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.
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 and Dutch) pronunciation (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 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, The 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 explains 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 traces Adler's movements and learns much of her private life. He then sets up a fake incident to cause a diversion that would let him discover where the picture was hidden. When he returns to take it, he finds Adler gone, along with her new husband and the photo, which has been replaced with a letter to Holmes, explaining how she has outwitted him, but also that she is happy with her new husband and will not compromise her former lover, 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 outwitted 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 this may simply 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. When 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?" 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 photograph of Irene and the King. Holmes 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 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 the 1976 film Sherlock Holmes in New York, Adler helps Holmes and Watson to solve a bank robbery organized by Moriarty. She has a child whose father is undisclosed, but who has Holmes-like intellectual powers.
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.
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.
- In the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Who Shot Sherlock", one of the characters is Irene Adler. She is the alter ego of Kay Marquette who was part of a Holmes re-enactment group.
- In the House episode "Joy to the World," Dr. Wilson relates a story about Dr. House falling in love with a former patient named Irene Adler. However, Wilson made up the story, and was really just being sarcastic. Rebecca Adler was the patient featured in the show's pilot, a homage to "A Scandal in Bohemia" as Holmes' first appearance.
- 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.
- 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.
