Chronology part 6

Chronology explanations on the novel The Sign of Four, also known as The Sign of the Four

• SIGN - September 7, 1887

There are two schools of thought on Mary Morstan's case. There are people who set the story in 1888, though they may disagree on the month, and there are those who set the story in 1887. A chronologist has to be careful of this decision, because Watson will get married afterward and move out of Baker Street. Then in the short stories, he'll date many cases to "before my marriage" and "after my marriage," making this choice crucial to placing all the other cases in order.

Within the SIGN novel itself, most evidence points to 1888, though there is the famous confusion between the letter dated July 7th, and the September evening fog. Klinger's New Annotated Sherlock Holmes notes that Doyle once wrote to his publisher, pointing out the obvious mistake in the month, and he said that needs to be corrected when published in book form. And yet this correction was never made, and SIGN continues to have the July vs September mistake. Why? Anyway, Mary Morstan tells Holmes and Watson about her father's disappearance ten years ago, and about the pearls sent to her anonymously every year. Most of these dates seem to confirm that the year is 1888.

But if you look closer, there are actually problems with the 1888 date. Mary Morstan says she received the first anonymous note and pearl in May 1882, "six years ago" and she shows them six pearls. Yet she should actually have seven pearls, one for 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888. So where's the seventh pearl? The Sherlockians who prefer 1888 say, "well, maybe she sold the 1st pearl in 1882 because she didn't know yet that this would be an annual gift." But wouldn't she have said, "I received pearls every year, and these are six I have left" or something like that? Wouldn't Holmes, who is precise about details, have pointed out that there's a missing pearl?

But as I said, there are other chronological issues. If SIGN is in 1888, and STUD was in 1881, then seven years have passed. Yet Watson refers to the Second Anglo-Afghan war as if it was recent. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it." But that war was in 1878-1880, several years ago. Is Watson merely exaggerating to show his disapproval of Holmes's cocaine and morphine use? Watson also mentions publishing STUD as "a small brochure"; does he mean in the Beeton's Christmas annual, or some other form? Moreover, the Baker Street Irregulars have not aged at all between the two cases, and they are described practically the same as they were the last time that Holmes told them to only send up Wiggins. (In chapter 8, Holmes sends a telegram to Wiggins, as if the Irregular has an actual address; thus I assume that Wiggins has grown up but Watson is hiding this from us.) There's also a minor problem with Holmes claiming to have boxed McMurdo 4 years ago during his benefit night. Benefits are usually when a boxer retires from the ring, but we know that McMurdo was hired by Major John Sholto 11 years ago, not 4 years ago .

Holmes and Watson speak of the STUD case as if it was recent, or as if they only shared that one case in all their years together. For example, Holmes brags to Watson that "my practice has extended recently to the Continent," and says that Francois le Villard has consulted him last week. But Holmes's practice already extended to the Continent in April 1887 in REIG. When the client arrives, Watson tries to leave the room until he's told to stay. Why is he acting like he's not a partner in Holmes's cases? Chronologist D. Martin Dakin says that "Watson was trying to put back into this story the conditions of a much earlier period... It all adds up to the conclusion that in 1890 he did not anticipate the publication of any Holmes stories but these two." (1890 is when SIGN was published.) Dakin accepts Edgar Smith's theory that Holmes censored Watson and only grudgingly gave approval for publication now and then. He was forbidding Watson to publish more than STUD and SIGN. Thus Watson had to edit conversations about other cases by substituting STUD instead, to not confuse the reader. (It may also be self-promotion of his earlier book.) When Holmes "died" in 1891, Watson published many more stories, not thinking that Holmes would ever return alive and ask him to stop again.

Even if we ignore the problems within SIGN, and date it to 1888, we then run into problems with the short stories FIVE, SCAN, and NOBL. FIVE seems to take place in September 1887, yet Watson claims to already be married, and his wife is off visiting a mother/aunt that doesn't exist in SIGN. Watson gives the date March 20, 1888 in SCAN, which is set after his marriage, when he's got a medical practice. NOBL seems to take place in October 1887, a few weeks before his marriage. How does one resolve this without changing the dates of all these stories? Some Sherlockians like Baring-Gould invent a pre-Mary Morstan wife in 1887, and he thought her name was Constance Adams based on rumors about Doyle's apocryphal Angels of Darkness play, but after it was finally published, he was quite wrong. In fact Watson was shown romancing Lucy Ferrier herself, in a story that should have taken place 20 years before STUD. I'm not willing to ruin continuity so horribly, so I certainly don't accept that wife.

In SIGN, Watson describes his love for Mary Morstan in such a way that he appears to be in love for the first time, so I'm not convinced by any other candidate for a pre-Mary wife. I'd rather just set SIGN in 1887 due to the 6 pearls, and push FIVE to 1889 since it's easier to mistake an 1889 for 1887. It also gives more breathing room for so many cases set after Watson's marriage. If he doesn't marry until late 1888, then you only have 1 full year of 1889 for most cases, then 3 cases in 1890, then Holmes is gone in 1891. If Watson marries in late 1887 instead, then you get 2 full years of 1888 and 1889 before the stories trail off. I also believe that certain conversations about monographs and Francois le Villard are from a different date in the early 1880s. Watson has just transplanted them to SIGN because this is his last chance to publish these due to Holmes censoring him.