Some Problems on the Translation of the Title of A Study in Scarlet

The purpose of this article is to examine meanings and translations of the word “study” as it appears in the title “A Study in Scarlet”, and the relationship between them and the title.

The title “A Study in Scarlet” has been translated into Japanese as “Hiiro no Kenkyu” since Nobuhara Ken’s translation of 1931. “Hiiro” means “Scarlet,” “no” is “in,” and “Kenkyu” is “Study.” This is the most popular translation of this title now. However, “Study” has several choices of translation. “Kenkyu” means “Devotion of time and thought to acquiring information, esp. from books, in the pursuit of some branch of knowledge.”1

Tsuchiya Tomoyuki suggested another translation in his article.

Holmes says “I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon? There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skin of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.” (Italics by author)

Tsuchiya paid attention to this phrase, and wrote that the translation must mean a “sketch made for practice in technique or as a preliminary experiment for a picture or a part of one.”2 His conclusion is that the same phrase used as the title of this episode must have the same meaning.3 Eminent Sherlockians including Tanaka Kiyoshi and Kobayashi Tsukasa support his opinion. They use his title translation “Hiiro no Shusaku” in their Sherlockian articles and books. In Japanese, “Shusaku” means “sketch.”

Tanaka has written an article on this problem.4 In Nobuhara’s STUD, he translated the word “study” from “the finest study I ever came across” as “Jiken”, i.e., “Case.” Tanaka said this translation was a free translation, and “Shusaku” was better for this word. He also asked his foreign Sherlockian friends about this problem, and most of them supported “Shusaku.”

I was interested in foreign opinions, so I looked in The Oxford Sherlock Holmes.4 Its editor Owen Dudley Edwards points out another time the word “study” was used.

“‘Oh! a mystery is it?’ I cried, rubbing my hands. ‘This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘‘The proper study of mankind is man,’ you know.”

“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye. “You’ll find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Good-bye.” (Italics by the author.)

Edwards wrote as follows in the footnote to this “study.”

“Although Holmes will later use the term ‘a study in scarlet’, and although Holmes and ACD mean different things by it, we are to understand that Watson’s study of Holmes will prove to be in scarlet, both from the vividness of the impression and from the nature of its preoccupation.”

Edwards considered that the meaning of the title has no relation to that of Tsuchiya’s suggested meaning. In Edwards’ opinion, the title in STUD should be translated as “Hiiro no Kenkyu” “devotion of time and thought to acquiring information, esp. from books, in pursuit of some branch of knowledge.”

I further examined this important problem.

Can “study” from “the finest study I ever came across” be translated as “Jiken”, i.e., “Case”? I looked in my dictionary again, and found the meaning to be a “thing that is or deserves to be investigated.” Remembering that this phrase was spoken by Sherlock Holmes, the eminent criminal investigator, it is natural to translate the word “study” into “case.”

Concerning the second “study,” from the phrase, “a study in scarlet, eh?”, I agree with the three Sherlockians mentioned above that it means “sketch.” Holmes made a joke here. The Master was cheerful, because of the interesting affair and he said this case was “the finest study I ever came across,” and hit upon the joke, “study in scarlet, eh?” The latter “study” includes the meaning “case”, but most of the meaning was “sketch.”

There is one more “study” in this text. The third “study,” is found at the end of STUD, as spoken by Holmes to Watson. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet; to get them a testimonial!” (Italics by the author)

Tsuchiya and Tanaka did not argue about this third “Study”.

Can this phrase be translated as “sketch” or “case”? Unfortunately, it cannot, I believe. I cannot imagine the “result” of a “sketch.” What is it? Tsuchiya referred to Whistler’s artwork, “Study in Brown” or “Study in Gray and Pink” in his article; he thought that “sketch” was not a “practice”, but a “completed artwork.” If we accept his point of view, we still cannot understand the “result” of “completed artwork.” It is difficult to conclude that the meaning is “sketch.” or “case.” It is more natural to translate the third “study” as “Devotion of time and thought to acquiring information, esp. from books, in pursuit of some branch of knowledge.”

Another question remains. There are three meanings of the word “study,” and we must decide which one is best as the title of the story “A Study in Scarlet.” Tsuchiya and Tanaka did not discuss this matter, because they considered “study” to have only one meaning, “sketch.”

I paid attention to the third “study” in “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet; to get them a testimonial!” (Italics by the author). This time “Study in Scarlet” was written with capital letters, but the other time, “a study in scarlet, eh?” it was not. I find “Study in Scarlet” with capital letters on the title page and in the third example only. It is not difficult to say that these two phrases have a close relationship. Therefore, most of the title’s meaning must be “Devotion of time and thought to acquiring information, esp. from books, in pursuit of some branch of knowledge.” Of course part of the meaning is still “sketch” or “case”; however, we must choose only one of them when translating the into another language, especially non-western languages.

My conclusion is that the title of STUD should be translated as “Hiiro no Kenkyu,” or “The-pursuit-of-some-branch-of-knowledge in Scarlet.”

Bibliography;

1 The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 1964.

2 ibid.

3 Tsuchuya, T. “‘Hiiro no Kenkyu’ wa Goyaku Datta” Shosetu Sherlock Holmes Kobayashi, T. and Higashiyama, A. ed. Tokyo: Tosho, 1987, pp174-175.

4 Tanaka, K. “‘Kenkyu’ ka ‘Shusaku’ ka” The World of Holmes, Vol.14, Tokyo: JSHC, 1992, pp.7-16.

Tanaka does not show his method in this article. As a result of a questionnaire depends on its method so much, I cannot judge his result now.

4 Doyle, Arthur Conan: A Study in Scarlet, edited with an Introduction by Owen Dudley Edwards, Oxford University Press, 1993.

(The Shoso-in Bulletin vol.3, 1993)