Irene Adler is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle.
She was first featured in the short story "A Scandal in Bohemia", published in July
1891.
She is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock Holmes series, despite appearing
in only one story, and is frequently used as a romantic interest for Holmes in derivative
works, though in the story it is made clear that Holmes is only impressed by her resourcefulness
and intelligence.
Fictional character biography According to "A Scandal in Bohemia," Adler
was born in New Jersey in the 1850s.
She followed a career in opera as a contralto, performing at La Scala in Milan, Italy, and
a term as prima donna in the Imperial Opera of Warsaw, Poland, indicating that she was
an extraordinary singer.
It was there that she became the lover of Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein,
Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and King of Bohemia, who was staying in Warsaw for a period.
The King describes her as "a well-known adventuress" and also says that she had "the face of the
most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men".
The King eventually returned to his court in Prague.
Adler, then in her late twenties, retired from the opera stage and moved to London.
On 20 March 1888, the King makes an incognito visit to Holmes in London.
He asks the famous detective to secure a photograph of Adler and him together.
The 30-year-old King explains to Holmes that he intends to marry Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meiningen,
second daughter of the King of Scandinavia; the marriage would be threatened if his prior
relationship with Adler were to come to light.
He also reveals he had hired burglars to attempt to retrieve it twice, and had had Adler herself
waylaid, and her luggage stolen, to no avail.
Using his considerable skill for disguise, Holmes traces her movements, learning much
of her private life and, notably, stands witness to her marriage to Godfrey Norton, an English
lawyer.
Holmes then disguises himself as an elderly cleric and sets up a faked incident to cause
a diversion that is designed to gain him access to Adler's home and to trick her into revealing
where the picture is hidden.
Adler treats him, as the supposed victim of a crime outside her home, with spontaneous
care and solicitude.
At the moment she gives away the location of the photograph, she realises she has been
tricked.
She tests her theory that it is indeed Holmes, of whom she had been warned, by disguising
herself as a young man and cheekily wishing him good night as he and Watson return to
the Baker Street flat.
When Holmes returns the next morning with Watson and the King to demand the return of
the photograph, he finds Adler gone, along with her new husband and the original photo,
which has been replaced with a photograph of her alone as well as a letter to Holmes,
explaining how she had outwitted him, but also that she is happy with her new husband,
who has more honourable feeling than her former lover.
She adds that she will not compromise the King and has kept the photo only to protect
herself against any further action the King might take.
In the face of this and the King's arrogant statement that it was a "pity that she was
not on my level", Holmes realises then that Adler was the wronged party rather than the
King and asks, when offered a reward by the King, only for the photograph that Adler had
left.
Character sources
Adler's career as a theatrical performer who becomes the lover of a powerful aristocrat
had several precedents.
The most obvious is Lola Montez, a dancer who became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria
and influenced national politics.
Montez is identified as a model for Adler by several writers.
Closer to home is the singer Lillie Langtry, the lover of Edward, the Prince of Wales.
As Julian Wolff points out, it was well known that Langtry was born in Jersey and Adler
is born in New Jersey.
Langtry had later had several other aristocratic lovers, and her relationships had been speculated
upon in the public press in the years before Doyle's story was published.
Along with the singer Ludmilla Stubel, alleged lover and later wife of Archduke Johann Salvator
of Austria, these were suggested as Doyle's inspiration for Adler in his lifetime.
Appearances Irene Adler appears only in "A Scandal in
Bohemia".
Her name is briefly mentioned in "A Case of Identity", "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
and "His Last Bow".
Additionally, in "The Five Orange Pips", Holmes says that he has been outwitted four times,
thrice by a man and once by a woman, although the story of "The Five Orange Pips" is set
in September 1887, before "A Scandal in Bohemia", which is set in March 1888.
Holmes' relationship to Adler Adler earns Holmes' unbounded admiration.
When the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not have made an admirable queen?
Is it not a pity she was not on my level?"
Holmes replies scathingly that Adler is indeed on a much different level from 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 deliberately
left behind when she and her new husband took flight with the embarrassing photograph of
her with the King.
Holmes had then asked for and received this photo from the King, as payment for his work
on the case.
Adaptations Books
In his fictional biographies of Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, William S. Baring-Gould puts
forth an argument that Adler and Holmes meet again after the latter's supposed death at
Reichenbach Falls.
They perform on stage together incognito, and become lovers.
According to Baring-Gould, Holmes and Adler's union produces one son, Nero Wolfe, who would
follow in his father's footsteps as a detective.
Irene Adler appears as an opera singer in The Canary Trainer, where she encounters Holmes
during his three-year 'death' while he is working as a violinist in the Paris Opera
House, and asks him to help her protect her friend and unofficial protege, Christine Daaé,
from the 'Opera Ghost'.
A series of mystery novels written by Carole Nelson Douglas features Irene Adler as the
protagonist and sleuth, chronicling her life shortly before and after her notable 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.
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 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 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.
In the 2009 novel The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King, it is stated that Irene Adler,
who is deceased when the book begins, once had an affair with main character Sherlock
Holmes and gave birth to a son, Damian Adler, an artist now known as The Addler.
Films In the 1946 film Dressed to Kill, Adler is
mentioned early in the film when Holmes and Watson discuss the events of "A Scandal in
Bohemia".
In the 1976 film Sherlock Holmes in New York, Adler helps Holmes and Watson to solve a bank
robbery organised by Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty, after he takes her son hostage to
prevent Holmes from investigating the case.
She is portrayed by Rachel McAdams in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes.
In that film, she is a skilled professional thief, as well as a divorcée.
It is known that she knew Holmes prior to the events of the film that could have been
a story based on "A Scandal" as Sherlock has in his possession a photograph of her.
She and Holmes are depicted as having a deep and mutual infatuation with each other, while
at the same time, she is employed by his future nemesis Professor Moriarty.
McAdams reprised the role in the 2011 sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in which
Moriarty appears to kill her with a poison that imitates the symptoms of tuberculosis,
after realizing that she may still maintain her feelings towards Holmes.
Holmes receives a handkerchief on which Adler's blood is stained; this is given to him by
Moriarty.
While heading to France, Watson discovers the handkerchief and Holmes throws it overboard
in grief.
Stage Irene Adler was portrayed by Inga Swenson
in the Broadway musical, Baker Street which also starred Fritz Weaver as Sherlock Holmes.
According to the liner notes of the original cast album, the story makes extensive use
of the story "A Scandal in Bohemia".
The play opened at the Broadway Theatre, New York City, on February 16, 1965 and ran for
313 performances.
The show's book was by Jerome Coopersmith and the music and lyrics were by Marian Grudeff
and Raymond Jessel; the production was directed by Harold Prince.
Television and radio Irene Adler is featured in Soviet director
Igor Maslennikov's made-for-TV 5-part film series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and
Dr. Watson.
She appears in the fourth part, based upon The Sign of the Four and A Scandal in Bohemia,
in which Holmes and Watson, while waiting for the new information on his current case,
remember their encounter with Irene Adler.
In the 1984 Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy
Brett, the first episode is "A Scandal in Bohemia", with Adler being played by Gayle
Hunnicutt.
In the 1984 made-for-TV film The Masks of Death, a widowed Irene Adler, played by Anne
Baxter, is a guest at Graf Udo Von Felseck's country house where Holmes and Watson are
investigating the supposed disappearance of a visiting prince.
Although Holmes initially considers her a suspect, she proves her innocence and becomes
an ally.
On radio, Sarah Badel portrayed Irene Adler in the 7 November 1990 BBC Radio broadcast
of "A Scandal in Bohemia" opposite Clive Merrison's Holmes.
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.
Liliana Komorowska portrayed Adler as a Polish opera singer in The Hallmark Channel's 2001
made-for-TV film The Royal Scandal opposite Matt Frewer's Holmes.
In an episode of the PBS Kids show Wishbone, actress Sally Nystuen Vahle portrays Irene
Adler for the adaptation of "A Scandal in Bohemia" entitled "A Dogged Espose".
In "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job," the season 4 episode 2 of Leverage, the character Sophie
portrays Irene Adler at the Murder Mystery Masquerade.
In 2007's BBC Television production Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, Irene
Adler is the main villain of the piece and one of Sherlock Holmes' archenemies instead
of a potential love interest.
In "A Scandal in Belgravia", the first episode of the 2012 second series of the BBC Sherlock,
Irene was portrayed by Lara Pulver opposite Benedict Cumberbatch.
A dominatrix who serves high-end clients, she is initially sought to recover incriminating
photos she possesses of a liaison between her and a female member of the Royal Family,
along with various other incriminating documents kept in a password-protected phone.
Unlike Doyle's original tale, in which she is American, in this version she is English.
At the episode's conclusion, she is presumed killed by those she failed to provide with
the information, but is secretly saved by Sherlock.
She makes a cameo appearance as a figment of Sherlock's imagination in the episode "The
Sign of Three".
In the CBS series, Elementary, Adler is initially an unseen character, mentioned first in the
sixth episode as a former love interest of Sherlock.
It is later explained that she apparently died at the hands of a serial killer known
as "M".
It was this event that fuelled Sherlock's descent into drugs and set in motion the premise
of the show.
In the twelfth episode of the series, Sherlock confronts M, revealed to be Sebastian Moran,
and is told that Irene was not killed by Moran, but by his employer: Moriarty.
In the episode "Risk Management" it is explained that Irene was an American art restorer living
in London.
In the end Holmes discovers she is still alive, having been kept in a dilapidated house by
Moriarty for reasons unknown.
Natalie Dormer played Adler in the final three episodes of the season.
In the last of these episodes she reveals to Sherlock that she is in fact Moriarty herself,
having employed a male lieutenant to impersonate "Moriarty" during earlier conversations and
faked her own death to drive Sherlock away from investigating her activities.
She drops her American accent, now speaking with an English accent.
She considers herself superior in intellect and resourcefulness to Holmes, but refuses
to kill him, supposedly because she considers him "a work of art."
However, Watson concludes that a love for Sherlock is her real motivator.
Sherlock and Watson use this to trick her into confessing to her crimes on tape, Watson
creating the impression that Holmes has fallen off the wagon once again so that Irene will
come to gloat.
In the episode "The Diabolical Kind", Sherlock and Watson recognize the voice of the kidnapper
as Irene’s former lieutenant.
Sherlock makes a deal with federal agents to allow Irene to consult on the case.
Irene's former lieutenant obtains Irene's sketches of the suspects; Sherlock notices
a code in the drawings and immediately suspects that Irene is in league with her former associate.
Sherlock breaks the code and learns the kidnapped girl is Irene’s daughter.
Irene makes clear that Holmes is not the girl's father.
Irene escapes custody, kills the kidnapper and rescues the girl, but almost dies in the
process.
In the 2013 Russian drama Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler takes a major role in the series
and is portrayed by Lyanka Gryu.
Notes
External links "A Few Words about theatres in Warsaw, or
where Sang Irene Adler" by Joanna Polatynska with Catharina Polatynska"
"Irene Adler: Sherlock, Lupin And I"