"The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The story was originally published in The Strand Magazine (UK) and Harper's Weekly (US) in September 1893. The story was published with eight illustrations by Sidney Paget in the Strand, and with two illustrations by W. H. Hyde in Harper's Weekly. It was included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes,
Adaptations
Film and television
The story was adapted as a 1922 silent short film as part of the Stoll film series. It starred Eille Norwood as Holmes and Hubert Willis as Watson, and featured J. R. Tozer as Harold Latimer and Robert Vallis as Wilson Kemp.
The story was adapted for Sherlock Holmes (1954 TV series), starring Ronald Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion Crawford as Watson. However, a number of changes were made. For one, Mycroft Holmes does not appear in this episode. For another, the episode is renamed "The Adventure of the French Interpreter", and thus Melas and Kratides are made Frenchmen instead of Greek. The French version of Kratides is also eventually made to sign the papers, rather than refusing, and he survives the story, pushing Kemp down a staircase and killing him, while Latimer is taken under arrest. The fate of Latimer's former fiancée is left up to the viewer's imagination.
The story was adapted for the 1968 BBC series with Peter Cushing. The episode is now lost.
The third episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is based upon "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", but the beginning has a meeting between the heroes and Mycroft, with the scene being adapted from the story. The billiard-maker they analyze through the window turns out, unknown to them, to be Milverton's informer and Moriarty's henchman.
The story was adapted for television in 1985 as part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series, starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes, David Burke as Dr. Watson and Charles Gray as Mycroft Holmes. The episode is largely faithful to the original short story, but certain changes are made; in particular, Kratides is eventually compelled to sign the paper and the ending is amended to have Holmes, Watson and Mycroft confront the villains on board a train as they attempt to escape to Greece, during which Latimer is killed as he attempts to escape and both Kemp and Sophia are taken into custody.
"Art in the blood, Watson. It is liable to take the strangest forms." Sherlock Holmes clarifies to Dr. Joan Watson in the first episode of the second season of the CBS TV series Elementary, which refers to the assertion in the story, that "Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms." "Art in the blood", twenty third episode of the second season of Elementary, which is named after an allusion from this story, updates many elements of the original story to the contemporary era. In the 24th episode, Sherlock describes Mycroft as a man who "has no ambition and no energy" and "would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right", which is directly quoted from the story.
In the 2012 Sherlock episode "A Scandal in Belgravia", Watson is seen writing a story in his blog titled "The Geek Interpreter". In the 2014 episode "The Empty Hearse", Sherlock and his brother Mycroft have a casual competition over analyzing a certain knitted hat, a reference to the discussion in this short story on analyzing a man they see on the street through the window of the Diogenes Club. In the 2015 special, The Abominable Bride, a Mr. Melas is also referenced as waiting to see Mycroft after he has discussed a case with his brother and Dr. Watson.
In the seventh episode of the NHK puppetry television series Sherlock Holmes, Sherman, a female pupil of Beeton School who can communicate with animals is kidnapped. She is made to interpret dog's language to find a bone of Neanderthal stolen from a laboratory and taken away by a dog but no clue is found. Holmes decides to solve the case with the help of his elder brother Mycroft and visits him in the Diogenes Club in Dealer house where he lives. Though Holmes is estranged from Mycroft, the brothers and Watson discover the bone and find out that it was Wilson Kemp, a pupil who lives in Dealer house, who stole it but Mycroft tries to hush up the truth.
Audio
A radio adaptation of "The Greek Interpreter", dramatised by Edith Meiser, aired on 26 January 1931 in the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson.
Edith Meiser also adapted the story as an episode of the American radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson, that aired on 15 January 1940. Another episode in the same series that was adapted from the story aired in July 1943.
Michael Hardwick adapted the story as a radio adaptation which aired on the BBC Light Programme in April 1960, as part of the 1952–1969 radio series starring Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson, with Jeffrey Segal as Melas and Michael Turner as Inspector Gregson.
"The Greek Interpreter" was dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in 1992 by Gerry Jones as part of the 1989–1998 radio series starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. It featured Peter Polycarpou as Melas and Gordon Reid as the Laughing Man.
The story was adapted as a 2010 episode of The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series on the American radio show Imagination Theatre, starring John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson.
In 2026, the podcast Sherlock & Co. adapted the story in a five-episode adventure called "The Greek Interpreter", starring Harry Attwell as Sherlock Holmes, Paul Waggott as Dr. John Watson and Marta da Silva as Mariana "Mrs. Hudson" Ametxazurra. Donalds Pirie plays Giorgios Melas and series creator Joel Emery plays Harold Latimer. Mycroft Holmes has his first apperance as is voiced by Thomas Mitchell.
References
Notes
Sources