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Hey, thanks for the reply, yeah I thought he probably just wanted them back together and wrote her and the practice out real quick lol. Watsons wife is I think called Mary? Or something like that I’m pretty sure, she lives in the house where the crime happened in the sign of four and Watson fell in love with her I think. I can’t really remember, sign of four was the first Sherlock story I read quite a few years ago but I didn’t like it so I never really read the others until I decided to give it another go last year, and I really like them, I skipped over sign of four when I restarted though. yeah I remember the James thing and thinking it was weird but maybe just a nickname for John, twisted lip was in adventures of Sherlock holmes I’m pretty sure, if not it was memoirs, so before empty house. i think Conan Doyle definitely can write interesting female characters, i liked the woman from the yellow face, the girl from study in scarlet, the lady who beat Sherlock in the one about the king, and I thought the girl and the story about the couple who made the woman they employed look like there daughter whilst keeping their daughter locked up. But I don’t think he was very interested in Mrs Watson I suppose.

Hi there, Crazycat, and welcome to Sherlock Forum! My own best guess regarding why Holmes made that comment in "Empty House" is that when ACD submitted the story to his publisher, he had totally forgotten that Watson was married (presumably because, as you point out, the stories always focussed on Holmes & Watson). So the publisher said wait a minute, you can't just have Watson moving back in with Holmes -- what about Mrs. Watson?! At which point ACD stuck in that one reference to Watson's bereavement (and promptly forgot about it, I suspect). The late Mrs. Watson was apparently the female client from "Sign of the Four," who became engaged to Watson by the end of that story. Been a while since I read any of the original Holmes stories, so the only other reference to a wife that I recall just offhand is the one who addresses him as "James" at the beginning of "Man with the Twisted Lip" -- do you recall whether that was before or after "Empty House"?