Irene Adler

Irene Adler is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers

Born in 1858 in New Jersey, she was a contralto retired from the operatic stage. It must have been a profitable career, to allow her to retire before the age of 30. One may suspect a hidden health problem, as she did not live to be 34.

The King of Bohemia hired Sherlock Holmes to secure a photograph from Miss Adler. Using his great skills at disguise, Holmes traced her movements and learned much of her private life; then he set up a faked incident to cause a diversion that would let him discover where the picture was hidden. When he came back to snatch it, he found Miss Adler gone, along with her new husband and the goods, which had been replaced with a letter to Holmes! This was the one person ever to outwit Holmes completely.

Irene Adler is a most interesting sort of character to appear in popular Victorian fiction. At a time when ladies were supposed to be ladies, she had "the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men" according to the King. She had the wit to one-up Sherlock Holmes, and he admired her for it. (One might compare the sincere gratitude shown by Einstein toward anyone who caught and corrected an error of his.) Not only that; as she says in the letter to Holmes, "Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives." Holmes does not blink at the shocking revelation that she goes out into the town disguised as a man.

To be sure, Irene Adler was no lady. Watson starts out by describing her as "of dubious and questionable memory." But she earns Holmes's unbounded admiration, and even the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?"—a sentiment which Holmes treats with no attempt to conceal which of the two he thought to be on a higher level.

For all his eccentricity, Holmes frequently expressed Doyle's own views on life, the universe, and everything. With no hint that the author considers Holmes's reaction to be wrong-headed, Irene Adler exposes some contradictions in Victorian standards and is something of a subversive character.