A Study in Scarlet

Arthur Conan Doyle, a British writer, published the detective novel A Study in Scarlet in 1887. It is the first story to feature Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.

Watson, a doctor invalided home from Afghanistan, needs lodgings in London, and a mutual acquaintance introduces him to Holmes, a consulting detective looking for someone to share rooms. They take rooms at 221B Baker Street, and Watson begins to watch Holmes at work.

The first case Watson records is a murder: a body is found in an empty house with no visible wound and a single word written in blood on the wall. Holmes is brought in beside two police inspectors, and the novel follows his method as much as the crime, reading the scene from details the police have passed over.

The book first appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, drew little notice, and was issued as a book the next year. It is one of only four full-length Holmes novels, followed by The Sign of the Four in 1890.