page_title: Dr. Watson
section_title: Physical appearance
hierarchical_section_title: Dr. Watson / Personal characteristics / Physical appearance
caption_attribution_description: Sherlock Holmes in "The Five Orange Pips", which appeared in The Strand Magazine in November, 1891. Original caption was "HOLMES," I CRIED, "YOU ARE TOO LATE."
context_page_description: John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet. The last work by Doyle featuring Watson and Holmes is the short story "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place", though this is not the last story in the timeline of the series, which is "His Last Bow".
  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 a 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.
context_section_description: In A Study in Scarlet, having just returned from Afghanistan, John Watson is described "as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut." In subsequent texts, he is variously described as strongly built, of a stature either average or slightly above average, with a thick, strong neck and a small moustache.
  Watson used to be an athlete: it is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" (1924) that he used to play rugby union for Blackheath, but he fears his physical condition has declined since that point. In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (1899), Watson is described as "a middle-sized, strongly built man—square jaw, thick neck, moustache..." In "His Last Bow", set in August 1914, Watson is described as "...a heavily built, elderly man with a grey moustache...".
caption: Watson reading bad news to Holmes in "The Five Orange Pips". One of Sidney Paget's iconic illustrations from The Strand magazine.
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