Sherlock Holmes.

[Shadow Man]

Can anybody tell me if Dr Watson had a surgery or was being a Private Detecive along with Holmes his full time employment?

[shaneystar2]

Not as such as Holmes's sidekick .. but he was a doctor who had served in Afghanistan and was discharged from duty following an injury in the Battle of Maiwand .
He is really just a catalyst for Holmes ,shared rooms with him and he gives the accounts of the cases .Bit of an enigma really. If you read Study in Scarlet it describes how they met .
He isn't really a PD ..just a side kick much the same as Captain Hastings in Poirot .

[vehelpfulguy]

As shaneystar2 says, he was a doctor and was invalided out of the army and given a small pension. At first he did not work due to his injury.

In fact the small pension was how come he shared with Holmes in the first place, he was looking for someone to share the rent on a flat.

But he does not share a house with Holmes all the time.

In one of the very early books he meets a young lady who is part of the story and he eventually marries her.

They live together and he works as a doctor (GP).

He pops in to see Holmes from time to time and it always happens that Holmes has an interesting case on and Watson assists him.

I seem to remember later on his wife dies and he does go back to live with Holmes (a while since I read the books).

As shaneystar2 says, he was never a private detective, just assisted Holmes in his cases ("have you got your gun Watson").

But being rather dim when it came to solving crimes it gave Holmes an opportunity to describe to him how he solved the crime (or spotted some other obscure fact such as a person he met had just come back from South America).

It is the fact that the "dim" person is having to have everything explained to him by Holmes that makes the partnership so good and the stories so good.

[vehelpfulguy]

I bought this box set of The Sherlock Holmes Collection for less than �10 from one of those reduced book shops you get on the high street.

This one was in Stratford Upon Avon but I guess other book shops may have it.

It is all the books as originally published.

Picture of box set here

http://www.penguin.com.au/covers-jpg/978014091 3507.jpg

[vehelpfulguy]

There is an enjoyable film that twists the Holmes & Watson story around a bit. It is called Without A Clue with Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley.

In this film Watson (Ben Kingsley) is the actual detective, very bright and good at solving crimes.

But he is also an eminent doctor and does not want his crime solving to spoil his chance of promotion as a doctor.

So he invents Sherlock Holmes and hires a failed actor to "play" Sherlock Holmes (Michael Caine) who can solve all the crimes.

But the failed actor is a drunkard and a womanizer and tends to say the wrong things at the wrong time, so Watson decides to get rid of him.

But the public love Holmes and so he is stuck with him.

Eventually Moriarty comes on the scene and Watson and Holmes have to catch Moriarty and solve the crime.

Very amusing and enjoyable film.

[inksplotter]

No, I don't think being Dr Watson's sidekick was even a part-time job. He does refer to "my surgery growing quiet" and "my surgery had drifted me away from Holmes" (I think the latter was from Scandal in Bohemia.