Sherlock Holmes & The Adventure of the Missing Wife.?

Question

I've been rereading Sherlock Holmes and the books are in order. In "The Sign of Four" Watson meets his wife. In the next two collections of short stories Watson often refers to his wife. However, in the third collect "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" Watson tells us how Shelock escaped death at the hands of Dr. Moriarty, how he quits his medical practice, moved back in with Sherlock at Baker's St. and how he has weened Sherlock off of his drug habit. In other words he refers back to the past quite a bit. However, there is not one mention of his wife! What happened to her?

1887 A Study In Scarlet
1890 The Sign of Four
1891 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
1892 The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
1902 The Hound of the Baskervilles
1903 The Return of Sherlock Holmes
1914 The Valley of Fear
1917 His Last Bow
1927 The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

All written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Answer 1

What happened is Doyle wrote so many Holmes stories, he had a habit of time and again forgetting or changing what he had stated in earlier stories.

"Opinions range from Watson having been married only once, to as many as six times! Part of the confusion arising from this crux is that the good Doctor never once mentioned his wife by name throughout any of the Canon, only referring to her as "my wife".
It is generally agreed that Watson met Mary Morstan in September of 1888 (The Sign of the Four) and married her several months later, presumably in the Spring of 1889. Watson, in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", and Holmes in "The Stockbroker's Clerk", made comments definitely linking this "wife" with The Sign of the Four. In "The Empty House", Watson mentioned that Holmes had learned of his "own sad bereavement". Since Holmes had ostensibly gone over the Falls in April of 1891 and returned in April of 1894, Mary Morstan must have passed away sometime between those dates. In "The Blanched Soldier", which occurred in 1903, Holmes wrote that "Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife". This "wife" was clearly someone other than Mary Morstan, and so it would appear that Watson was married twice. This seems simple enough.

The real difficulty, however, starts in "The Five Orange Pips" when Watson wrote that his "wife was on a visit to her mother's". Since Mary Morstan stated that her mother was dead in The Sign of the Four, and since Watson recorded that "The Five Orange Pips" occurred in September of 1887 (a full year before he met Mary),then this "wife" could not have been her. To make matters even more complex, Watson also mentioned "The Sign of Four", as part of a dialogue with Holmes, in this same story.

And the crux continues in "A Scandal in Bohemia", where Watson clearly recorded that the case started on March 20, 1888 and again referred to being married. Based upon these two stories, one might argue that Watson had a wife before Mary Morstan, but if this is true, then what became of her?

In an attempt to explain these inconsistencies, some Sherlockian scholars re-assigned dates to these stories."

Check out the link to see other contradictory or inconsistent points that Doyle had in the stories.

Answer 2

The book you mention is a collection of stories, not all of which were actually written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I suspect what you are reading is therefore not Doyle's words.

Answer 3

Maybe Doyle left her out because she didn't have any importance to the plot. Or maybe it was just another relationship gone bad.

Answer 4

It is an unresolved Sherlock Holmes mistery !

Answer 5

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