Elementary

I really do think that of all the fandoms in the world, the Sherlock Holmes fandom beats all. (Given time the Harry Potter fandom might trump it, but we'll see.) Longevity (since the late 1800's, and still very much alive and thriving!), the famous people involved (everyone from Monsignor Ronald Knox, through Dorothy L Sayers and GK Chesterton... and so on and so forth), the richness of the literature produced by its scholars, and the sheer number of people dedicated enough to not just read the series but to join clubs for discussing them as well! The number of Sherlock Holmes-centric societies around the world is just staggering. There's even a Sherlockian who's-who database to keep track of these societies and their respective scions.

And the publications! Not just the scholarly work of those authors bent on playing "The Game" (Ronald Knox is really the first person who comes to mind) but the pastiches. How many are there now? Does anyone even bother keeping track?

And other fandoms have statues of characters built. The Holmes fandom, so much loved and embraced as it has been, caused the numbers of a street to be changed just to accommodate a fictional address.

*hugs my dearest fandom*

I once wanted to dedicate my life to being a Sherlockian scholar. No, really. I wanted to live in London and to be curator of the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221B. I don't regret my decision to pursue med school and to live a life of quite a different track of scholarship, but sometimes, looking at web pages of people who manage these societies and who write scholarly manuscripts on everything from elusive bicyclists to Professor Moriarty, I do feel a certain Holmes-specific wistfulness.