John H. Watson, known as Dr Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Watson is Sherlock Holmes ' friend, assistant and sometime flatmate, and the first person narrator of all but four of these stories. He is described as the typical Victorian-era gentleman, unlike the more eccentric Holmes. He is astute, although he fails to match his friend 's deductive skills.
Whilst retaining his role as Holmes's friend and confidant, Watson has been adapted in various films, television series, video games, comics and radio programmes.
In Conan Doyle's early rough plot outlines, Sherlock Holmes 's associate was named "Ormond Sacker" before Conan Doyle finally settled on "John Watson". He was probably inspired by one of Doyle's colleagues, Dr James Watson. William L. DeAndrea wrote that "Watson also serves the important function of catalyst for Holmes's mental processes... From the writer 's point of view, Doyle knew the importance of having someone to whom the detective can make enigmatic remarks, a consciousness that's privy to facts in the case without being in on the conclusions drawn from them until the proper time. Any character who performs these functions in a mystery story has come to be known as a 'Watson'."
