Consult an expert

House M.D. is actually a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, although this is often overlooked. House and Wilson are clearly modeled after Holmes and Watson, and there are little references to the stories throughout the show. House lives at 221B Baker Street, as you can see from his driver’s license, and Irene Adler and Dr. Joseph Bell have both been mentioned on the show.

When Lord Moran remotely activates the bomb in The Empty Hearse, the password he uses is 051113, or November 5th, 2013, the day of the attempted bombing. This is a reference to His Last Bow, in which the villain has his safe combination set to August 1914, which is when the story takes place.

As for what inspired him, besides Dr. Joseph Bell I don’t know. It’s something of a controversy, and apparently people have been trying to find “the real Sherlock Holmes” for years. Personally I think it’s kind of a waste of time, because the character himself will always be more important to me than whoever might have inspired him. 

I had to do a bit of research on this one, and I found this ebook, which looks interesting. I’m not sure how much of it is relevant to your question, though. The link goes to a page that mentions Edgar Allan Poe.

*The wikipedia article for TEH says Sherlock actually calls him “the giant rat of Sumatra Road” but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.

Hi! This is my new blog for answering questions about Sherlock Holmes. I love talking about the original Holmes stories, as well as adaptations, related historical events, reviews/discussion/literary criticism of the original stories and/or adaptations, and only-somewhat-related trivia. I also know a whole lot about those things, so I thought it would be a good idea to set up an askblog as a resource for other people and a fun project for me. Win-win. Whether you’re looking for little-known or mostly-ignored facts about Sherlock Holmes, or just want to know what the heck those little 4-letter abbreviations like ‘CHAS’ and ‘DEVI’ mean, this is the place to ask.