Mimi

@Tom, @Katie, et al, I went down the Holmes rabbit hole too. Retrieved my “Complete Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes” and thumbed through it, as I was sure some of them showed a deerstalker. The Boscombe Valley Mystery, published in The Strand in 1891, (several years before Gillette’s play) has illustrations by Sidney Paget, including this one, (clearly not in London, @Patrick J) that feature Holmes in what looks like a deerstalker cap. Dr. Watson calls it a “close-fitting cap” in that story, and an “ear-flapped travelling cap” in The Adventure of the Silver Blaze, published a year later. So it’s true that it wasn’t called that, but it’s likely that’s where Gillette got the idea, as he said he’d read the stories in The Strand.

@Nancy, well said. PS there is info for you at your old crossword hangout... - @A

Guess I used the wrong format for sharing the illustration. It's on the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia website. <a href="https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/images/6/63/Illus-bosc-paget-07.jpg" target="_blank">https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/images/6/63/Illus-bosc-paget-07.jpg</a>