Sherlock Holmes
First, different era backgrounds
From 1850 to 1950, the hundred years can be divided into three major stages, before World War I, after World War I, and after World War II.
After World War II, it was the Yalta system dominated by the United States and Russia, and the United States and Russia outside Europe dominated, and European countries were collectively reduced to second-rate countries.
After World War I, the Versailles system, the United Kingdom as the number one power, France as the second power, Eastern Europe, the Balkan countries, are all vassals of France. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire left Britain and France with territory in Western Asia. The Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the German Empire ceased to exist. In the Balkans, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the most powerful. Britain and France slowly recovered from the damage they had suffered in World War I after World War I, especially Britain, in which the army lost six million people, all young and middle-aged, and seriously injured. Without World War II, Britain and France could slowly recover and their domination of the world would continue.
Before World War I, the Vienna system. The second industrial revolution, the rapid development of European powers, domination of the world, Britain, Germany, France, the national strength soared, the European powers in Africa have obtained a large number of territory, even the European second-rate country Belgium, also in Africa has more than two million square kilometers of territory. The Ottoman Empire's Territory in Asia was still vast, but in the Balkans, countries became independent, and it was the Kingdom of Serbia, the strongest of which provoked the First World War and completely interrupted the upward momentum of Europe that had lasted for hundreds of years since 1500.
The age of the two authors, Conan Doyle, 1859 to 1930. His Holmes was active before World War I.
Christie, 1890 to 1976. Her Poirot was active before World War II.
Second, about Sherlock Holmes
The era of the famous Detective Holmes's activities was concentrated around 1875 to 1907. At that time, it was the peak of the British Empire, in South Africa, the British and the Dutch were originally divided equally, but the British defeated the Dutch in South Africa and monopolized South Africa.
That is to say, the main period of Sherlock Holmes's activity was the era of Empress Victoria; later, in the era of the new Emperor Edward VII, the British Empire continued to advance. The era of Empress Victoria and The British Emperor Edward VII was the rise of the British Empire, which can also be called the imperial era of European countries.
Holmes's masterpieces, The Four Signatures and the Bohemian Scandal, are the best portrayals of this period. The former was associated with a large collection of jewelry in British India, while the latter was associated with the Bohemian nobility of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
According to The Last Greeting, it can be inferred that Holmes was born in 1854, and for the most part he appeared as a rich man in his twenties and thirties. The final case took place in 1914, when he was described as about sixty years old.
Sherlock Holmes, aged thirty to forty
In the 1917 issue of The Last Greeting, Holmes retired and lived in seclusion on a farm in Sussex, presumably as early as 1904, when beekeeping became his main business, and he later published The Practical Manual of Beekeeping, on the Study of Segregated Queen Bees. Another adventure story, Lion Mane, takes place after his retirement. Details about his death are not given in the story.
Holmes's novels express the humanist spirit of the British middle class in the ascendant period. The British police, in the 1820s and 1830s, marked by the passage of the Police Act by the British Parliament in 1829, gradually modernized, completely abolished torture in interrogation, and determined that cases were not handled by confession, but by evidence.
Prior to this, since the Norman Conquest in 1066, England had been in force with the Winchester Statutes in law and order since 1285.
Holmes was born in a typical British squire family, well educated, with a strong humanistic spirit, and at the same time with a strong scientific spirit, he had a very sophisticated study of drugs and medicine, which was very in line with the mainstream trend of society at that time. He reasoned logically with rigorous deduction, and in the novel, Holmes had a profound influence on the science of justice, especially his rigorous investigation of the crime scene, from small clues to the vine, accurately deducing the context. He used trace evidence such as shoes, tire marks, fingerprints, ballistics, and writing analysis, now known as handwriting identification. All the technologies advocated by Holmes became a reality in the future. In fact, these techniques were already quite rudimentary in Britain when Conan Doyle wrote, and Conan Doyle's writing played a role in promoting and expanding influence. Holmes emphasized the importance of maintaining the status quo ante on the scene, which has now become a typical way of handling crime scenes.
Sherlock Holmes and Watson
As far as the clues of the crime scene are concerned, such as soot, hair, and fingerprints, Holmes often uses high magnification glasses and light microscopes to study them carefully. He used analytical chemistry to analyze blood stains and toxicology to analyze toxic substances. Holmes lived in all of his small chemistry laboratories, and he used chemistry to detect toxic substances, such as in the Naval Agreement case, where he used ballistic knowledge to reconstruct bullet trajectories, and the caliber of the suspect's use of firearms, as shown in the empty house case.
Holmes has a very keen observation of the dress and attitude of guests and suspects, and can infer people's previous experiences and recent experiences based on clothing style, pollution, psychological activity, and physical reactions, and use them to speculate in cases such as "The Hound of baskerville" and "The Sapphire Case".
In 2002, the Royal Chemical Society awarded Holmes the honorary title of Honorary Member in recognition of his outstanding use of forensic science and analytical chemistry in popular literature, making Holmes the first fictional figure to receive the award.
The Royal Chemical Society is the largest chemical science organization in Europe, founded in 1841.
The scientific means, combined with Holmes's logical reasoning, made him invincible, and as a result, Holmes was well paid, Watson recounted, "There is no doubt that in the years when I lived with Holmes, he paid enough rent to buy this house." In the case of the Bohemian Scandal, Holmes received an advance payment of one thousand pounds, which was a huge sum in the nineteenth century. In some cases, the client doubles the amount paid to him. In The Last Case, Holmes served the French government and the Scandinavian royal family, earning him a huge income that was enough to retire early. In the case of the Abbey's College, the Duke paid Sherlock Holmes a sum of six thousand pounds. For the wealthy, he sometimes voluntarily collected high amounts, in the Case of the Redheads, he demanded that the bank pay the case fee, and in the Emerald Crown case, Holmes's client was a wealthy banker, and Holmes recovered the stolen gems for him, for which he paid a huge sum of money.
In the case of Black Peter, however, Watson notes that if the case of the magnate disgusts Holmes, he will not accept it, and that he will serve the toiling masses without charge and provide pro bono services.
1984 Granada TV series "Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection"
Famous quotes from Sherlock Holmes include:
"God bless us! Why does fate always play such a prank on the poor, poor and helpless sentient beings? Whenever I hear about this type of case, I think of Baxter's words. "Sherlock Holmes was able to solve the case because of God's blessing." (The Secret case of Boscombe Valley). Baxter was the Leader of puritanism in Stuart during the Reign of Stuart.
"That's a lighthouse, my buddy! A beacon of the future! Every lighthouse is filled with a thousand brilliant little seeds, and England will be wiser and richer in their generation in the future. "Naval Agreement"
"Reasoning may be gradually established by reasoning scholars as a sophisticated discipline." Naval Agreement.
In 1914, for the coming First World War, the elderly Holmes said, "There will be an east wind, and this wind has never blown in England." The wind would be cold, it would be strong, Watson. When this gust of wind blows, many of us may wither. But it is still god's wind. After the storm passes, a purer, better, more powerful land will stand under the sun. "Final Greetings, Closing Remarks of Sherlock Holmes."
"I disagree with some people who list modesty as a virtue. For logicians, everything should be what it should be, and to underestimate oneself and exaggerate one's talents is just as contrary to the truth. "The Greek Translator."
"For a world that lacks patience, perseverance and patience to suffer is in itself the most valuable example." The Veiled Tenant.
Think of those who seek material, sensual, and worldly pleasures who prolong their worthless lives, while those who seek spiritual values do not want to disobey God's call. The result is that the most unwell survive, so that the world has not become a sinkhole? "The Reptile."
"If a man wants to surpass nature, he will fall below nature. People of higher creatures, once they are separated from the prosperous road of human destiny, will become animals. "The Reptile."
"The cry of the people is the cry of God." "Grange Manor".
"After weeding out all the impossibilities, the rest is unbelievable, but that's the truth!" The Four Signatures.
Third, about Poirot
I've said Holmes, let's talk about Poirot. If Holmes has the domineering spirit of the rising period of the British Empire, then Poirot is enjoying the convenience of life brought by the stable period of the British Empire, both of them are superior in intelligence, but the temperament is different, in fact, this is a different reflection of the different times. The period of Poirot's activities was in the twenties and thirties, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed due to World War I, so the British Empire acquired British Palestine, British Mesopotamia, and France gained French Syria. The 1920s and 1930s were a period of stability between the two great powers of Britain and France, and Poirot's masterpieces, "Massacre on the Nile", "The Adventures of the Egyptian Tomb", and "Murder in Mesopotamia", are the true portrayal of this period. Poirot took a luxury passenger ship or a luxury train to travel through British Egypt and British Mesopotamia, and fully enjoyed peacetime travel.
Poirot takes a tour of British Egypt
Poirot was presumed to have been born in 1864, ten years younger than Holmes. In the twenties and thirties, Poirot was a small old man in his sixties, 1 meter 60, and his last case and death were roughly around 1940.
In terms of the criminal's modus operandi, Conan Doyle's writing is more rigorous, while Christie's writing is more crude, some of which do not stand up to scrutiny, and she seems to pay more attention to the WHO's crime than to how. Or maybe this is the difference between male writers and female writers, men, of course, are more familiar with physical activity and have more practical experience, and women, are more imaginative.
Christie's detective novels are a remembrance of the peaceful and powerful period of the last twenty years of the British Empire in the 1920s and 1930s, after which she stopped writing detective novels about Poirot and Marple. Both Poirot and Marple's last case was written in the late World War II period. World War II profoundly changed the world.