The victim is identified as Enoch Drebber of Cleveland, Ohio, and documents found on his person reveal that he has a secretary, Joseph Stangerson. Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade are already on the scene. Watson accompanies Holmes to the crime scene, an abandoned house on Brixton Road. Left to right: Watson, Holmes, Lestrade, GregsonĪ telegram requests a consultation in a murder case. Original illustration of Holmes with magnifying glass, by David Henry Friston. A Study in Scarlet was the first work of detective fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as an investigative tool.

The novel was followed by The Sign of the Four, published in 1890. Although Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories featuring Holmes, A Study in Scarlet is one of only four full-length novels in the original canon. Only eleven complete copies of the magazine in which the story first appeared, Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, are known to exist now, which have considerable value. The story, and its main characters, attracted little public interest when it first appeared. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his ' study in scarlet': 'There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.'

Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in literature. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Problems playing this file? See media help.Ī Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle.

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