A Study of Five of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Mystery Stories

A Study of Five of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Mystery Stories

I have studied five of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mystery

stories. A mystery story is a piece of fiction writing where crime of

some kind is central to its plot. By that I mean the crime is a

significant part of the story, to the point that if you remove the

crime from the story, the plot has no meaning.

Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in 'A Study of Scarlet',

published in Beeton'sChristmas Annual in 1887. Conan Doyle was paid

£25 for this. Its success encouraged Conan Doyle to write a

full-length novel, and two years later, Micah Clarke was published to

critical acclaim. Doyle added to this success with a series of Holmes

stories for TheStrand Magazine in 1891. Although his stories were

popular, Conan Doyle felt that he had yet to make a lasting name in

English literature, and he referred to Holmes as taking his mind 'from

better things'.

The Holmes Stories were all set in the Victorian city of London, which

was a city of startling contrasts. New building and affluent

development went hand in hand with horribly overcrowded slums where

people lived in the worst conditions imaginable. The population surged

during the 19th century, from about 1 million in 1800 to over 6

million a century later. This growth far exceeded London's ability to

look after the basic needs of its citizens.

The titles of all the Sherlock Holmes stories I read gave small clues

about what would happen in the story. The titles vary in length and

content, the first two stories I studied had titles with people in

them 'The Engineers Thumb' and 'The Man With the Twisted Lip'. The

next two titles simply had an object in them. 'The Speckled Band' and

'The Cardboard Box', and the last story that I studied had an animal

as the main part of the title. Although these titles are different

they all have the same importance to the stories, the title of the