The Journal
The best Sherlock Holmes stories to read first
The Sherlock Holmes canon consists of four novels and fifty-six short stories. Not all of them are equally good, and not all of them are equally accessible as entry points. This is the order to read them in, and the specific stories that reward a first-time reader most.
Arthur Conan Doyle published the first Holmes story in 1887 and the last in 1927. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -- the first short story collection -- is free on Foxing and is the best place to start.
Start with the short stories, not the novels#
The four novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear) are longer and more structurally uneven. The short stories are where Doyle's formula is most perfectly executed: a problem introduced, Holmes's investigation, a revelation that reframes everything. The stories in The Adventures and The Memoirs are tighter and more satisfying than any of the novels except The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The five stories to read first#
"A Scandal in Bohemia" -- the opening story of The Adventures and one of the finest in the canon. It introduces Irene Adler, the only person who has ever outsmarted Holmes, and it establishes the character's capacity for genuine admiration. It is also a complete, satisfying mystery in twelve pages.
"The Red-Headed League" -- Holmes at his most theatrically brilliant. The setup is absurd (a man is paid to copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica because of the colour of his hair). The solution is elegant. The story demonstrates better than any other how Doyle plants clues in plain sight and then makes them invisible through misdirection.
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" -- the most purely frightening story in the canon. A locked-room mystery that Doyle considered his own best work. The solution is satisfying and the atmosphere of menace is genuine.
"Silver Blaze" -- the source of the "curious incident of the dog in the nighttime" exchange, one of the most famous moments in detective fiction. Holmes deduces a crucial fact from what did not happen. The story is a perfect demonstration of the iceberg principle applied to detection.
"The Final Problem" -- the story in which Doyle killed Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls. Reading it knowing that Holmes will die and that Doyle intended it to be permanent changes how the story reads. It is more elegiac than most Holmes.
When to read the novels#
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) -- Doyle's best long-form Holmes, with a Gothic atmosphere that the short stories do not have and a mystery that genuinely holds up. Read it after you have read a dozen short stories and are comfortable with Holmes and Watson as a partnership.
A Study in Scarlet (1887) -- the first appearance of Holmes and Watson, interesting historically but structurally uneven. The long flashback to Utah in the middle of the novel is the weakest extended section in the canon.
What to read after Holmes#
For books that share Holmes's combination of atmosphere and rational investigation, classic mysteries and detective fiction in the Holmes tradition covers the full range.
For the biography of Doyle and the fascinating complications of his personal life, the real Arthur Conan Doyle behind Sherlock Holmes is the companion piece.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is free on Foxing.
Sources#
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, George Newnes, 1892
- Daniel Stashower, Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Holt, 1999
- Leslie S. Klinger, ed., The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, W.W. Norton, 2005