Mycroft Holmes is a fictional character in the stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the older brother (by seven years) of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft Holmes, by Sidney Paget. ... A Paget illustration of Sherlock Holmes (right) and Dr. Watson. ... The Strand Magazine was a monthly fiction magazine founded by George Newnes. ... Alice, a fictional character based on a real character from the work of Lewis Carroll. ... Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish born author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challenger. ... A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ...

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Possessing deductive powers exceeding even those of his younger brother, Mycroft is nonetheless incapable of performing detective work similar to that of Sherlock since he is unwilling to put in the physical effort necessary to bring cases to their conclusions.

...he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out the practical points...

– Sherlock Holmes, speaking of his brother in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. ...

While Conan Doyle's stories leave unclear what Mycroft Holmes' exact position is in the British government, Sherlock Holmes says that "Occasionally he is the British government [...] the most indispensable man in the country." He apparently serves as a sort of human computer:

The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. A clearing house (or clearinghouse) is an organization affiliated with a securities or derivatives exchange that completes the transactions on that exchange by seeing to validation, delivery, and settlement. ... Omniscience is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. ...

– "The Bruce-Partington Plans" The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow. ...

Mycroft has appeared or been mentioned in at least four stories by Doyle, including "The Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem", "The Empty House" and "The Bruce-Partington Plans". While he does occasionally exert himself in these stories on the behalf of his brother, he on the whole remains a sedentary problem-solver, providing solutions based on seemingly no evidence and trusting Sherlock to handle any of the practical details. In fact, Mycroft's own lack of practicality is a severe handicap despite his deductive talents: in "The Greek Interpreter", his blundering approach to the case nearly costs the client his life. The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. ... The Reichenbach Falls The Adventure of the Final Problem is a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. ... The Adventure of the Empty House, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. ... The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow. ...

Mycroft resembles Sherlock, but is usually portrayed as being much heavier than his brother.

Mycroft spends most of his time at the Diogenes Club, which he co-founded. The Diogenes Club is a fictional gentlemans club created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and featured in several Sherlock Holmes stories, most notably The Greek Interpreter. It seems to have been named after Diogenes the Cynic (although this is never expanded upon in the original stories) and was co...

A resemblance has been noted between Mycroft Holmes and another brilliant but sedentary fictional detective, Nero Wolfe; it has been suggested, with varying degrees of seriousness, that they may have been related. The best-known form of this hypothesis — popularized by William S. Baring-Gould, who wrote "biographies" of both Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe — holds that Wolfe is the offspring of Sherlock and Irene Adler. Bitter End — Carl Mueller illustrated Rex Stouts Nero Wolfe novella for The American Magazine (November 1940) Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created by the American mystery writer Rex Stout, who made his debut in 1934. ... William Stuart Baring-Gould (1913–1967) was a noted Sherlock Holmes scholar, best known as the author of the influential fictional biography Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A life of the worlds first consulting detective, published in 1962. ... 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. ...

Another parallel can be observed in the TV series Monk in the connection between fictional obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk and his even more intelligent, though even more neurotic and agoraphobic, brother Ambrose. In a similar vein, the television show Numb3rs features a mathematician who frequently aids his FBI agent brother. Monk is an Emmy Award winning television show about the private detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), afflicted by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and multiple phobias. ... For other things named OCD, see OCD (disambiguation). ... Information Gender Male Age 48 Occupation SFPD Consultant Title Mr. ... Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder which primarily consists of the fear of experiencing a difficult or embarrassing situation from which the sufferer cannot escape. ... Ambrose Monk is a fictional character on the USA Network program Monk. He is playerd by John Turturro. ... Numb3rs (Numbers; officially NUMB3RS) is an American television show produced by brothers Ridley Scott and Tony Scott. ...

Mycroft was parodied in the Solar Pons series with a character named Bancroft Stoneham Pons, who was also seven years older than the leading protagonist. Solar Pons is a fictional detective created by August Derleth as a pastiche of Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes. ...

References in popular culture

Mycroft Holmes has been portrayed many times in film, television, and radio adaptations of the Holmes stories. In the 1950s radio series starring John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes, Gielgud's own brother, Val Gielgud, played the part. In the Billy Wilder-directed film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), which starred Robert Stephens as Sherlock, Mycroft was played by Christopher Lee (who also played Sherlock Holmes in other productions before and since). Charles Gray assumed the character in both the 1976 film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and four episodes of Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000), known as Sir John Gielgud, was an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Academy Award-winning British theatre and film actor. ... Val Henry Gielgud (born April 28, 1900 in London, England, UK; died November 30, 1981 in London, England, UK) was a English actor, writer, director and broadcaster. ... Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. ... The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a 1970 film directed and produced by Billy Wilder, and starring Robert Stephens as Sherlock Holmes. ... Sir Robert Stephens (July 14, 1931 – November 12, 1995) was a leading actor in the early years of Britains Royal National Theatre. ... Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE (born May 27, 1922) is an English actor known for his professional longevity and his distinctive basso delivery. ... Charles Gray (August 29, 1928 - March 7, 2000) was an English actor, born Donald Marshall Gray in Bournemouth, Hampshire, (now Bournemouth, Dorset) Charles Gray as Ernst Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever Donald Gray attended Bournemouth School along side Benny Hill, whose school had been evacuated to the same buildings, during... The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche by Nicholas Meyer. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the name given to the series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by British television company Granada Television between 1984 and 1994, although only the first two series bore that title on screen. ...

The character has been used many times in works that are not adaptations of Holmes stories:

• In Jasper Fforde's series of books about Thursday Next, Mycroft is revealed to be Thursday's uncle, having escaped into fiction and taken up residence in the Sherlock Holmes series to escape the evil Goliath Corporation.
• He was the main character in a series of mystery novels by the author Quinn Fawcett.
• He is a recurring character in the Mary Russell mystery series by Laurie R. King, which feature a retired Sherlock Holmes as a major character. Mycroft is portrayed as a senior figure in the British Secret Service, who occasionally calls on Russell and Holmes for assistance in specific cases.
• He is depicted as a violent psychopath in 2000 AD (Canon Fodder, issues 861-867) by Mark Millar.
• He is briefly mentioned in the 1985 film, Young Sherlock Holmes, when Sherlock is expelled from his school.
• A young Mycroft Holmes is the protagonist of a mystery-adventure "edited" by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright, Enter the Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes (published in hardcover by Hawthorn Books in 1979 and in paperback by Playboy Press in 1980). A minor official in the Foreign Office, Mycroft is aided by his younger brother Sherlock, Victor Trevor (who appears in Doyle's tale "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott"), and an adventurer known as "Captain Jericho", a mysterious former slave. They band together in an effort to prevent an attempt by former Confederate officers to involve the British government in a scheme to overthrow the United States government. The action takes place ten years after the end of the American Civil War.
• Mycroft and the Diogenes Club play an important part in Kim Newman's novel Anno Dracula.
• The Virgin New Adventures Doctor Who novel All-Consuming Fire featured Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, as well as the apocryphal Sherringford Holmes.
• He plays a central role as the victim of an assassination attempt in the PC game "The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The case of the Rose Tattoo".

Mycroft is also sometimes referred to less directly in popular culture: Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January 1961) is a novelist and aviator living in Wales. ... Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... Quinn Fawcett is the penname of a pair of authors, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Bill Fawcett, who also write separately. ... Mary Russell is a supportedly factual character in a book series by Laurie R. King. ... Laurie R. King is an American author best known for her detective fiction. ... See Also: Antisocial Personality Disorder Theoretically, psychopathy is a three-faceted disorder involving interpersonal, affective and behavioral characteristics. ... Cover of the first issue of 2000 AD, 26 February 1977. ... Mark Millar (born December 24, 1969) is a Scottish comic book writer born in Coatbridge. ... Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), directed by Barry Levinson and written by Chris Columbus, depicts a young Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson meeting and solving a mystery together at a boarding school. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad. ... The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. ... Combatants United States of America (Union) Confederate States of America (Confederacy) Commanders Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee Strength 2,200,000 1,064,000 Casualties 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded 93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total... Kim Newman (born July 31, 1959) is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. ... The Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman is a work of fantasy depicting an alternate history in which vampires are a common and more-or-less accepted part of society (as a result of Draculas successful conquest of England, depicted in Anno Dracula, the first in the series). ... The Virgin New Adventures (often referred to simply as NAs within fandom) were a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which had been cancelled in 1989, continuing the story of the series from where the television programme had left off. ... Doctor Who is a long-running award-winning British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The series depicts the adventures of a mysterious time-traveller known as the Doctor who explores time and space in his TARDIS time ship with his companions, solving problems and righting wrongs. ... All-Consuming Fire is an original novel written by Andy Lane and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Sherrinford Holmes is, depending on opinion, either the elder brother of Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes or an early idea for the name of the character that would later become known as Sherlock Holmes. ... The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes is an adventure game series made by the American computer game company Electronic Arts in the 1990s. ...

• Mycroft Holmes was the inspiration for the name of the silent assistant quiz master of BBC Radio 4's programme Brain of Britain. The phrase "Mycroft is shaking his head" became well known to listeners. Ian Gillies (who was known as Mycroft) died in 2002 and was replaced by a character known as "Jorkins".
• Mycroft was the inspiration for the name of a character in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress: "Mycroft" a.k.a. Mike, a H.O.L.M.E.S. ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor") Mark 4 computer.
• A series of comics stories by Kim Deitch feature "Miles Mycroft, psychic detective".
• The character of the Marquis of London in Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories, while mostly based on Nero Wolfe, also has elements of Mycroft, in that he is a government official related to the detective and, while just as intelligent as his relative, has little interest in using his intellect to solve crimes.
• First series of seaQuest DSV, in the episode "Photon Bullet", a reformed computer hacker- who used the handle "Mycroft", working at a underwater telecommunications node.
• British writer Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse series of books, wrote a Sherlock Holmes short story "A Case of Mis-Identity", part of a collection of short stories published under the title "Morse's Greatest Mystery", in which Watson's practical knowledge of the circumstances of a case outwits the armchair intellectual logic of both Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.

Brain of Britain is a BBC radio general knowledge quiz, broadcast on BBC Radio 4. ... Ian Gillies. ... Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of hard science fiction. ... The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress cover The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a lunar penal colonys revolt against rule from Earth. ... The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a lunar penal colonys revolt against rule from Earth. ... Comics (or, less commonly, sequential art) is a form of visual art consisting of images which are commonly combined with text, often in the form of speech balloons or image captions. ... An underground comic that Deitch contributed to. ... Randall Garrett (December 16, 1927 - December 31, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author. ... Lord Darcy is a fictional character used in a number of stories by Randall Garrett. ... This section has been identified as trivia. ... Look up handle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

See also

External links

• Sherlock Holmes Public Library