5.Cap and Pipe

The popular conception of Holmes with his deerstalker cap and calabash pipe has become so common that it is considered an iconic part of Sherlock's Holmes persona. However, it is also a complete fabrication. The deerstalker cap and calabash pipe combo was made up for theater and has never been a part of Sherlock's normal outfit. The calabash pipe was originally used by the actor in one of the original Sherlock Holmes plays because it was easy to rest on his chest while he was talking. But in fictional reality, Holmes used a much different pipe. This might sound like nitpicking, but the calabash pipe and deerstalker cap combo have become synonymous with Sherlock Holmes, or detectives in general though it is entirely inaccurate.

4.Middle-Aged

In popular culture many people view Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson as somewhere around middle age, getting older and quite experienced. It's fairly easy to make this mistake, because Dr. Watson had already served in the war and was a skilled doctor, and Holmes had created quite a reputation for himself. However, Holmes and Watson were actually both quite young, in their early twenties for most of their adventures. Holmes and Dr. Watson were close in age, and Holmes was said to be born in 1854 and Dr. Watson met him in 1881. Most of their adventures spanned the first few years they became friends, which would place them in their late twenties and still quite young. The explanation for how they could accomplish so much at a young age is very simple; they were both brilliant young men. While Dr. Watson is easily overshadowed by his friend, he was quite an intelligent man, very skilled at practicing medicine and conducted himself very well during the war.

3.Short Cases

There is some truth to this; Holmes solved most cases with extraordinary speed. And he had intended to retire young. Holmes had retired to a quiet life of studying bees and even published what he called "the magnum opus of his latter years," which was a book about his observations learned from beekeeping. However, the government had a problem; they were losing information to the other side and losing agents and could not figure out who was behind it. After several high up government officials intervened, Holmes finally agreed to take the case in the story His Last Bow. In the end Holmes catches up with the German secret agent who was causing all the trouble, and teams up with Dr. Watson for the final act. He reveals to Dr. Watson that his plan to defeat the German agent was so convoluted it involved him joining an Irish secret society in America for two full years, just to get at one agent. We can safely say that Holmes was nothing if not thorough.

2.Irene Adler

Many movies and TV specials felt that to increase viewer eyeballs, they needed to give Sherlock Holmes a love interest. We can see a dramatized example of this in the recent films where Robert Downey Jr plays a bisexual, eccentric playboy who is in love with both Irene Adler and his friend Dr. Watson. Holmes had an ongoing love affair with Irene Adler, so it was perfect, right? Except that is completely untrue. Irene Adler is only mentioned in one story, A Scandal in Bohemia, and the only thing she says to him is "Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes," while disguised as a passerby. Sherlock later describes her as "the woman," but only because she was the only woman to ever best him at anything. He respected her intellect, but had no romantic inclinations toward her and we never hear of her again. If you need any more evidence, Arthur Conan Doyle described Sherlock Holmes as "inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine," and felt his famous detective was not at all interested in romance.

1.Professor Moriarty

Contrary to the popular notion that has been ingrained in us by so many television series and movies on the subject, Professor Moriarty was hardly Sherlock Holmes arch-nemesis. Moriarty actually only appears in one story, The Final Problem, he is also mentioned briefly in The Valley of Fear but only in the vein of giving paid consultation to other criminals. As far as him facing off against Holmes there is really no such evidence of it ever happening, apart from their famous battle at the Reichenbach falls. In fact, Arthur Conan Doyle had tired of the character of Holmes and wanted to move on to other projects, so he mainly just made up the conflict between Moriarty and Holmes so he could kill his most famous character, but the fans raised such an outcry that he reluctantly brought the detective back from the dead. Hardly has there ever been a character with so much popularity that people wore black armbands in the streets to mourn his death.

翻译：高陈影 编辑：陈艳冲 来源：前十网