How much money did Holmes make from a case? According to canon his standard fee was £1,000 per case, which in today’s money would be around £60,000. [BERY, BLUE, SCAN]
His most lucrative case? The Priory School where he netted £6,000 or converted to today’s money, £360,000
Obviously he took cases for free, or pro bono, and also took cases from clients who were not wealthy. His lucrative cases made this possible.
I have just been reliably informed that in The Priory School, Holmes was in fact paid £12,000 for his efforts. So double the amount I originally thought. One case alone could have secured his entire financial future! Well done Sherlock.
It’s also worth noting that the low end of the a middle-class income in the late Victorian Era was about £300 pounds per year. No, I’m not missing a zero there.
£1000 per year would have been wealthy. Extremely wealthy. Arisocratically wealthy, even.
And yet despite all the money he was rolling in Holmes still chose to live in that same flat with the same roommate his entire career 🙂
Tag: canon Holmes
literally the only reason sherlock holmes was made a man who repressed all his urges and liked to appear like he had none, a seemingly emotionless machine, someone who hid his true personality from the public is that he was a gay man in a time when that could have cost him his life. like literally, that’s the only reason, it’s queer coding, that’s it
“Data, data, data! I can’t make bricks without clay!” the iconic literary sleuth Sherlock Holmes once declared. Over a hundred years after his debut, Adam Frost and Jim Kynvin went back through Conan-Doyle’s stories to in search of data to explain Sherlock’s enduring appeal. Above are some of the fun tidbits they uncovered.
Discover more fun facts about Holmes at our gallery.