Irene Adler
Irene Adler is a fictional character featured in the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in July 1891. She is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories, despite appearing in only one story.
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Name
Her surname is the German word for "eagle". Dramatisations and dramatic readings of "A Scandal in Bohemia" often use the British English pronunciation of "Irene" with a long final "e" (eye-REE-nee). (Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (where she was played by Gayle Hunnicutt) used the French (and also German) pronunciation with a schwa in the final syllable (ee-RAY-nə).)
Fictional character biography
She was reportedly born in New Jersey in 1858. She followed a career in opera as a contralto, performing in La Scala, Milan, Italy, and a term as prima donna in the Imperial Opera of Warsaw, Poland, indicating that she was an extraordinary singer. Adler retired in her late twenties and moved to London.
Dr. Watson refers to her as "the late Irene Adler" at the time of the story's publication. The reasons for her death were not stated. It has been speculated, however, that the reason of both her early retirement and her early demise was a hidden health problem. On the other hand, the word "late" can also mean "former". She married Godfrey Norton, making Adler her former name. (Doyle employs this same usage in "The Adventure of the Priory School" in reference to the Duke's former status as a cabinet minister.)
On March 20, 1888, according to the story, Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and hereditary King of Bohemia, makes an incognito visit to Holmes in London. The King asks the famous detective to secure a photograph from Adler.
The Monarch reigned from Prague but, in 1883, he reportedly paid "a lengthy visit to Warsaw" where he "made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress, Irene Adler." The two became lovers; afterward, Adler had kept a photograph of the two of them. The thirty-year-old King explained to Holmes that he intended to marry Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen (an unseen character), second daughter of the King of Scandinavia; a marriage that would be threatened if his relationship with Adler came to light.
Using his considerable skill for disguise, Holmes traced her movements and learned much of her private life. He then set up a faked incident to cause a diversion that would let him discover where the picture was hidden. When he came back to snatch it, he found Adler gone, along with her new husband and the goods, which had been replaced with a letter to Holmes.
At a time when ladies were supposed to be ladies, Adler had "the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men," according to the King. She had the wit to outdo Holmes, and he admired her for it.
Appearances
"A Scandal in Bohemia" is the Holmes short story that focuses on Irene Adler, but she also is mentioned in the following other stories:
- "A Case of Identity"
- "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
- "The Five Orange Pips" (possibly; see below)
- "His Last Bow"
In "The Five Orange Pips", Holmes mentions that he has been beaten four times, three times by a man and once by a woman. Since "The Five Orange Pips" is set in September 1887, before "A Scandal in Bohemia", which is set in March 1888, the woman Holmes mentions who beat him cannot be Irene Adler if the chronology is correct. However, most Holmes fans consider[citation needed] this to be a chronological error on Doyle's part, as "The Five Orange Pips" was published after "A Scandal in Bohemia". Doyle had made clear chronological mistakes in other Holmes stories, and no other woman is mentioned to ever be held in the same regard by Holmes or to have beaten Holmes. Also, in "A Case of Identity", Watson mentions that Adler is the only person he has ever known to have beaten Holmes.
Holmes's relationship to Adler
Adler earns Holmes's unbounded admiration, and even the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?"—a sentiment to which Holmes replies contemptuously.
The beginning of A Scandal in Bohemia describes the high regard in which Holmes held Adler:
- To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer--excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
This "memory" is kept alive by a photograph of Irene Adler, which had been left for the King when she and her new husband took flight with the condemning photograph of Irene and the King. Sherlock asked for and received this photo of Irene as his payment for his part in the case. This photograph is one of his most prized possessions.
Later appearance in fiction
Perhaps the most important post-Conan Doyle contribution to the Holmes/Adler canon is a series of mystery novels (presently eight) written by Carole Nelson Douglas featuring Irene Adler as the protagonist and sleuth, chronicling her life after her famous encounter with Sherlock Holmes and which feature Holmes as a supporting character. The series includes Godfrey Norton as Irene's supportive barrister husband; Penelope "Nell" Huxleigh, a vicar's daughter and former governess who is Irene's best friend and biographer; and Nell's love interest Quentin Stanhope as supporting characters as well. Historical characters such as Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Alva Vanderbilt and Consuelo Vanderbilt, and journalist Nellie Bly, among others, also make appearances. In the books, Douglas strongly implies that Irene's birth mother was Lola Montez and her father possibly Ludwig I of Bavaria. Douglas provides Irene with a back story as a pint-size child vaudeville performer who was trained as an opera singer before going to work as a Pinkerton detective.
In the 1976 film Sherlock Holmes in New York Adler helps Holmes and Watson to solve a bank robbery organised by Moriarty. She has a child of whose father is undisclosed, but who has Holmes-like intellectual powers.
She is portrayed by Rachel McAdams in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes.
References in popular culture
- In "Angels of Music" by Kim Newman, published in Tales of the Shadowmen Vol. 2 (2006), Erik gathers his own Charlie's Angels-like team of female agents, the so-called Angels of Music, consisting of Christine Daae, Irene Adler and Trilby O'Ferrall.
- In Shadows over Baker Street, Irene Adler appears in the short story "Tiger! Tiger!" by Elizabeth Bear, which is set in India in 1882.
- Irene Adler appears in the short story "The Adventure of the Retiring Detective" by Michael Mallory, which is set in 1903, and is included in the collection The Adventures of the Second Mrs. Watson.
- DC Comics featured Irene Adler as a character in a story arc of Eclipso. Here, she was possessed by one of Eclipso's black diamonds, killing both the King of Bohemia and her husband, before Dr. Watson was himself possessed by Eclipso and stopped her from killing Holmes. She later threw herself through a skylight in order to save Holmes from the possessed Dr. Watson, dying from the fall.
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation One of the characters in the episode "Who Shot Sherlock" was Irene Adler. She was the alter-ego of Kay Marquette who was part of a Holmes re-enactment group.
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