The Novels

by Arthur Conan Doyle

The four Sherlock Holmes novels form the structural backbone of the canon, introducing the universe's central characters and establishing its most substantial plots. A Study in Scarlet presents the first meeting of Holmes and Watson and sets out the consulting detective's method in full; The Sign of Four deepens their partnership while introducing one of the canon's more personally consequential cases; The Hound of the Baskervilles, the most celebrated and self-contained of the four, sends Holmes and Watson to the Devon moors for the canon's most atmospheric investigation; and The Valley of Fear, the final novel, returns to the theme of organised crime and secret societies that runs through the earlier work. The novels reward reading in publication order but The Hound of the Baskervilles functions as a natural entry point for newcomers encountering Holmes for the first time.

Part of Sherlock Holmes

The Sherlock Holmes universe is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle, comprising four novels and fifty-six short stories published between 1887 and 1927. Set primarily in late Victorian and Edwardian London, it follows the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr John Watson across a career spanning several decades. The universe is defined by its central dynamic - Holmes's extraordinary powers of observation and deductive reasoning applied to cases ranging from the mundane to the genuinely bizarre - and by Watson's role as narrator and audience surrogate, whose admiring but grounded perspective mediates Holmes's more alien qualities for the reader. London itself functions as a character, its fog, gaslight, and social stratification providing both atmosphere and the conditions that make Holmes's work necessary. The fixed, closed canon and its public domain status have made it one of the most studied and adapted fictional universes in existence.

The Novels

Publication Order