Moriarty Just May Be Fiction's Best Foe

by Liz Publika

Sherlock Holmes may be one of the most reimagined or adapted characters in literary history, but his formidable arch-nemesis and intellectual equal Professor James Moriarty is fairly close behind. Over the years, Moriarty has undergone some of the most drastic reinventions of any literary villain, transforming from a briefly mentioned plot device into a pop-culture archetype of the criminal mastermind, setting the pop-culture standard for the intellectual bad guy that has survived to this day. 

Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty in mortal combat at the Reichenbach Falls. Original pen and ink and wash drawing heightened with white of The Death of Sherlock Holmes, an illustration by Sidney Paget for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Final Problem," 1893

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) originally introduced Moriarty in “The Adventure of the Final Problem” (set in 1891), a short story first published in The Strand Magazine in December 1893. The author positioned Moriarty as an international criminal gang leader who, given his extraordinary intelligence and abundant resources, provides criminals with nefarious strategies to break or escape the law for a sizable fee. The goal for Moriarty was to bring about the demise of the famous detective. 

If Holmes’s popularity can be attributed to the fact that he’s the main character in Doyle’s crime fiction canon, the same cannot be said about Moriarty, who is significant in his influence but is nevertheless a background character. In fact, Moriarty is only referenced in a total of seven stories, with just two mentioning him directly and setting him up as the main antagonist. And yet Moriarty endures, in our imaginations and on the silver screen. 

In the first half of 2026 alone, we got two completely different versions of Moriarty; one in the third installment of the Enola Holmes franchise, and the other in the recently released Young Sherlock series. Neither was based on the source material, which describes Moriarty as being extremely tall and thin, with a pale and clean-shaven face, deeply sunken eyes and a forehead that domes out in a white curve. In the original stories, he is ascetic-looking and has shoulders that are rounded from much study. 

Even though Doyle himself provided inconsistencies about the character, it’s clear that modern adaptations have taken some serious liberties with Moriarty’s appearance. But what the character brings to the table is set in stone: Holmes likens Moriarty to a “spider at the centre of a web” and calls him the "Napoleon of crime"; allegedly, it's a phrase he lifted from Scotland Yard Official Robert Anderson referring to Adam Worth (1844-1902), an actual criminal mastermind and one of the individuals on whom Moriarty is based. 

The strongest evidence for the inspiration can be found in the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear (1914), which is set before "The Final Problem" but written afterwards. In it, Holmes learns that Moriarty has a painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) hanging on his office wall — a work too expensive for a professor’s salary. Holmes compares the monetary value of the aforementioned piece to another painting by the same artist called La Jeune Fille à l'agneau, or The Girl with the Lamb. 

Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1785-87) by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)

Pronouncing La Jeune Fille à l'agneau with a slight French-English crossover sounds remarkably like "The Young Girl from Agnew,” as such, commentators have speculated that the name of the painting is likely Doyle’s bilingual pun on the famous Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) painting, the Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1785-87), which was stolen from the upscale Thomas Agnew and Sons art gallery in 1876, shortly after it was acquired at auction for a record-breaking sum by Agnew. 

Though the gallery was not able to prove that it was Adam Worth who indeed stole it, history shows that he kept the painting hidden for 25 years before turning it over to the authorities for a substantial reward. His rather impressive career in crime stretched from the Americas to Europe and Africa. When Doyle wrote The Valley of Fear, the sensational recovery of the Gainsborough painting from Adam Worth was still fresh in the public's memory and provided excellent material for a crime story. 

Although Worth stole the painting on his own, much like Moriarty, he mostly operated as a shadowy general who orchestrated and bankrolled international criminal operations, mirroring Moriarty’s role. He largely avoided crude violence thereby fitting the cerebral, intellectual menace embodied by the character. And he successfully fooled London’s high society into believing he was one of them, living under the alias Henry (Harry) James Raymond, while directing his organization. 

Beyond Worth, Doyle himself cited another inspiration in The Valley of Fear — the London arch-criminal of the 18th century, Jonathan Wild (1682-1725). He is mentioned when Sherlock Holmes is seeking to compare Moriarty to a real-world character that Inspector Alec MacDonald might know, but it is in vain as MacDonald is not so well read as Holmes. It's a telling comparison: Wild built his empire on theft, extortion, and fencing stolen goods, commanding networks of highwaymen and pickpockets across London.

Similar to Worth, Wild was notable for operating on both sides of the law; he posed as a public-spirited vigilante earning the moniker the "Thief-Taker General." But he simultaneously ran a significant criminal empire, and used his crimefighting role to remove rivals and launder the proceeds of his own crimes. Wild had little patience for those who operated outside his control; by most accounts, around 120 men ended up on the gallows as a direct result of his testimony or his leaks to authorities.

Both Worth and Wild seem to be directly referenced by Doyle as inspirations for the character of Professor James Moriarty, but they may not be the only ones. From astronomers and mathematicians to politicians and Jesuit priests at the preparatory school (Hodder Place in Stonyhurst) that Doyle himself attended as a youth — fans and scholars have found Moriarty to be an aggregate of many interesting people. The best villains, it seems, are those that are built from truths. 

And Moriarty just may be fiction's best foe.

Note* Images are available via Fair Use and the Public Domain. Sherlock holds a Guinness | World Record with over 70 actors playing the role across more than 200 films.