This silent black and white screen adaptation of the American actor’s play deserved to have a book devoted to it, not only because of its importance in the screen career of Sherlock Holmes, but because it was so long believed lost.
All the experts who have spoken so far were limited to suppositions and assumptions deduced from the testimonies of those who saw the film at the time of its release in theatres, usually recorded in the contemporary press.

When all is said and done, although the authorities on Holmesian cinema all say that this film is a milestone in the long career of the detective on the screen, they have actually been able to tell us very little about it.

Even our familiarity with the life and work of William Gillette was of little help in understanding this version of the play. When it comes to the other actors in the film, the situation is even worse. We have had to be content with their filmographies, often sparse, with very little information. The French actor Ernest Maupain is a good example. At the time of filming, he was a real movie star in the US, but now it is impossible to find more than a few lines about his life and career, and even less about his performance as Professor Moriarty in the film Sherlock Holmes.

After months of research, using the Baker Street detective’s own methods, Thierry Saint-Joanis, investigative journalist and founding president of the Sherlock Holmes Society of France, has been able to compile and review a wealth of information on this “lost film” – beyond anything we could find so far. The result of his research is now available to readers. And even if the 1916 Sherlock Holmes still keeps some secrets, we have at last brought it out of the shadows.

This detailed guide, richly illustrated with more than a hundred photos – stills taken during the shooting or frames from the film itself, and nearly all previously unpublished – is essential reading before viewing the rediscovered and restored film. And as a reference document it will help to increase and prolong the viewer’s enjoyment of these new-found and almost legendary images.

This book, which is full of information and anecdotes provides answers to many of the questions that have arisen since the demise of silent cinema in the 1930s.

The study of the film is completed with an authoritative article on William Gillette by the internationally respected Holmesian expert Bernard Oudin, author of the best-selling Enquête sur Sherlock Holmes (France, Gallimard, 2009).