James Moriarty

The spider at the centre of the web, orchestrating evil while remaining immune from suspicion.

Professor James Moriarty is a fictional criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as Sherlock Holmes' formidable enemy. He was primarily devised so Doyle could kill off the detective and end his stories. Moriarty first appears in the short story "The Adventure of the Final Problem," published in The Strand Magazine in December 1893. He also features without a direct appearance in the novel The Valley of Fear. Holmes mentions him in five other tales: "The Adventure of the Empty House," "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder," "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter," "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client," and "His Last Bow." An international gang leader, Moriarty uses his resources to provide crime strategies and legal protection for a fee. Holmes likens him to a spider at the centre of a web and calls him the "Napoleon of crime."

Quick Facts

Series: Sherlock Holmes
First: "The Final Problem" (1893)
Creator: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Occupation: Professor of mathematics (formerly); Criminal mastermind
Nationality: British
Family: One or two brothers

Lore & Background

Moriarty is an extremely tall, thin man with a pale, ascetic face and shoulders rounded from much study. His forehead domes out in a white curve, his eyes are deeply sunken, and his face protrudes forward, oscillating side to side in a "curiously reptilian fashion." He believes in phrenology, once telling Holmes he had "less frontal development than I should have expected." Born with excellent education and a phenomenal mathematical faculty, he wrote a treatise on the Binomial Theorem at age 21, earning him a university chair. However, "dark rumours" forced his resignation. In London, he works as an army coach before becoming a consulting criminal mastermind. He does not commit crimes himself but orchestrates them, offering plans and protection to criminals in exchange for obedience and profit shares.

Reader's Guide

Moriarty is characterized as ruthless, vowing that if Holmes brings destruction upon him, he will do the same. He respects Holmes's intellect, calling their struggle an "intellectual treat," yet he makes numerous attempts on the detective's life through agents like Colonel Moran. His methods include stage-managing deaths to look like accidents, such as falling masonry, speeding vehicles, and a man lost overboard at sea. In "The Empty House," Holmes reveals Moriarty commissioned a powerful air gun from a blind German mechanic named von Herder for Moran to use. While Doyle intended "The Final Problem" to be the end of Holmes, public pressure brought the detective back; however, Moriarty's death remained permanent. Consequently, The Valley of Fear is set before his fall but features him as an active villain.

Did You Know?

Moriarty was based partly on Adam Worth, a real-life criminal mastermind; 'Napoleon of crime' is a phrase a Scotland Yard inspector had used of Worth.
In "The Final Problem," Watson initially tells Holmes he has never heard of Moriarty, despite later claiming to know him as the "famous scientific criminal" in the earlier-set novel The Valley of Fear.
Moriarty authored a highly respected work titled 'The Dynamics of an Asteroid'.