Arthur Conan Doyle? Edgar Allan Poe? Dorothy L. Sayers? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A famous fictional detective once explained the methodology for solving mysteries. The sleuth should gather facts and systematically eliminate hypotheses that are impossible. When a single hypothesis remains, however improbable, it must be the truth.
The description of this approach has been attributed to Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allan Poe’s ratiocinator C. Auguste Dupin, and Dorothy L. Sayers’s sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
I am confused because I have not seen a proper analysis with citations. Would you please help me to find the correct phrasing and the true originator?
Reply from Quote Investigator: This is a difficult task because many phrasings are possible. The earliest match known to QI appeared in the short story “The Fate of the Evangeline” by Arthur Conan Doyle which appeared in the periodical “The Boy’s Own Paper” of London in 1885. This tale did not include the character Sherlock Holmes. Interestingly, the saying was credited to C. Auguste Dupin who was the fictional mystery solver of U.S. short story master Edgar Allan Poe. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
“It would be well,” the “Scotsman” concluded, “if those who express opinions upon such subjects would bear in mind those simple rules as to the analysis of evidence laid down by Auguste Dupin. ‘Exclude the impossible,’ he remarks in one of Poe’s immortal stories, ‘and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth.’
Researchers have been unable to find this statement in the writings of Poe. Hence, the credit remains with Doyle himself although he may have been inspired to formulate the saying after reading Poe’s detective tales.
Doyle presented the expression multiple times in his works. Others noticed and highlighted the saying. Here is an overview with dates:
1885: Exclude the impossible and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth (The Fate of the Evangeline by A. Conan Doyle)
1890: Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth (The Sign of the Four by A. Conan Doyle)
1890: When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (The Sign of the Four by A. Conan Doyle)
1892: When you have excluded the impossible , whatever remains , however improbable, must be the truth (The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet by A. Conan Doyle)
1896: Eliminate the impossible, and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth (Attributed to Sherlock Holmes within Beyond the Verge by De Witt C. Chipman)
1908: When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans by A. Conan Doyle)
1930: When you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be true (Attributed to Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin within Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers)
Below are the details for additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1890 Arthur Conan Doyle published “The Sign of the Four” in “Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine”. Sherlock Holmes deduced that his friend Dr. John Watson had recently visited a post office and dispatched a telegram. Holmes explained his reasoning and presented a version of the saying:2
“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”
At a later point within the same story, Holmes referred to the saying as “my precept” while conversing with Watson:3
“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. Whence then, did he come?”
“He came through the hole in the roof,” I cried.
In 1892 Doyle published “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” in “The Strand Magazine”. Sherlock Holmes referred to the saying as an “old maxim”:4
“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
In 1896 De Witt C. Chipman published a hollow-Earth fantasy book titled “Beyond the Verge: Home of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel”, and the narrator attributed an instance to Holmes:5
The late Sherlock Holmes had a dictum which said: “Eliminate the impossible, and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth.”
In 1908 Doyle published “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” in “The Strand Magazine”. Holmes described the saying as an “old axiom”:6
“We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Here all other contingencies have failed.”
In 1930 Dorothy L. Sayers published the novel “Strong Poison”. The saying was spoken by the character Miss Marriott and not by Peter Wimsey. The words were credited to both Holmes and Dupin:7
“Very well,” replied Wimsey, amiably. “I will adopt an attitude of passive decoration. Have you any idea, Miss Marriott, why this over-sleek solicitor should wish to make away with his cousin?”
“Not the faintest. I merely proceed on the old Sherlock Holmes basis that when you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”
“Dupin said that before Sherlock. I grant the conclusion, but in this case I question the premises.”
In summary, Arthur Conan Doyle deserves credit for this adage based on its occurrence in “The Fate of the Evangeline” in 1885. A character in Doyle’s story credited Edgar Allan Poe’s sleuth C. Auguste Dupin; however, the saying has not been found in any of Poe’s tales. Future researchers may discover earlier instances.
Image Notes: Picture of a magnifying glass on a wooden table from Jon Tyson at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Laurence Horn who told QI about the instances of the saying in “The Fate of the Evangeline” and “Strong Poison”. Horn noted that Doyle’s character credited Poe’s character with the adage. Additional thanks to quotation expert Elizabeth Knowles who made the same observation in her 2018 book “And I Quote…: A History of Using Other People’s Words”. Knowles stated that the attribution to Poe was incorrect.
- 1885, The Boy’s Own Paper, Special Christmas Number For 1885, The Fate of the Evangeline by A. Conan Doyle, Chapter 1, Start Page 6, Quote Page 6, Column 2, Published at the Office of Boy’s Own Paper, London, England. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1890 February, Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, The Sign of the Four by A. Conan Doyle, Chapter 1: The Science of Deduction, Quote Page 150, Ward, Lock, and Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1890 February, Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, The Sign of the Four by A. Conan Doyle, Chapter 6: Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration, Quote Page 172, Ward, Lock, and Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1892 May, The Strand Magazine, The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet by A. Conan Doyle, Start Page 511, Quote Page 524, George Newnes, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1896, Beyond the Verge: Home of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel by De Witt C. Chipman, Section: Appendix, Quote Page 285, James H. Earle Publisher, Boston, Massachusetts. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1908 December, The Strand Magazine, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans by Arthur Conan Doyle, Start Page 689, Quote Page 700, Column 1, George Newnes, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1947 (1930 Copyright), Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers, Chapter 8, Quote Page 64, Victor Gollancz Limited, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎