page_title: Sherlock Holmes (play)
section_title: Creation
hierarchical_section_title: Sherlock Holmes (play) / Creation
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of photograph of the Broadway production of Sherlock Holmes, with William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes and Katherine Florence as Alice Faulkner
context_page_description: Sherlock Holmes is a four-act play by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based on Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. After three previews it premiered on Broadway November 6, 1899, at the Garrick Theatre in New York City.
context_section_description: The play itself drew material from Conan Doyle's published stories "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Final Problem" and A Study in Scarlet, while adding much that was new as well. As the plot was largely taken from Doyle's canon, with some dialogue directly lifted from his original stories, Doyle was credited as a co-author, even though Gillette wrote the play.
  Gillette took great liberties with the character, such as giving Holmes a love interest. While Conan Doyle was initially uncomfortable with these additions, the success of the play softened his views; he said, "I was charmed both with the play, the acting, and the pecuniary result." Doyle later recounted how he had received a cable from Gillette inquiring, "May I marry Holmes?", to which Conan Doyle replied, "You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him." The love interest was modelled on Irene Adler's role in "A Scandal in Bohemia", with Gillette reinventing the character and renaming her "Alice Faulkner".
  Gillette's play features Professor Moriarty as the villain, but Gillette names him "Robert Moriarty". At this point no forename had been given for Moriarty in Conan Doyle's stories.
  Conan Doyle had mentioned an unnamed pageboy in "A Case of Identity", and Gillette utilized the character and christened him "Billy". Conan Doyle himself would later reintroduce the character into some Holmes stories and continue using the name Billy.
caption: William Gillette as Holmes and Katherine Florence as Alice Faulkner in the 1899 Broadway production of Sherlock Holmes
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