Enola Holmes: 10 Things From The Books Not Included In The Film

When multiple attempted murders aren't the darkest thing in your story.

Enola Holmes Book
Netflix/Penguin

After dazzling Netflix with a solid, slick, and endlessly enjoyable film, it's a good time to recommend the six-book series that inspired the Millie Bobby Brown venture, Enola Holmes. While the film is an excellent addition to Holmes film canon and a worthwhile watch, the books, entitled The Enola Holmes Mysteries, are much more enjoyable, cleverer, and much, much darker.

A timeframe of many months in which the 14-year old Enola dodges her brothers, survives attempted murders, and searches for her mother takes place in a surprisingly gritty Victorian London, arguably grittier than we've seen from most Sherlock Holmes portrayals.

Though the film does a good job portraying its protagonist getting into near-death situations and throwing down like the best of action heroes, it bears many differences from the books, including the aged up Marquess and entirely invented romantic subplot, the fate of Enola's mother, and her many, many cases, which in some ways connect with each other to reach an intriguing conclusion.

Perhaps if there's a sequel planned for the future, we'll see more of the rich content and six different, yet smartly interconnected cases laid out in the books, but for now, here's a list of 10 things you'll find in the books that weren't included in the film.

Major spoilers for the events and mysteries of the books ahead!

10. Crawlers, Feces, And Corpses Frozen To Victorian London's Streets

Enola Holmes Book
Wikimedia Commons

The young adult book series doesn't shy away from the grim realities of Victorian London. More than once, the series shows Enola unsure whether a slumped figure in an alleyway is a drunkard or a corpse, or outright stating that Enola has become uncomfortable with winter due to her seeing the corpse of a beggar frozen to the pavement, not to thaw until spring.

The book also mentions the nastiness that is the overabundance of horse dung caking London's busy streets, largely overlooked in the film.

But the most horrific of Victorian facts in the book are the "Crawlers" - beggars so weak they lie and crawl in the dirt. Historically, Victorian photojournalist John Thomson described them thus:

Huddled together on the workhouse steps in Short’s Gardens, those wrecks of humanity, the Crawlers of St. Giles’s, may be seen both day and night seeking mutual warmth and mutual consolation in their extreme misery. As a rule, they are old women reduced by vice and poverty to that degree of wretchedness which destroys even the energy to beg.

Such facts are not only referenced in the books, but also become major elements in the cases Enola pursues and solves.

Contributor
Contributor

Writer, artist, professional animator. Indie comics and Hi Nay podcast creator. Queer Filipino storyteller || @MotzieD on Twitter || Originally from Quezon City, The Philippines. Currently based in Toronto, Canada || motziedapul.com