#twis acd

[tremendousdetectivetheorist]

Illustration by Sidney Paget for “The Man with the Twisted Lip” in which Holmes is very bendy when retrieving that sponge

[love-in-mind-palace]

So basically Watson finds Holmes in an opium den and Holmes is like ‘I missed you bae, let’s go on adventures’ And Watson is like ‘well yeah I am all yours.’ Then Holmes reminds him ‘send a note to your wife.’ And Watson is ‘Oh yeah a note, to wife. Right.*fuck i forgot about wife again.that was close* BTW I AM SO SURPRISED TO FIND YOU HERE HOLMES’

[hudders-and-hiddles]

so is watson describing what holmes is like in bed here or... ?

[astudyincanon]

The Man with the Twisted Lip - Locations

A quick note about this story…

Unlike past stories, most of the locations in this story actually DO exist! The only location that doesn’t actually exist is “Upper Swandam Lane” which is the location of the opium den.  Most Sherlockians agree that the area that would be most similar is Upper Thames Street & St. Paul’s Wharf, so the pictures included above show locations on UTS.  The rest of the locations are real.

Top Row Left - St. Paul’s Wharf, Thames side, 1880

Top Row Right - St. Paul’s Wharf, Street side, 1880

Note: Most of the wharfs were destroyed by fire over the years, and the entire area was redeveloped in the 1960′s.  Very few of the original buildings still stand.

2nd Row Left - Paul’s Wharf, a painting by John Crowther, 1881

Note: I recommend clicking on that one to see the whole thing, it is a vertical image, so most of it gets cut off in the arrangement above.

2nd Row Right - Photo of the wharf painted above.

Note: I added a red arrow to show the wooden building in the photo

Third Row - The Cedars in Lee near Kent, 1900

Note: This is the Saint-Clair’s house.  In which Holmes and Watson had to SHARE a room... O_o

Bottom Row Left - The Bank of England on Threadneedle Street, 1898

Note: This is where Neville St. Claire went to beg as the Hugh Boone.  It was a very busy banking hub.

Bottom Row Right - The Bow Street Police Station and Court House, 1898

Note: The Bow Street Runners were London’s first official police force. They were founded in 1749, and disbanded and absorbed into the Metropolitan Police Force in 1834 by parliamentary order.

Feel free to add to this post if you have other images or info!

[travelingwithoutthedoctor]

Watson’s wife calls him James. He goes out to find a missing husband. He meets Sherlock in an opium den. He “could not wish for anything better than to be with [him].” They head to “a double-bedded room”. Holmes is waiting for Watson to wake up. And then They have breakfast together.

[materialofonebeing]

Illustrations by Lawrence Chaves for 1932 edition of Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincy (X).

“De Quincey’s fateful ‘resort to opium’ began, according to him, on a cheerless Sunday in 1804, when he swallowed it to relieve rheumatic pain. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, his [1821] autobiographical masterpiece, recasts this routine event and magnifies it into a uniquely personal odyssey of taboo, transgression, divine enjoyment and demonic agony: ‘In an hour, oh! Heavens!’ he recalled. ‘What an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! What an apocalypse of the world within me! … Here was a panacea … for all human woes.’ A few drops of laudanum created reveries of ‘most exquisite order, legislation, and harmony’; his pain vanished, self-possession gathered and all the conflicts, self-recrimination, fears and anxiety that had assailed his life dissolved into visions of beatific calm. [...] Such were the astonishing effects of laudanum, until addiction and terrifying ‘Pains of Opium’ initiated a long farewell to happiness and peace of mind.” (N. Roe, X)

“having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, [Isa Whitney] had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects.” The Man with the Twisted Lip

[strangelylikeable]

Alternate Theory on “James” inspired by @hudders-and-hiddles theory about the name mix-up in Scandal:  

Doyle didn’t get the name wrong, but instead “James” is a lover John and Mary share...

Also good to know that Mary is just as much of an ass to John in canon as she was in the BBC adaptation...

[gralto]

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“The Man With The Twisted Lip” drawings by Sidney Paget 1891