Is Enola Holmes a real person? The character’s origins

Enola Holmes’ latest adventures feature in Netflix’s Enola Holmes 2. Having made her detective breakthrough in the first film, Enola establishes her detective agency. However, her business faces one major disadvantage: Enola is a woman. People would rather do business with his older brother Sherlock than take a chance on a woman. 

Fortunately, luck allows Enola to overcome the prejudices of the Victorian Era. Enola is tasked by a young girl to find her sister. A case that seems mundane initially becomes much more intricate and dangerous. 

Enola solves the case, sparking a revolution inspired by real-life events. The film’s real-life connections have sparked questions about the origins of Enola Holmes. 

Enola Holmes is not real; she is a product of Nancy Springer’s imagination

At the start of Enola Holmes, the film states that the essential parts of the film are true, including the female workers’ strike due to poor working conditions at a match factory. In 1888, Sarah Chapman led a strike calling for the Bryant & May match company to reinstate a worker and improve work conditions. 

The company offered to reinstate the worker, but the striking women and girls demanded more. Thanks to the strike, the company abolished unfair deductions and allowed workers to eat in safe areas of the factory. The civil unrest part of Enola Holmes 2 is true, but Enola Holmes isn’t. 

Nancy Springer created Enola Holmes in her 2007 book The Case of the Missing Marquess. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t include Enola in his short stories and novels about Sherlock. In his versions, Sherlock had one sibling – his older brother, Mycroft. 

Fan theories suggested that Sherlock had a secret sibling named Sherrinford. However, Doyle came up with the name Sherrinford while searching for monikers for his main character. He discarded Sherrinford for Sherlock. 

Springer gave life to the notion that Sherlock had a secret sibling by introducing Enola.