, appeared in Beeton’s Christmas Annual magazine (1887), followed by the novelization (1888). Conan Doyle would follow up with three more novels and 56 short stories published between 1890 and 1927. Most of the tales are narrated by Holmes’s friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson, who often accompanies Holmes on his investigations.
Fun fact: The phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson” is never uttered in any of the sixty stories by Conan Doyle.
Conan Doyle once wrote that, like many fictional detectives, Holmes was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin. Holmes’s speech and behavior were clearly influenced by Émile Gaboriau’s popular Monsieur Lecoq. In fact, Holmes and Watson briefly discuss Dupin and Lecoq in A Study in Scarlet. Conan Doyle is on record as saying that a real-life acquaintance of his, Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, was another model for Holmes, but Bell insisted that Holmes was based more on Conan Doyle himself. Sir Henry Littlejohn, another notable in the medical field, is also said to have been a major inspiration. Others have been suggested but were never confirmed by the author.
The first two Holmes novels were only moderately well-received, but his popularity took off in both Britain and America once the short stories (beginning with “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891)) began coming out in The Strand Magazine. Conan Doyle was strangely ambivalent about the character, but when he killed off Holmes (and archnemesis Professor Moriarty) in “The Final Problem” (1893), it led to unprecedented public outcry, including over 20,000 canceled subscriptions to The Strand. Conan Doyle was eventually convinced to “resurrect” Holmes in a story first serialized in The Strand (1901-1902) and then published as a novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1903).
The following from Wikipedia summarizes Holmes’s legacy well:
“Though not the first fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes is arguably the best known. By the 1990s, there were already over 25,000 stage adaptations, films, television productions and publications featuring the detective, and Guinness World Records lists him as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television history. Holmes’s popularity and fame are such that many have believed him to be not a fictional character but a real individual; numerous literary and fan societies have been founded on this pretence. Avid readers of the Holmes stories helped create the modern practice of fandom. The character and stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture as a whole, with the original tales as well as thousands written by authors other than Conan Doyle being adapted into stage and radio plays, television, films, video games, and other media for over one hundred years.”
There are multiple statues of the character around the world, and he has been honored with streets, locomotives, and at least one honorary fellowship named after him (by the Royal Society of Chemistry). There have also been specially-dedicated rooms and exhibits in libraries and museums.
Well done, sir!
I didn’t realize it when I first planned this post, but there are some interesting ties between the authors. Conan Doyle was an acquaintance and distant cousin of Bram Stoker. Conan Doyle also collaborated with J.M. Barrie on the libretto of Jane Annie (1893). Conan Doyle and Barrie were avid cricket players (though Barrie wasn’t nearly as good) and both were members of the Authors Cricket Club and the Allahakbarries. H.G. Wells also played for the the Allahakbarries, as did a few other notables (e.g., Rudyard Kipling, P.G. Wodehouse, A.A. Milne).
That’s another year’s worth of notable anniversaries noted. Whew!
Heroes and Aliens 