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In the story, Robert Ferguson, a tea broker, appeals to Holmes, ostensibly on a friend’s behalf but really out of his own desperate needs. in English Language and Literature at University College London. In its exploration of the maternal experience, parent-child relationships, and sibling relations, it resonates closely with the concerns of the Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics network, a project on which I am proud to have worked as an intern while completing my Ph.D. Nevertheless, the story is particularly revealing of the mature Conan Doyle’s creative vision.

An extensive survey completed in 1999 for the best stories-‘the largest and most comprehensive Sherlock Holmes rating effort ever conducted’-ranked ‘The Sussex Vampire’ 46 th out of the canon’s 56 stories ( Stock 1999, p. Over the past decade, Studies in the Maternal, the network’s peer-reviewed journal, has championed pioneering scholarship on motherhood, operating as an important forum for academics, writers, and creative artists internationally, and expanding the critical and theoretical vocabulary with which we approach characters such as Mrs Ferguson.Īrthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire’ ( 1924) has commanded neither substantial critical attention nor many advocates amongst Sherlock Holmes aficionados. Victorian literature, the area of my expertise, is replete with examples of troubled maternal figures, and they tell us much about nineteenth-century social and cultural life. In its exploration of the maternal experience, parent-child relationships, and sibling relations, Conan Doyle’s story is at home in the Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics network, a project on which I am proud to have worked as an intern while completing my Ph.D. The story advocates better communication amongst the Fergusons, between husband and wife, and between parents and children, for the family’s regeneration. In this article, I examine Arthur Conan Doyle’s treatment of motherhood in ‘The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire’ (1924) and, in so doing, argue for the insights that it imparts on the mature writer’s creative vision.