Historian Lucy Worsley delves into the complicated relationship between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes

Thick tweed fabrics, cozy closed-door home libraries and leather-bound books are all trending on social media this winter. The aesthetic — now often referred to as “dark academia” — hearkens back to a simpler time, one in which low lighting, wingback chairs and rich, luscious textiles are key for setting the mood. Some might say that the only thing missing is a deerstalker cap and a good mystery novel — and they would be right.

Fictional detective Sherlock Holmes has undoubtedly had an impact on the readers of the world (and in the realms of fashion and home decor, too, it would seem), but perhaps no one has been more affected by the sleuth than his own author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the new three-part docuseries Lucy Worsley’s Holmes vs. Doyle, the titular television host does some investigating of her own, uncovering how the lives of the man and his most popular creation came to echo one another in an uncanny harmony, often to the author’s detriment.

Throughout his 137 years on the page, Sherlock Holmes has solved 60 separate cases across 56 short stories and four novels, but the biggest mystery of them all has been lying just beneath the surface of the fiction. For years, it appeared that Doyle — a private detective in his own right — despised his most prized creation, but why he grew to dislike the fictional character was never quite clear . . . until now.

In the first episode of Holmes vs. Doyle, Worsley travels back in time to the British author’s not-so-humble beginnings as a medical student in the lowland Scottish city of Edinburgh before diving into the cultural movements of the Victorian era in what is now the United Kingdom.

According to the PBS press release, Worsley “unpacks the early stories, revealing the dark underbelly of late Victorian Britain, from drug use to true crime. She explores how Doyle infused his stories with cutting-edge technological developments and traces the author’s growing disenchantment with his detective, heading to Switzerland to visit the site of one of the most famous deaths in literature.”

Moving through Doyle’s life and ever-growing oeuvre, the second episode (airing December 15) is heavily based upon the writer’s decision to kill off his beloved case cracker in his 1893 work The Final Problem, set two years earlier, in 1891.

“[Worsley] explores Doyle’s desire to distance himself from Sherlock after the detective’s apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls,” the description reads. “From the delights of the ski slopes to the horrors of the Boer War, she reveals how far Doyle went to make himself the hero of his own story. He even took on the role of detective himself in one of the most important legal cases of the 20th century.”

By the time viewers arrive at the conclusion of the PBS docuseries on December 22, Worsley investigates the parallel timelines of both author and authored. By analyzing Doyle’s decision to bring his most iconic character back from the dead, the presenter illustrates where Doyle’s and Holmes’ personalities, decisions and life events began to converge before dovetailing, ultimately resulting in the character eclipsing the now-aging crime novelist.

“In the finale, ‘Shadows and Sleuths’ [Worsley] investigates the return of Sherlock,” says PBS. “Doyle began the Edwardian age delighting in all it had to offer, but as the First World War approached, the darkness of the later stories mirrored the reality of Doyle’s life. After losing his eldest son, he became an evangelist for spiritualism, and his star declined after a public spat with a famous magician. Sherlock Holmes, in contrast, found a life beyond his author on stage and screen.”

According to writer and editor Ronald B. De Waal in his 1995 four-volume compilation, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, the character has now been adapted into more than 25,000 forms, including works translated into 63 languages worldwide. From the written form to visual mediums such as film and television, Holmes’ reach extends far beyond that of the vast majority of living (or once living) people, something which continued to baffle Doyle long into his life and career.

“The curious thing is,” Doyle mused aloud to a camera in a 1928 interview with William Fox, “how many people around the world who are perfectly convinced that he is a living human being. I get letters addressed to him. I get letters asking for his autograph. I get letters addressed to his other stupid friend, Watson,” Doyle chuckles with a glimmer in his eye. “I even had ladies writing that they would be glad to act as his housekeeper.” (The latter portion being a clear, if moderately bemusing, sign of the times.)

And while this notable interview is available on YouTube for those who wish to seek it out, Sherlock Holmes fans truly need look no further than Worsley and her in-depth research. A self-proclaimed lifelong fan of Holmes in her own right — and Doyle, of course, by extension — Worsley “explores the parallel lives of Doyle and Holmes in the historical context of their times.”

Lucy Worsley’s Holmes vs. Doyle premieres Sunday, December 8, on KCTS and WTVS