How to Read Sherlock Holmes in Publication Order

Sherlock Holmes appeared first in 1887, in a slim shilling shocker called A Study in Scarlet, which sold poorly and was almost the end of him. He survived only because an American magazine asked Conan Doyle for a sequel three years later. Over the next four decades, Holmes returned in four novels and fifty-six short stories - sixty works in all, every one of them now in the public domain.

Reading them in the order they appeared is not the only way to read Holmes, but it is the way Doyle wrote him: as a serial whose readers turned each new instalment of The Strand Magazine and read it that month. The order matters. Holmes ages, his methods evolve, and Doyle's confidence with the form sharpens visibly between the early adventures and the late case-book.

The four novels

In publication order: A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Sign of the Four (1890), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), The Valley of Fear (1915).

The two early novels are uneven. Study in Scarlet is half a Holmes novel and half a sprawling Mormon-frontier melodrama - the second half is famously ignored by most readers. The Sign of the Four is tighter, introduces Mary Morstan (later Mrs Watson), and contains some of the most uncomfortable racial caricature in the canon. Modern readers are entitled to skim around it.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the masterpiece. It runs largely without Holmes for its middle third, which lets Doyle's prose - usually buttressed by Holmes's voice - stand on its own, and it does. The Valley of Fear repeats the Study in Scarlet structure (a mystery foreground plus a long American flashback) but with a more confident hand on both halves.

The five short-story collections

In publication order: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894), The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905), His Last Bow (1917), The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).

If you read nothing else, read The Adventures. Twelve stories, every one of them indispensable. "A Scandal in Bohemia" introduces Irene Adler. "The Red-Headed League" is the prototype of the deceptive-distraction plot. "The Speckled Band" is the locked-room story Doyle himself thought his best.

The Memoirs ends with "The Final Problem" - the Reichenbach falls, the death (or "death") of Holmes, and the moment Doyle thought he was done with him. It is also the first appearance of Mycroft, in "The Greek Interpreter".

The Return is the resurrection collection. Public demand brought Holmes back; Doyle wrote thirteen new stories, several of them ("The Empty House", "The Dancing Men", "The Six Napoleons") as good as anything in The Adventures.

His Last Bow and The Case-Book are the late period - uneven, occasionally tired, but containing several genuine masterpieces among the experiments. "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" and "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" both belong on any short-list.

A practical reading order for a new reader

If you are new to Holmes and want the most rewarding path:

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - all twelve.
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles - the novel, complete.
3. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - selected stories: "Silver Blaze", "The Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem".
4. The Return of Sherlock Holmes - at minimum: "The Empty House", "The Dancing Men", "The Six Napoleons", "The Norwood Builder".
5. The Sign of the Four - the novel.

That is twenty pieces in total, the spine of the canon, in roughly the order of pleasure-per-page. Once you have read them, you will know whether to continue with the late period, return to the early novels, or - most likely - start over from the beginning of The Adventures.

A new reading is rarely the same as the first.