Professor Moriarty
- In full:
- Professor James Moriarty
Professor Moriarty, nemesis of Sherlock Holmes in the detective stories and novels by Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle. He is an archcriminal who controls London’s underworld while maintaining a respectable public image. Moriarty makes his first appearance in “The Final Problem,” a short story from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893), in which he confronts Holmes in a famous encounter at Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls. Moriarty is also mentioned in The Valley of Fear (1915), a novel in which Holmes links him to a secret criminal organization, and in “The Adventure of the Empty House” (1903), a short story from The Return of Sherlock Holmes that explains Holmes’s return after having faked his own death at Reichenbach.
Character
Moriarty is Holmes’s intellectual equal but his moral opposite, a brilliant mathematician who applies his genius to crime. Before fully embracing his criminal pursuits, he was a university professor and mathematics department chair, publishing a book on the binomial theorem. Holmes calls Moriarty the “Napoleon of crime” and says of him:
He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.
Although his influence and presence are felt in many of the stories, Moriarty remains elusive, operating through intermediaries. In “The Final Problem” he seeks revenge against Holmes, leading to their legendary confrontation at Reichenbach Falls, where both are believed to fall to their deaths. Although Moriarty does not return in the original stories, it is later revealed in “The Adventure of the Empty House” (1903) that Holmes has survived, having faked his death to outmaneuver Moriarty’s network.
Did You Know?
Arthur Conan Doyle originally created Moriarty to kill off Sherlock Holmes, explaining that he had grown tired of writing about the detective and likened the experience to eating too much foie gras. Public outcry following Holmes’s death in “The Final Problem” led to his return in the short story “The Adventure of the Empty House” (1903).
Origin
Doyle based Moriarty on Adam Worth, a real-life 19th-century crime boss known for orchestrating international thefts while avoiding capture. Some also suggest that inspiration came from Simon Newcomb, a Canadian-American mathematician. Newcomb’s mastery of mathematics and reputation for ambition parallel Moriarty’s portrayal as a distinguished academic.
“If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.”
— Professor Moriarty
Adaptations
Despite his limited number of appearances in the Sherlock Holmes stories, Moriarty remains one of literature’s most famous villains and frequently appears in film and television adaptations of the Conan Doyle works. Notable portrayals include:
- George Zucco (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1939)
- Laurence Olivier (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, 1976)
- Eric Porter (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1984–85)
- Andrew Scott (Sherlock, 2010–17)
- Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, 2011)
Moriarty also appears in the anime television series Moriarty the Patriot (2020–22), where he is portrayed as an antihero.
