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{{Short description|Short story by Arthur Conan Doyle featuring Sherlock Holmes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=November 2016}}
{{Infobox short story <!--See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]]-->
| name              = A Case of Identity
| image             = Strand1891-V2_0247_(cropped).png
| caption           = Holmes welcoming Miss Mary, 1891 illustration by [[Sidney Paget]]
| title_orig        = 
| translator        = 
| author            = [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]
| country           = United Kingdom
| language          = English
| series            = ''[[The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]''
| genre             = [[Detective fiction]] [[short stories]]
| published_in      = [[Strand Magazine]]
| publication_type  =
| publisher         = 
| media_type        = 
| pub_date          = September 1891
| english_pub_date  = 
| preceded_by       = [[The Red-Headed League]]
| followed_by       = [[The Boscombe Valley Mystery]]
|wikisource = A Case of Identity
}}

"'''A Case of Identity'''" is one of the 56 short [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories written by Sir [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] and is the third story in ''[[The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]''. It first appeared in ''[[Strand Magazine|The Strand Magazine]]'' in September 1891.

==Plot==
Mary Sutherland, a working-class girl who possesses a generous income as a result of a bequest from a relative, comes to [[Sherlock Holmes]] and [[Dr. Watson]] for help after her fiancé, Hosmer Angel, disappears on their wedding day. Angel, Holmes learns, was a quiet and secretive man who always wore a pair of tinted glasses and would not give Sutherland his address, insisting that she leave letters at the local [[Poste restante|post office]] instead. He would only meet her when her disapproving stepfather, James Windibank, was out of the country on business. 

Holmes easily deduces that Windibank and Angel are the same person. Windibank knew that he could only benefit from his stepdaughter's income while she remained unmarried, and so he hatched a plan to keep her single indefinitely. As "Hosmer Angel", he successfully sought her hand; he then engineered Angel's disappearance before the marriage could take place. As he had hoped, Sutherland remained loyal to Angel, saying she could never love another.

Holmes chooses not to divulge his findings to Sutherland, knowing she will not believe him anyway. He advises her to forget about Angel, though his words have little effect on her. As for Windibank, Holmes predicts that his wicked ways will eventually lead him to the gallows.

==Publication history==
"A Case of Identity" was first published in the UK in ''[[The Strand Magazine]]'' in September 1891, and in the United States in the US edition of the ''Strand'' in October 1891.<ref>Smith (2014), p. 45.</ref> The story was published with seven illustrations by [[Sidney Paget]] in ''The Strand Magazine''.<ref name="Cawthorne 58">Cawthorne (2011), p. 58.</ref> It was included in the short story collection ''[[The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]'',<ref name="Cawthorne 58"/> which was published in October 1892.<ref>Cawthorne (2011), p. 54.</ref>

==Adaptations==
===Film and television===
This story was the basis for the third Holmes adventure (released in 1921) in the silent [[Sherlock Holmes (Stoll film series)|Stoll film series]] starring [[Eille Norwood]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Eyles|first=Alan|title=Sherlock Holmes: A Centenary Celebration |url=https://archive.org/details/sherlockholmesce0000eyle|url-access=registration|year=1986 |publisher=Harper & Row |page=[https://archive.org/details/sherlockholmesce0000eyle/page/130 130] |ISBN=0-06-015620-1}}</ref>

In 2001, this was the basis for the last episode of the animated television series ''[[Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Barnes |first=Alan |author-link=Alan Barnes (writer) |title=Sherlock Holmes on Screen |year=2011 |publisher=Titan Books |pages=225–226 |ISBN=9780857687760}}</ref>

In 2014, it is seen in "[[The Empty Hearse]]", from the [[BBC television]] series ''[[Sherlock (TV series)|Sherlock]]'', as one of the cases Sherlock works on with Molly Hooper assisting him. Mary Sutherland was portrayed by Elizabeth Coyle.  Molly Hooper was portrayed by Louise Brealey.

In the fourth episode of the 2014 Japanese [[puppetry]] television series ''[[Sherlock Holmes (2014 TV series)|Sherlock Holmes]]'', Mary Sutherland is a pupil of [[Beeton School]]. She is in love with the senior Hosmer Angel who suddenly disappears in a [[cave]] at the back of the school. Holmes, a pupil who lives in room 221B of Baker Dormitory, suspects that Angel and Windibank, one of the childhood friends of Sutherland, are the same person and he and Watson find out that there is no pupil called Hosmer Angel in the school. Holmes appreciates Watson for consoling the broken-hearted Sutherland. Watson tells Holmes, who criticises novels as in the original story, that he is wrong to do so because various things can be learned from novels including how to understand the female mind.<ref>Shinjiro Okazaki and Kenichi Fujita (ed.), "シャーロックホームズ冒険ファンブック Shārokku Hōmuzu Boken Fan Bukku", Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2014, pp.40–42, 78–79. (Guidebook to the show)</ref>

===Radio and audio dramas===
[[Edith Meiser]] adapted the story as an episode of the radio series ''[[The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (radio series)|The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]'', which aired on 5 May 1932, starring [[Richard Gordon (actor)|Richard Gordon]] as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson.<ref>Dickerson (2019), p. 42.</ref> Another episode adapted from the story aired on 21 April 1935 (with [[Louis Hector]] as Holmes and Lovell as Watson).<ref>Dickerson (2019), p. 64.</ref>

Edith Meiser also adapted the story for the radio series ''[[The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]'' with [[Basil Rathbone]] as Holmes and [[Nigel Bruce]] as Watson. The episode aired on 30 November 1941.<ref>Dickerson (2019), p. 96.</ref> Another adaptation of the story aired in the same series on 30 May 1948 (with John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson).<ref>Dickerson (2019), p. 255.</ref>

[[John Gielgud]] played Sherlock Holmes and [[Ralph Richardson]] played Dr. Watson in a radio adaptation that aired on the [[BBC Light Programme]] on 2 November 1954. It was broadcast on [[NBC]] radio on 23 January 1955.<ref>Dickerson (2019), p. 284.</ref>

A radio adaptation aired in 1969, as part of the [[Sherlock Holmes (1952 radio series)|1952–1969 BBC radio series]] starring [[Carleton Hobbs]] as Holmes and [[Norman Shelley]] as Watson. It was adapted by [[Michael Hardwick]].<ref>{{cite book |last=De Waal |first=Ronald Burt |title=The World Bibliography of Sherlock Holmes |year=1974 |publisher=Bramhall House |page=[https://archive.org/details/worldbibliograph00dewa/page/392 392] |isbn=0-517-217597 |url=https://archive.org/details/worldbibliograph00dewa|url-access=registration }}</ref>

The story was adapted in 1990 by Peter Mackie as an episode of the [[List of BBC Radio Sherlock Holmes dramatisations|1989–1998 BBC radio series]], starring [[Clive Merrison]] as Holmes and [[Michael Williams (actor)|Michael Williams]] as Watson, and featuring [[Susannah Corbett]] as Mary Sutherland.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://merrisonholmes.com/adventures.php
|title=The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
|accessdate=12 December 2016
|website=The BBC complete audio Sherlock Holmes 
|author=Bert Coules}}</ref>

A 2014 episode of the radio series ''[[The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]'' was adapted from the story, with [[John Patrick Lowrie]] as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.old-time.com/otrlogs2/classicsh_sw.log.pdf |website=Old-Time Radio |title=The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Broadcast Log |last=Wright |first=Stewart |date=30 April 2019 |access-date=15 June 2020 |archive-date=24 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924220142/https://www.old-time.com/otrlogs2/classicsh_sw.log.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==References==
'''Notes'''
{{Reflist}}

'''Sources'''
* {{cite book |title=A Brief History of Sherlock Holmes |last=Cawthorne |first=Nigel |author-link=Nigel Cawthorne |publisher=Running Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0762444083}}
* {{cite book |last=Dickerson |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Dickerson |title=Sherlock Holmes and His Adventures on American Radio |publisher=BearManor Media |year=2019 |isbn=978-1629335087}}
* {{cite book |last=Smith |first=Daniel |title=The Sherlock Holmes Companion: An Elementary Guide |publisher=Aurum Press |year=2014 |edition=Updated |orig-year=2009 |isbn=978-1-78131-404-3}}

==External links==
*{{wikisource-inline|single=true}}
*{{commons category-inline}}
*{{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/arthur-conan-doyle/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes|Display Name=''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'', including ''{{PAGENAMEBASE}}''|noitalics=true}}
* {{librivox book | title=A Case of Identity | author=Sir Arthur Conan Doyle}}

{{The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Case Of Identity, A}}
[[Category:Sherlock Holmes short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle]]
[[Category:Fiction set in 1887]]
[[Category:1891 short stories]]
[[Category:Works originally published in The Strand Magazine]]
[[Category:Short stories adapted into films]]