Sherlock Holmes was one of the first in literature to have an arch nemesis.
             arch nemesis exist since the man created the first legend.
             Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the first to introduce the concept of arch nemesis into modern literature with his sherlock holmes character
             sherlock holmes wasn't the arch nemesis though moriarteh was
             and it's Sir Arthue Conan Doyle .... he was knighted you know LOL
             http://www.who2.com/jamesmoriarty.html
             Professor Moriarty is "the Napoleon of crime," according to fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Though he appears in only two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories about Holmes -- The Final Problem (1893) and the novel The Valley of Fear (1915) -- Moriarty has become known as the detective's arch-enemy, a criminal genius who rules the underworld of London. In The Final Problem, Holmes describes Moriarty this way: "He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in [London}. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order." In that story Moriarty died in a plunge from Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland after a fight to the death with Holmes, supposedly on 4 May 1891. Holmes also seemed to have died in the battle, but later made a surprise reappearance in 1903's The Adventure of the Empty House.
             Extra credit: Real-life criminal Adam Worth (1844-1902) is sometimes cited as the inspiration for Moriarty... Moriarty was played by Laurence Olivier in the 1976 film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.
             Another famous arch-villain is Ernst Stavro Blofeld, nemesis of James Bond.
             The full text of Moriarty's big tale, plus links to a few essays
             Recounts Moriarty's death, with travelogue notes on the locale
             Profiles and links from a big Holmes info-page
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