Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Perhaps its cheating a bit to pick the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as an example of fiction to film/screen adaption. Fans will know that the Sherlock Holmes stories are actually a collection of 56 short stories and four novellas. And these stories have been adapted repeatedly, with varying degrees of faithfulness to the original works.
Why?
While a detective story may have been novel at the time of first publication and perfect for a serialized story format, we now have a plethora of characters, crime procedurals, and murder mysteries to model after, so why Sherlock Holmes?
Because...
...Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating week to week between cocaine and ambition...
(A Scandal in Bohemia, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In truth, it is Sherlock Holmes who has been adapted from fiction to film countless times (or 254 times according to the Guinness Book of World Records, 2012). Sometimes his stories follow him, and sometimes he is brought kicking and screaming into the modern world. Yet, he remains in almost every incarnation, a selfish, arrogant, driven person committed to his own passions and uncaring of the feelings of others (outside of Watson and a select few). But we love him, flaws and all.
My favorite TV adaption is Sherlock:
This adaption gives us a wickedly smart, decidedly unlikable main character, a strong Watson who softens our view of Sherlock through their bromance, and a host of wacky side characters.
Mrs. Hudson being a boss.
I find the first couple of seasons to be very true to the spirit of Sherlock I remember from my reading. He is flawed, brilliant, and if there is hope for him maybe, just maybe, there is hope for the rest of us. Out of all the versions I've seen this Sherlock evokes the most frustration and sympathy.
Other adaptions lean into the drug habit, re-imagine Sherlock as a mouse or an android.
Or, even a badass.
Love, love this clinical breakdown of an all out beatdown.