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.
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