Latter-day Saints and Sherlock Holmes

It must have been good business to make fun of the Latter-day Saints in the 19th century, otherwise why did so many do it?

Famous authors, from Ambrose Bierce to Zane Grey to Jack London to Robert Louis Stevenson to Mark Twain, all made part of their living by writing about and, often, by distorting the beliefs of the Latter-day Saints. That era's portrayals of Latter-days Saints were often of a darkly secretive and violent people.

The title of Robert Louis Stevenson's short story, "Story of the Destroying Angel," demonstrates the stereotype — yes, this is the same Stevenson who wrote "Treasure Island."

But none of these authors had a more interesting relationship with the Latter-day Saints than did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the legendary character Sherlock Holmes. The staying power of this great, logical character is demonstrated by a new movie starring Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.

Doyle wrote his first Holmes story in his 20s, "A Study in Scarlet." It features a story with Latter-day Saints at the center. Latter-day Saints — some of them, anyway — were coercive in the story. It was a hurtful portrayal.

According to scholar Michael Homer, Doyle left the Catholic faith of his youth before he had turned 20. But Doyle still had a spiritual void that led to a life-long quest for spiritual knowledge.

Doyle wished to believe in life after death but needed to have visual, rational proof, Homer says. So-called spiritualism with its seances and its moving tables and its directed writing through psychics became a life-long quest and seemed to provide Doyle the evidence he needed. (Of note, like the LDS Church, spiritualism was born in upstate New York, about the time the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley.)

As Doyle researched the church, much of his research evidently came through a reading of many of the leading anti-Momon tracts of the day and may have led to some of the portrayals in the book.

Hence came "A Study in Scarlet" in 1887.

As a side note, a well-educated blogger writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month argued that Doyle was his first introduction to Mormonism and part of the reason why he had "trouble getting my head around the Mormons." He called LDS doctrine "barmy" and LDS practices "creepy."