Sherlock Holmes and The Shadows of St Petersburg

some sort of reputation for myself.
In truth, in the years following the publication of A Study in Scarlet, I produced more than twenty sketches for The Strand concerning my adventures with Sherlock Holmes. Who would have thought that as a result of recording our various investigations, that I, John H. Watson in the spring of 1900, would find myself at the Cearne joining the literati for tea and biscuits? But there I was, discussing not only the most vexing of literary questions, but also the latest political developments facing Europe - especially the social unrest in Russia.
I enjoyed my time with the Garnetts. Edward had made a name for himself in the field of literary analysis, and his efforts to popularise Crane’s work in particular are well known. Yet I was particularly charmed by Edward’s soft-spoken, bespectacled wife some ten years my junior.
Constance Garnett’s studies at Cambridge spoke well of her intellectual prowess. In spite of her distinguished education, however, I should judge that in the late ’90s only the most discerning of readers would have recognised her name. Today, of course, her numerous English translations of Russian works demonstrate just how talented a linguist she is.
Inspired by an assortment of Russian émigrés in England, Mrs Garnett first travelled to Russia not long after her brother’s alleged suicide. Eager to practice Russian and enchanted by the writings of Turgenev, she decided to translate them into English, an undertaking that garnered much approval from the literary world. Buoyed by her early success, she set her mind on translating additional authors like Tolstoy, Gontcharoff, and Ostrovsky as well.
But not, alas, Fyodor Dostoevsky. In spite of her growing familiarity with the works of many important Russian writers, Mrs Garnett was initially steered away from his writings. Her publisher William Heinemann (who also produced many of Crane’s works) suspected that what he called a British “fear of morbidity” would dampen any public interest in Dostoevsky’s tenebrous novels. To put it more cynically, one may assume that Heinemann worried such translations would fail to generate substantial profits.
Enter John Watson. In April of ’05 I had the good fortune to be invited by Mrs Garnett to a gathering of writers she convened at her flat in Hampstead. Though the get-together turned out to be the last time I have seen her, I believe it to have been a seminal event.
In addressing a hostess known for her familiarity with Russian texts, it seemed only natural to relate to her the details of a crime Holmes investigated that mirrored the events in a Russian novel. I refer, of course, to the case involving a pair of horrific axe-killings in London’s East End in the fall of ’87.
Though it is only now that I make the narrative public, no one familiar with Crime and Punishment-Dostoevsky’s fictional account of two cold-blooded murders committed in St Petersburg, Russia, some twenty years before the London killings - could fail to note the similarities.
Indeed, I am pleased to report that Mrs Garnett sat spellbound for the duration of my account of the grim affair, and it is that same story which follows this prologue. Humility prohibits me from advertising my own importance in the matter; and yet I must point out that it was not long after I had related the events to Mrs Garnett that she began producing her own English versions of Dostoevsky’s major writings, Crime and Punishment among them.
To be sure, others had attempted translating the works of Dostoevsky before she undertook the role. By way of example, one may cite Marie von Thilo’s treatment of Buried Alive or Frederick Whishaw’s translation of The Idiot. But as those editions earned little popular acclaim, I consider it no exaggeration to state that, owing to the clarity and precision of her expressive prose, it is to Constance Garnett alone that we should pay homage for introducing Dostoevsky to the English-speaking world.
I would like to believe that the gruesome tale I related that evening in 1905 helped stimulate Mrs Garnett’s productivity. Trusting that it did enables me to view its publication as a form of atonement, a kind of compensation, if you will, for my inability at the inquest in ’93 to fully explain what had happened to Arthur Black and his family.
At the very least, such thinking allows me to regard Mrs Garnett’s success in translating the world of Russian thought into English as antidote to the guilt that has pursued me all these years. At long last, I may now finally be able to lay the matter to rest.
John H. Watson, M.D.
London, June 1927
1 For exploration of my police work following Holmes’ retirement, see The Outrage at the Diogenes Club. (JHW)
2 Constance Garnett: A Heroic Life (DDV)
3 Details of the blackmail case may be found in my account titled Sherlock Holmes and the Baron of Brede Place (JHW)

Chapter One
In Quintum Novembris
(On the Fifth of November)
-John Milton
“A double murder,” announced Lestrade on a cold Tuesday morning in late ’87.
Like a magical incantation, the words of the policeman served to excite the passions of Sherlock Holmes. My friend extinguished the flame he had just caused to erupt from his Bunsen burner and stood upright. “Pray, take a chair,” said he to Lestrade, “and give us the details.”
It may seem obvious to begin the account of the gruesome double axe-murders with the arrival of the police inspector. But such a strategy belies the true origin of the matter. An earlier occurrence in the last week of October - just after our business with Henry James had concluded[1] and just a few days before the start of the case I titled “The Red Headed League” - was equally important in shaping the course of our investigation into the brutal murders. Maybe even more so. I simply did not comprehend its significance at the time.
In the years following my return from military service, I made it my business toward the end of each October to stop in at the London Library in St James’s Square.