Irene Adler

Irene Adler
Sherlock Holmes character
First appearance	A Scandal in Bohemia
Created by	Arthur Conan Doyle
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Singer
Nationality	American

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 series, despite appearing in only one story.

Fictional character biography

According to "A Scandal in Bohemia", the character was 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 are 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 30-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, explaining how she has outwitted him, but also that she is happy with her new husband and has more honourable feeling than her former lover, and will not compromise him, provided the King does not try anything against her in the future.

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

Irene Adler is also mentioned in the following 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. 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. On the other hand, if the reference to "a woman" is interpreted to mean Adler, this would contradict Watson's claim in "A Scandal in Bohemia" that Holmes always refers to her as "the woman."

Gayle Hunnicutt portrayed Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Bohemia", the first episode of the 1984 Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, opposite Jeremy Brett's Holmes. On radio, Sarah Badel portrayed Irene Adler in the November 7th 1990 BBC Radio broadcast of "A Scandal in Bohemia" opposite Clive Merrison's Holmes.

Holmes's relationship to Adler

Adler earns Holmes's unbounded admiration. When the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity she was not on my level?" Holmes replies scathingly that Ms. Adler is indeed on a much different level than the King (by which he means higher, an implication lost on the King).

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 her and the King. Sherlock asked for and received this photo as his payment for his part in the case. This photograph is one of his most prized possessions.

Later appearances in fiction

In his fictional biographies of Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, William S. Baring-Gould puts forth an argument that Adler and Holmes reconnected after the latter's supposed death at Reichenbach Falls. They performed on stage together incognito, and became lovers. According to Baring-Gould, Holmes and Adler's union produced one son, Nero Wolfe, who would follow in his father's footsteps as a detective.

Perhaps the most important post-Conan Doyle contribution to the Holmes/Adler canon is a series of mystery novels 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 a series of novels by John Lescroart, it is stated that Adler and Holmes had a son, Auguste Lupa, and it is implied that he later changes his name to Nero Wolfe. In the 2009 novel The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King, it is stated that Irene Adler, who is deceased when the book begins, once had an affair with main character Sherlock Holmes and gave birth to a son, Damian Adler, an artist now known as The Addler.

In the 1976 film Sherlock Holmes in New York, Adler (Charlotte Rampling) helps Holmes and Watson to solve a bank robbery organised by Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty, after he takes her son hostage to prevent Holmes from investigating the case (Holmes and Watson later rescue the boy). Although the boy's father is undisclosed, Adler comments that he has intellectual powers similar to Holmes'.

In the 1984 made-for-TV film The Masks of Death, a widowed Irene Adler, played by Anne Baxter, is a guest at Graf Udo Von Felseck (Anton Diffring)'s country house where Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Watson (John Mills) are investigating the supposed disappearance of a visiting prince. Although Holmes initially considers her a suspect, she proves her innocence and becomes an ally.

Irene Adler later appeared in the 1992 TV movie Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady, where she was played by Morgan Fairchild opposite Christopher Lee as Holmes.

In an episode of the PBS Kids show Wishbone actress Sally Nystuen Vahle portrays Irene Adler for the adaptation of "A Scandal in Bohemia" entitled "A Dogged Espose".

She is portrayed by Rachel McAdams in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes. In that film, she is a skilled professional thief, as well as a divorcee, with the story set several years after A Scandal in Bohemia.

References in popular culture

• In "Angels of Music" by Kim Newman, published in Tales of the Shadowmen Vol. 2 (2006), Erik, the Phantom of the Opera gathers his own Charlie's Angels-like team of female agents, the so-called "Angels of Music", consisting of Christine Daaé, Irene Adler and Trilby O'Ferrall. She also encounters Erik and Christine in Nicholas Meyer's 1993 novel, The Canary Trainer.
• 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 one of Eclipso's story arcs. Here, Adler is possessed by one of Eclipso's black diamonds, killing both the King of Bohemia and her husband, before Dr. Watson is himself possessed by Eclipso and stops her from killing Holmes. She later throws herself through a skylight in order to save Holmes from the possessed Dr. Watson, dying from the fall.
• Irene Adler is mentioned twice in the Case Closed anime series, once in "The Murder at Mycroft Manor", where a book about her 'mocking' portrayal was the motive for the murders, and once in the feature film The Phantom of Baker Street, where she is a player character inside the VR game's Victorian England level. She is shown as the main character Shin'ichi's mother Yukiko Kudo.
• Irene Adler is also the name of the main female character in the novel The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The story was loosely adapted by Roman Polanski as The Ninth Gate.
• In the fifth season episode of House M.D., entitled "Joy to the World", Wilson makes up a character named Irene Adler who is described as a patient once treated by House in Christmas of 2001, whom he fell for but never ended up with.
• Marvel Comics had a character named Irene Adler, a foe exclusive to the X-Men. The former lover of Mystique and adoptive mother of Rogue, she was a mutant precognitive who went by the codename "Destiny". Before she became a mutant terrorist Irene Adler worked as a detective in Austria. Hints within canon suggested that the long lived Destiny was either the actual character within the Holmes stories, or was the woman the character was based on, depending whether or not the current writer of the books considered Holmes a "fictional" character in the context of the Marvel Universe.

External links

• "A Few Words about theatres in Warsaw, or where Sang Irene Adler" by Joanna Polatynska with Catharina Polatynska"