"The Adventure of the Six Napoleons", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Collier's in the United States on 30 April 1904, and in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in May 1904. The story was published with six illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele in Collier's, and with seven illustrations by Sidney Paget in the Strand. It was included in the short story collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes,
Adaptations
Film and television
The story was adapted as a short silent film titled The Six Napoleons (1922) in the Stoll film series starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes.
The Pearl of Death is a 1944 Sherlock Holmes film that is loosely based on "The Six Napoleons".
Dressed to Kill – also known as Prelude to Murder (working title) and Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Code (in the United Kingdom) – is a 1946 adaptation loosely based on "The Six Napoleons", the busts being replaced with musical boxes.
The episode of The Adventures of Superman TV series (Episode 4 of season 1) called "Mystery of the Broken Statues" is mainly based on "The Six Napoleons".
The 1965 television series Sherlock Holmes starring Douglas Wilmer as Holmes and Nigel Stock as Watson featured an adaptation of "The Six Napoleons".
This story was dramatised in the popular Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett. This version is faithful to the original story—although there is a twist. In the original story, Beppo is captured after killing Venucci and his punishment is left unsaid for the audience to guess. In the episode, Beppo had gone to prison for a year after wounding Venucci in a brawl; at the end, Beppo is hanged. Furthermore, Beppo's surname is Cicollini and his role is expanded to have been previously engaged to Lucretia Venucci. Marina Sirtis played Lucretia in this episode.
An episode of the animated television series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century was based on the story. The episode, titled "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons", aired in 2001.
The opening episode of season 4 of the BBC series Sherlock is called "The Six Thatchers" and is based loosely on this story; at one point Sherlock believes that the suspect is hunting for the black pearl, which he had been asked to look into earlier and dismissed as uninteresting, but it is soon revealed that the suspect is actually hunting for a memory stick containing information about Mary Watson's past.
The American TV series on CBS Television, Elementary "The Further Adventures" also adapts the story. In the cold opening, a break-in occurs at 221-B Baker Street. We find Bernardo "Beppo" Pugliesi retrieving the last of 6 busts, sold from the Royal Wedding 2018. Holmes lets Beppo break the bust, and take the Pearl from the shards. Only to explain the history of Black Pearl, and how Beppo stole the pearl. The day after the original theft, he stabbed a man in a bar fight. Knowing he is being sought in the stabbing, he hid the pearl in his brother's ceramics factory, before his arrest. His brother made 1,000 busts, that were so ugly, he only sold 6. A year later, Beppo is paroled, and begins the search, leaving a trail of broken statues. In the robbery of the fifth, Beppo strangled the owner. Holmes purchased the last of the six, making quite a show of the purchase, such that Beppo comes to Baker Street. Later at Scotland Yard, Holmes destroys the Pearl. It was made of painted glass. The glass pearl contained a ring with a hollow compartment that Lucrezia Borgia put poison used to kill her family's enemies. When she fell out of favour with certain members of the Vatican, she was told to dispose of the ring, her favourite murder weapon. DCI Athelney Jones comments to Holmes, "My God, Holmes. You did not get the goods on one murder tonight, but two!"
Audio
A radio adaptation aired as an episode of the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The episode was adapted by Edith Meiser and aired on 25 May 1931, with Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson.
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. The episode aired on 12 October 1941. Another episode in the same series adapted from the story aired on 7 March 1948, with John Stanley playing Holmes and Alfred Shirley playing Watson.
A radio adaptation of the story was broadcast on BBC Light Programme on 7 December 1954 with John Gielgud as Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Watson. The production aired on NBC radio on 6 March 1955.
Michael Hardwick adapted the story for the BBC Light Programme in 1966, as part of the 1952–1969 radio series starring Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson.
An adaptation of the story aired on BBC radio in 1978, starring Barry Foster as Holmes and David Buck as Watson.
"The Six Napoleons" was dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in 1993 by Bert Coules as part of the 1989–1998 radio series starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. It featured Donald Gee as Inspector Lestrade and Peter Penry-Jones as Horace Harker.
The story was adapted as a 2013 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 four-episode adventure called "The Six Napoleons", starring Harry Attwell as Sherlock Holmes, Paul Waggott as Dr. John Watson and Marta da Silva as Mariana "Mrs. Hudson" Ametxazurra.
Other media
The story is referenced in The Three Investigators book #7 The Mystery of the Fiery Eye which deals with a hidden gemstone and false clue of busts, used by a Holmes aficionado.
References
Notes
Sources