Middle-Class Baker Street Irregulars

What is it about?

Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street Irregulars were street children who helped Holmes with his investigations. There are many modern stories of these children written by a variety of writers. However, common to the stories is a great shift in social class. These children should be at the very bottom of the class system – an underclass of street children. Somehow, in the stories, they become middle-class. The paper examines and discusses how and why the children are presented as middle-class.

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Why is it important?

Writers tend to adapt their stories to fit their personal image of their audience. When different writers adapt history in the same way, they are probably working with a shared (maybe subconscious) image of their audience. Why would writers shift the class of the Irregulars up to middle-class? And if these writers make this shift, are other writers doing the same? Are all child readers middle class? Do all child readers identify with the middle classes? The paper tries to answer these questions.