Detective fiction the Detective. In short, it is difficult to establish who was the first to write the English-language detective novel, as various authors were exploring the theme simultaneously. In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, arguably the most famous of all fictional detectives. Although Sherlock Holmes is not the original fiction detective (he was influenced by Poe's Dupin and Gaboriau's Lecoq), his name has become a byword for the part. Conan Doyle stated that the character of Holmes was inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Holmes, Bell
George Bulman (fictional character) George Bulman (fictional character) Detective Sergeant George Bulman was a fictional detective created by Kenneth Royce in his series of books about The XYY Man (semi-reformed cat burglar Spider Scott), where the character's name was initially Alf Bulman. Here Bulman is presented as a 'bent copper', though the only examples of his corruption given are that he gained promotion to sergeant by persuading down-and-outs to confess to unsolved robberies, in return for a prison sentence which would put them inside during the coldest months of winter. These books were turned into a Granada TV series in the mid-1970s, with actor