Work record

His Last Bow

Arthur Conan Doyle

Also known as: His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes

1917 (stories 1908-17) · Early 20th Century · Short Stories · English

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Abstract

Written: Stories published 1908-1917; collected October 1917
Setting: 1890s to August 1914; Surrey, London, Cornwall, Switzerland and the Essex coast
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Country: United Kingdom (Edwardian and wartime Britain)
Language: English
Genre: Detective and spy stories
Form: Collection of seven stories with a preface by Watson
Recommended: Grades 8–12 (Drug poisoning in The Devil's Foot; kidnapping and a near-burial.)

Overview. A short preface reports the detective's retirement to the countryside. The cases that follow range across a decade of his career and end with a final service to the nation as the Great War begins.

The cases. A guest wakes to an empty house and a missing host; a dead clerk lies beside the Underground tracks with naval secrets in his pocket; a Cornish family is struck with madness; a lodger hides behind a locked door; a lady disappears on the Continent.

Friendship tested. Two stories put the friendship at the center: an experiment with a toxic root nearly kills both men, and a pretended deathbed fools the doctor himself so that a poisoner will confess.

The finale. The closing tale, told by an outside narrator, shows a German spy on a summer night in 1914 discovering that the agent he trusted is his captor. The friends then speak of a bitter wind that will sweep the country.

For students. This volume links the detective to modern history. Discuss service, sacrifice and patriotism, and how Doyle used a beloved character to speak to readers in wartime, when many families had sons at the front.

Main characters

Sherlock Holmes: detective, later a retired beekeeper
Dr. John H. Watson: narrator and friend
Mycroft Holmes: older brother in government
Von Bork: German spy in 1914

Summary

His Last Bow gathers Sherlock Holmes stories published between 1908 and 1917, ending with a tale set on the eve of the First World War. Watson's short preface reports that Holmes has retired to keep bees on the Sussex Downs and has emerged only once more to serve his country. This Gutenberg edition contains seven stories (The Cardboard Box, included in some later editions of this volume, appears here in the Memoirs). 'Wisteria Lodge' begins with a respectable Englishman who wakes to find his Spanish host vanished and ends in a revenge plot against a deposed Central American dictator. 'The Bruce-Partington Plans' finds Mycroft Holmes asking his brother to recover stolen submarine plans after a young clerk is found dead on the Underground tracks. 'The Devil's Foot', set in Cornwall, involves a poisonous African root whose fumes drive victims mad; Holmes nearly kills himself and Watson testing it, and their mutual rescue is one of the warmest moments of the friendship. 'The Red Circle' follows a mysterious lodger who never leaves her room and a Neapolitan secret society. 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax' sends Watson to Switzerland and ends with Holmes opening a coffin just in time to save a drugged woman from being buried alive. 'The Dying Detective' shows Holmes apparently dying of a rare tropical disease, deceiving even Watson in order to trap a poisoner. The title story, 'His Last Bow', is told in the third person. In August 1914 a German spy, Von Bork, prepares to leave England with the secrets he has bought from an Irish-American agent named Altamont, who is really Holmes in disguise. After his arrest, Holmes and Watson stand on a terrace looking at the sea, and Holmes speaks of an east wind coming that will be cold and bitter but will leave a cleaner, stronger land. The collection mixes adventure, patriotism and the affection of two old friends near the end of their careers.

Virtues in this work

Friendship: Holmes and Watson save each other in The Devil's Foot.
Fortitude: Holmes undergoes starvation to feign illness in The Dying Detective.
Honor: Holmes leaves retirement to serve his country.

Plot or Argument

Wisteria Lodge
An Englishman's strange night at a Spanish host's house uncovers a conspiracy against a deposed tyrant.
The Bruce-Partington Plans
Mycroft enlists Sherlock to recover stolen naval plans after a clerk is found dead on the Underground.
The Devil's Foot and The Red Circle
In Cornwall, a poison that brings madness and terror; in London, a hidden lodger and a secret society.
Lady Frances Carfax and The Dying Detective
Holmes saves a woman from premature burial and feigns a fatal illness to catch a murderer.
His Last Bow
On the eve of war in 1914, Holmes, posing as an Irish-American agent, captures the German spy Von Bork.

Characters

Sherlock Holmes, detective
Retired beekeeper who returns to serve his country.
Dr. John H. Watson, narrator
Loyal friend whose care is tested in The Dying Detective.
Mycroft Holmes, brother
Government man who brings the Bruce-Partington case.
Von Bork, spy
German agent preparing to leave England in 1914.
Culverton Smith, villain
Planter who uses tropical disease as a weapon.

Lessons

Friendship under strain
In The Dying Detective Holmes deceives Watson to save the case, and in The Devil's Foot each saves the other's life. Real friendship survives trials.
- Was Holmes right to deceive Watson?
- How does Holmes thank Watson in The Devil's Foot?
Related across the library
- Mental Maladies, HALLUCINATIONS
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- Iphigenia in Aulis and Other Plays, Lesson: Friendship in ruin
  Friendship in ruin. After killing his family in madness, Heracles wants to die; Theseus uncovers his face, takes his blood-stained hand, and argues him into living. Pylades stands by Orestes in the same way. The plays show friendship as what holds a person to life after disaster.
- Lord Jim, Lesson: Understanding another person
  Understanding another person. Marlow's endless attempts to understand Jim show the limits of knowing anyone. The novel's layered narration dramatises interpretation itself.
- The Arthashastra, Lesson: Realism without illusions
  Realism without illusions. The circle of states and the use of spies, deception and secret killing show a frankly amoral approach to foreign policy. Yet the king's purpose is the welfare and security of his subjects.
- My Father's Dragon, Lesson: Learning from mistakes
  Learning from mistakes. Elmer leaves tangerine peels behind, and the boars use them as clues. When he overhears them, he saves every peel from then on. Even a brave explorer has to notice his mistakes and change.
Duty in old age
Holmes leaves retirement to serve his country. The story honors service that is costly and unseen.
- Why does Holmes come back?
- What is the meaning of the east wind?
Related across the library
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- Off on a Comet, CHAPTER XV. AN ENIGMA FROM THE SEA
  it sufficient to produce so tremendous an effect The origin of the catastrophe was a problem still to be solved Ah well said Servadac I don t know that it matters much where our new little planet comes from or what it is made of if only it carries France along with it And Russia added the count And Russia of course said Servadac with a polite bow There was however not much room for this sanguine expectation for if a new asteroid had thus been brought into existence it must be a sphere of extremely limited dimens...
- The Age of Reason Begins, Lesson: Witch fears in an age of science
  Witch fears in an age of science. The same decades that produced Kepler and Harvey produced the largest wave of witch trials in European history, in Protestant and Catholic lands alike. The Durants include both, and students can ask what this coincidence reveals about fear, law, war and the uneven spread of new ideas.
- First Inaugural Address, Lesson: Prayer as the first executive act
  Prayer as the first executive act. Eisenhower asks the crowd's permission, then prays aloud for himself and his "future associates in the executive branch." The petitions are specific: discernment, concern for every station and race, cooperation across parties. The later principles can be tested against each petition.
- The Count of Monte Cristo, Volume One
  of vigor in his movements made it probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with evident pleasure as though his chilled affections were rekindled and invigorated by his contact with one so warm and ardent He thanked him with grateful cordiality for his kindly welcome although he must at that moment have been suffering bitterly to find another dungeon where he had fondly reckoned on discovering a means of regaining his lib...
Dangerous experiments
Holmes tests the Devil's Foot on himself and nearly dies. Curiosity needs prudence.
- What went wrong in the experiment?
- What does this teach about science and safety?
Related across the library
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- Heart of Darkness, Summary
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- The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, The Creeping Man
  A professor injects an animal-derived serum to regain vigour.
- Experiments in Plant Hybridisation (in Bateson's Mendel's Principles of Heredity), Full Text
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- A Study in Scarlet, Part I, Ch. 7
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Context

The stories span the years before and during the First World War, when fears of German spies and naval rivalry were widespread in Britain. The title story was published in September 1917.

Composition

Stories appeared in The Strand and Collier's from 1908 to 1917 and were collected by John Murray in October 1917. Some editions add The Cardboard Box, originally part of the Memoirs.

Reception

The collection was welcomed as a patriotic farewell; the east wind speech became a famous wartime passage.

Crime / Punishment Friendship War Violence Heroism Science / Knowledge Power / Politics

Comparisons

The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The previous collection, which this one continues.
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
The final collection, published in 1927.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Contains The Cardboard Box, sometimes printed in this volume.

Quotes

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.”

— Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow, His Last Bow (Project Gutenberg #2350).Quote card

This Side of Paradise, Full Text
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First Inaugural Address (Jefferson), Paragraph 2
though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Jefferson calls this a sacred principle that all should bear in mind after the contest of 1800.
Emma, Full Text
escaped her She was quick in feeling the little injuries to Isabella which Isabella never felt herself Perhaps she might have passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella s sister but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend without praise and without blindness but hardly any degree of personal compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into the want of respectful forbearance towards her father There he had not alway...
Middlemarch, Summary
Middlemarch, subtitled A Study of Provincial Life, follows several households in and around a Midlands market town from 1829 to 1832, the years leading to the first Reform Act. Its Prelude recalls Saint Teresa of Ávila and asks what becomes of women with a similar longing for a great life who are born into an age that gives it no outlet. Dorothea Brooke, nineteen, ardent and devout, lives with her sister Celia and their rambling uncle Mr. Brooke at Tipton Grange. Refusing the kindly Sir James Chettam, she marrie...
Fairy Tales (Selection), Full Text
middle of the floor on this chest sits a dog and he s got a pair of eyes as big as two tea-cups But you need not care for that I'll give you my blue-checked apron and you can spread it out upon the floor then go up quickly and take the dog and set him on my apron then open the chest and take as many farthings as you like They are of copper if you prefer silver you must go into the second chamber But there sits a dog with a pair of eyes as big as mill-wheels But do not you care for that Set him upon my apron and...

“But it’s God’s own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”

— Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow, His Last Bow (Project Gutenberg #2350).Quote card

The Bronze Bow, Epigraph; recalled throughout as the oath's sign
He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. The verse from the Song of David that Joel finds and that Daniel, Joel and Thacia take as the sign of their oath.
Nutcracker and Mouse-King, Summary
Nutcracker and Mouse-King is a fairy tale by the German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, first published in 1816 in a collection of children's stories he produced with Carl Wilhelm Contessa and Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Nearly eighty years later, a French retelling by Alexandre Dumas became the basis of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker (1892). On Christmas Eve, the children of Doctor Stahlbaum, Frederic and his younger sister Maria, receive their presents, including a mechanical castle from their godfat...
Laws, Summary
The Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue, twelve books of conversation in which three elderly men design the constitution and legal code of a new city. On a midsummer day an unnamed Athenian Stranger walks from Knossos toward the cave and shrine of Zeus with Cleinias, a Cretan, and Megillus, a Spartan. The Athenian opens by asking whether a god or a man is the author of their laws, and the talk becomes an inquiry into what laws are for. The library text is Benjamin Jowett's translation from the third editio...
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, Chapter 6
Manette at his shoemaker's bench in Defarge's garret, answering to his cell number and slowly recognizing Lucie's hair.
The Canterbury Tales, The Knight’s Tale
Unequal refers to the astrological division of day and night whatever their duration into twelve parts which of necessity varied in length with the season Smoking draping hence the word smock smokless in Chaucer means naked Cerrial of the species of oak which Pliny in his Natural History calls cerrus Stace of Thebes Statius the Roman who embodied in the twelve books of his Thebaid the ancient legends connected with the war of the seven against Thebes Diana was Luna in heaven Diana on earth and Hecate in hell hen...

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The relationship between Holmes and Watson in The Dying Detective.
The experiment in The Devil's Foot.
How Holmes disguises himself as Altamont.
The east wind speech at the end.

Key terms and names

Bruce-Partington submarine: Fictional secret British submarine design.
Radix pedis diaboli: The Devil's Foot root, a fictional African poison.
Von Bork: German agent in the title story.
Third-person narration: His Last Bow is told by an outside narrator, not Watson.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why does Holmes pretend to be dying?
Comprehension How does Holmes capture Von Bork?
Interpretation What does The Devil's Foot reveal about the friendship?
Interpretation Why might Doyle have told the title story in the third person?
Interpretation How does the east wind speech connect Holmes to 1917 readers?
Big Question What do we owe our country in time of danger?

Faith Connections

John 15:13 (Scripture)
Greater love hath no man than this; Holmes and Watson risk their lives for each other and for others.
Romans 8:28 (Scripture)
All things work together for good; Holmes's hope that the storm will leave a cleaner land echoes this trust.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Loyalty to friends and country is tested by danger, and courage in old age is as honorable as daring in youth.

Rhetorical device: extended metaphor. The east wind stands for the coming war, bitter yet purifying.

Debate: Resolved: that Holmes was right to deceive Watson in The Dying Detective.

Memory Work

Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.
His Last Bow. A short tribute to steadfast friendship.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Write about Holmes and Watson's friendship across three stories in His Last Bow.

Comparison with The Return of Sherlock Holmes: Compare the moral choices in the two collections.

Medical Lens

The Devil's Foot depicts an inhaled toxin inducing terror, hallucination and death; The Dying Detective uses a feigned tropical infection; Lady Frances Carfax involves chloroform and a near-burial.

Pharmacology Poisons Madness Psychosis Physicians Doctors Fever Infection

The Devil's Foot
Holmes and Watson inhale the fumes and experience terror and hallucination.
Pharmacology Poisons Madness Psychosis
The Dying Detective
Holmes feigns a fatal Sumatran disease to trap Culverton Smith.
Fever Infection Physicians Doctors

Creative Prompts

Fiction
Write a scene in Holmes's Sussex beekeeping retirement before the call to service arrives.
Essay
What does Holmes mean by the east wind, and was he right?
Classroom
Chart the different kinds of evidence used in each of the seven stories.