From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nutrias are sometimes mistaken for the fearsome Giant Rat of Sumatra.

A giant rat is a rat that is substantially larger than its other rodent cousins. They do appear in nature, such as the Gambian Pouched Rat, Cricetomys gambianus; the Capybara, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris of South America, while not a rat, regularly tops the scales at over 200 lb (90 kg) in weight and attains upwards of 3 feet (91 cm) in size from nose to base of tail. However, the most noteworthy giant rats appear as monsters in fiction, role-playing games, computer games, and other venues of fantasy.

Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra

Perhaps the best known giant rat in fiction comes from the pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire has Sherlock Holmes declare, as an aside, to Dr. Watson:

Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson, . . . It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.

Quite how the ship, the mammal, and the Indonesian island are associated is not specified. There are a number of species of large rats on Sumatra, with one, Sundamys infraluteus, actually being referred to as the "giant rat of Sumatra". Rats commonly colonise ships, and so there is an obvious line of speculation.

Holmesianist Alan Saunders has argued ^[1] that the reference is in fact to events connected with The Adventure of the Dying Detective, although he identifies the rat as the Large Bamboo Rat. But a number of authors of Sherlockiana have endeavoured to fill in the blank and supply the missing adventure of the giant rat of Sumatra. These tales include:

• The Holmes-Dracula File, a 1978 novel by Fred Saberhagen, in which Holmes and Dracula (who turns out to be related to Holmes) uncover a plot to destroy London with plague-bearing rats, the Giant Rat being a living plague vector.
• The Giant Rat of Sumatra, a 1987 novel by Rick Boyer, which features the return of The Hound of the Baskervilles villain Stapleton. In this novel, the "giant rat" turns out to be a vicious tapir. (ISBN 0-586-20087-8)
• All-Consuming Fire, a 1994 Doctor Who novel by Andy Lane, part of the New Adventures series; in this story, the Doctor joins forces with Holmes and Watson to confront Azathoth, an entity from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The giant rat is portrayed as an alien monster. (ISBN 0-426-20415-8) See also The Talons of Weng-Chiang, a 1977 Doctor Who TV serial set in a grand guignol Victorian setting, in which the hero (dressed in deerstalker, accompanied by a medical doctor with a housekeeper known as Mrs. Hudson) confronts a giant rat in the sewers of London
• The Giant Rat of Sumatra, a 2001 novel by Daniel Gracely (ISBN 0-9714041-0-0)
• Dead Alive, a 1992 film by Peter Jackson, features a Sumatran Rat-monkey. The cage for the creature makes a cameo aboard the ship in 2005's King Kong.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra, a 2002 novel by Alan Vanneman, (Carroll & Graf, ISBN 0-7867-0956-1). The 'Matilda Briggs' does not appear in this book.
• The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, a 2003 collection of short stories by Ted Riccardi supplied an adventure involving the Giant Rat of Sumatra. (ISBN 0-9658164-3-5)
• Sherlock Holmes' Lost Adventure: The True Story of the Giant Rats of Sumatra, a 2004 novel by Lauren Steinhauer. (ISBN 0-595-66386-9)
• "A Father's Tale", a 1974 novelet by Sterling E. Lanier. Lanier's narrator, Brigadier Ffellowes, recounts his father's story of an encounter in the East Indies with a mysterious man calling himself "Verner", and a race of large, intelligent rats.
• The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, a 1974 comedy album by the Firesign Theatre (LP Columbia KC32730). This is a pastiche, with protagonists Hemlock Stones, the 'Great Defective', and his biographer and companion, Dr. John Flotsom, O. D., part of which takes place aboard the "Matilda Brigg". The name of this ship induces the group to perform the song Frigate Matilda (to the tune of Waltzing Matilda), which has become somewhat of a cult standard.
• In Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds, Holmes mentions that Professor Challenger helped solve the case of the giant rat, although what the case actually was is not mentioned.
• In Pursuit to Algiers (1945), a Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, Watson tells the story of the Giant Rat of Sumatra to an audience on board a ship.
• The phrase was also used as a title for one of the books in the Hardy Boys juvenile mystery series. It was mentioned in the novel Watership Down in one of the rabbits' allegorical tales.
• In Dutch author Reggie Naus' 2008 children's book De schat van Inktvis Eiland (The Treasure of Squid Island), a group of pirates tell tall tales around the campfire. One of them claims to have seen all his shipmates being eaten by a giant rat on Sumatra. The author's a Holmes fan.

Other fictional giant rats

• Giant rats, known as Rodents of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S.), are a running gag in the novel and motion picture The Princess Bride.

• The Stephen King anthology Night Shift contains a short story, Graveyard Shift, later made into a movie of the same name, which climaxes with the revelation of a giant rat.

• The Giant Black Rat is a ferocious species of radiation spawned mutants featured in James Herbert's "Rats Quadrilogy".

• The movie Willard (1971 film) and its 2003 remake featured a giant rat named Ben. He was also prominently featured in the 1972 sequel named after him.

• In the Jet Li film Dr. Wai and the Scripture Without Words (冒險王) a giant, mutant rat (frequently mistaken as some sort of marsupial) is encountered in the basement of a 1930's era Shanghai newspaper and complications ensue.

• A giant rat plays a pivotal role in the Bram Stoker short story "The Judge's House" in the collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories.

• A giant rat is encountered by the Doctor and Leela in the Doctor Who story "The Talons of Weng Chiang.

References

1. ^ The Sumatran Devil

External links

• Fauna in the Canon by Ronald Rosenblatt
• "Long Ago, a Rodent as Big as a Bull Lurked in South America" Associated Press, Jan 17, 2008. Josephoartigasia monesi
• "A giant rat has been discovered deep in the jungle of Papua New Guinea" BBC, Sep 6, 2009. Mallomys, full name yet to be decided