Last Sherlock Holmes work among 2023 public domain books, movies, music

An 1897 oil on canvas portrait of “Sherlock Holmes” author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by illustrator Sidney Paget is on display as part of the exhibition “Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived and Will Never Die” at the Museum of London in London, in 2014. (AP)

WASHINGTON — Sherlock Holmes is finally free to the American public in 2023.

The long-running contested copyright dispute over Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of a whipsmart detective — which has even ensnared Enola Holmes — will finally come to an end as the 1927 copyrights expiring Jan. 1 include Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes work.