Was Arthur Conan Doyle vastly inflating his own ego when he made Holmes and Moriarty as the greatest minds in Europe?

[Abhay Saini]

In the realm of Scientific Discoveries, Germany was far ahead of England in the late 1800s,

France gave the world its most reputable writers, actors and high culture. 

USA gave Edgar allan poe, who arguably invented the entire detective genre with Holmes being a crisper and more personable profile of Dupin.

Why then, did England have the honor of producing the greatest minds of the Europe? English strength was simply in its adminstrative capability and its wealth of cultural knowledge that it had incorporated by its colonies. In all other terms, Europe was mostly even, with at least Germany, France and USA being equals to England.

[besleybean]

Doyle was Scottish of Irish descent, just saying...

[Carol the Dabbler]

15 hours ago, Abhay Saini said:

Why [...] did England have the honor of producing the greatest minds of the Europe? English strength was simply in its adminstrative capability and its wealth of cultural knowledge that it had incorporated by its colonies.

Was Arthur Conan Doyle vastly inflating his own ego when he made Holmes and Moriarty as the greatest minds in Europe?

I suspect the main reason that Doyle made Holmes British was the traditional advice, "Write what you know" -- and Doyle was British.  Also, he made his narrator a doctor, as he himself was.  And tradition has it that he based Holmes on another doctor of his acquaintance, who was also British.  The middle of Study in Scarlet is written in third-person omniscient about American characters, and (speaking of course as an American) I don't find that part nearly as convincing as the rest.

In other words, he did it for the same reason that I'd never write a story from the viewpoint of a 110-year-old Tibetan monk.

 

[besleybean]

Guess it's a bit of an unpopular view, but I love all that American stuff!

[Abhay Saini]

Good point about  Conan Doyle knowing more about England than any other place, (though he was fascinated by USA for some reason)

However, making Holmes, Mycroft and Moriarty as the best men in Europe leaves a vast gaping hole in the minds of the readers. Its like saying Thanos was the greatest villain of all time, basically God or Devil, there is nothing beyond him.

It kinda makes entire Europe look paltry and insignificant by comparison and makes Holmes Godlike cheat code Gamer.

[Carol the Dabbler]

14 hours ago, Abhay Saini said:

making Holmes, Mycroft and Moriarty as the best men in Europe leaves a vast gaping hole in the minds of the readers

Did Doyle really say that?  Other than in "Final Problem," they never left England, and even then they were merely traveling through Europe, not competing in any way against Europeans.  Holmes may have described himself and Moriarty as "the world's greatest" (I don't recall), but that can easily be taken as meaning "the best I'm aware of" -- somewhat analogous to a kid saying "you're the best Mom in the whole world," or the competition between North American baseball teams being called the World Series.