Sherlock Holmes and the Discarded Cigarette (9 page)

Author's Note

 

With the exception of Sherlock Holmes, the Baker Street Irregulars, The unofficial leader of the Baker Street Irregulars Peter Stockton, Dr. John Watson, his wife Mary, Mrs. Hudson the house keeper of 221 B Baker Street, Jeffery Daniels the art restorer, (Universal Catalog of Books on Art) The Brice Art Museum Exhibition Catalog 1890 edition, Charles Henry Stephenson the managing director of the Belgravia Gallery, the Belgravia Gallery, the proprietor of the Old Mint, the master of ceremonies at the St. James theater, H.G. Wells lecture at the St. James Theater and any of the hansom cab drivers mentioned all of the other characters in this story were based on people who were living in the year 1895. All of the locations mentioned in the story except for the Belgravia Art Gallery also existed in the year 1895.

The Time Machine (the novel) written by H.G. Welles

 

Wells had considered the notion of time travel before, in an earlier (but less well-known) work titled
The Chronic Argonauts
. He had thought of using some of this material in a series of articles in the
Pall Mall Gazette
, until the publisher asked him if he could instead write a serial novel on the same theme; Wells readily agreed, and was paid £100 on its publication by Heinemann in 1895. The story was first published in serial form in the
New Review
through 1894 and 1895. The book is based on the Block Theory of the Universe, which is a notion that time is a fourth space dimension.

The story reflects Wells' own socialist political views and the contemporary angst about industrial relations. It is also influenced by Ray Lankester's theories about social degeneration. Other science fiction works of the period, including Edward Bellamy's
Looking Backward
, and the later
Metropolis
, dealt with similar themes.

The inspirations for the characters in this story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are based on the British actors Jeremy Brett as Holmes, Edward Hardwick as Watson and the American actor Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells.

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