A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)

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A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes #1)

4.1 of 5 stars 4.10 · rating details · 72,726 ratings · 2,615 reviews

"A Study in Scarlet" is the first published story of one of the most famous literary detectives of all time, Sherlock Holmes. Here Dr. Watson, who has just returned from a war in Afghanistan, meets Sherlock Holmes for the first time when they become flat-mates at the famous 221 B Baker Street. In "A Study in Scarlet" Sherlock Holmes investigates a murder at Lauriston Garde...more

Paperback, 108 pages

Published January 1st 2005 by Digireads.com (first published 1887)

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Jan 22, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1800s, mystery, sherlockian, audiobook, easton-press, crime, classics, classics-european

The birth of a legend....

This is it...the novel in which Sir Arthur ushered the world’s ~~greatest~~ second best detective ~~(after Batman)~~ into our collective consciousness. Being the non-conformist rebel that I am, I started off bassackwards by reading The Valley of Fear and then The Adventure of the Final Problem because those were the two stories with Moriarty in them. Shocking, I know, but that’s just how I roll. Btw, it still really chaffs my cheeks that Doyle wrote 56 short stories and 4 nove...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Nilesh Kashyap rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An anti-review
I don’t read reviews of books, of which I am damn sure I will be reading it very soon. Now, I don’t know how this habit affects my reading.

So, what happened was..
I was not aware of the fact that “I had to be surprised when the second part of the book starts and wonder what happened to the story with Sherlock Holmes in it and how that mystery was solved! Moreover, I had to wonder whether the second part was from some other book, somehow got binded in my copy and curse the publish...more

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Oct 28, 2011 Tatiana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, mysteries-thrillers-horror

Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel is utterly unimpressive. In short, the book starts like this:

and mid-way turns into this:

And I am not even joking. The novel begins with Holmes and Watson meeting, moving into their Baker Street apartment and then investigating a murder of a man found in an abandoned house. At the half point, however, the story completely changes its course and becomes the most awkward introduction of the murderer's back story and motives involving Mormons, polyga...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Jacob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, fiction-and-literature, i-own, mystery-crime-adventure-etc, doyle-and-friends

Mormons and murder, aaaiiieeeee!

For those who prefer their Sherlock Holmes served up pure and without digression (and I am one), it is possible to skip over the long omniscient passage entitled "The Country of the Saints" without losing "the scarlet thread of murder." Indeed, rare is the reader who can resist the temptation to leapfrog the Great Alkali Plain and learn the fate of the person responsible for the singlular expression of horror and hatred on the dead man’s face at No. 3 Lauriston Ga

...more

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Oct 06, 2008 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: victorian, crime, 1880s, london

In A Study in Scarlet (1888), Arthur Conan Doyle introduces his master sleuth to the world, warts and all. Aside from his well-known arrogance and tactlessness, Holmes' other flaws – as well as his odd but impressive knowledge – are cataloged by his astonished new roommate, Dr. Watson:

1. Knowledge of Literature. — Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy. — Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy. — Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics. — Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany. — Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poisons g

...more In A Study in Scarlet (1888), Arthur Conan Doyle introduces his master sleuth to the world, warts and all. Aside from his well-known arrogance and tactlessness, Holmes' other flaws – as well as his odd but impressive knowledge – are cataloged by his astonished new roommate, Dr. Watson:

1. Knowledge of Literature. — Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy. — Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy. — Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics. — Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany. — Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology. — Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks, has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry. — Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy. — Accurate, but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature. — Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

Holmes is clearly a rara avis, and his oddities and eccentricities are as surprising as his formidable powers of detection. The first half of A Study in Scarlet, the most entertaining part of the book, is a finely drawn study of Holmes' character, peculiar habits, and methods for solving crime. Anyone interested in Holmes will enjoy this intriguing introduction to the great consulting detective.

Unfortunately, the actual crimes that are committed in this novella aren't nearly so intriguing as Doyle's portrait of Holmes. The detective's first documented case is uncommonly violent: two Americans are murdered – one in an empty house, the other in his hotel room; the crime scenes are littered with evidence – a wedding ring, a box of pills, tobacco ash, footprints, and the German word RACHE, scrawled in blood on the walls. Scotland Yard is stymied; Holmes' services are called upon.

To explain the murders, Doyle flashes back some twenty years to the early Mormon settlement of Utah Territory. The transition from late Victorian London to the great alkali deserts of the North American West is jarring and confusing, and his treatment of the settlers there is just as rough. Working from prejudiced sources hostile to the Mormons, Doyle sketches a "historical" romance that casts the Saints as bloodthirsty white slavers dominated by the belligerent figure of Brigham Young. Doyle's tale spirals off on this tangent for far too many tortuous – and some may say offensive – chapters until we are suddenly back in the drawing room of 221B Baker Street, where the mystery is resolved, rehashed, retold, and awkwardly laid to rest.

A Study in Scarlet, in spite of its flaws, is still required reading for any Sherlock Holmes fan. To meet Holmes in all his quirkiness is worth the perplexing, sometimes unsavory slog through the tale's second half. Or, as some readers have suggested, you could save yourself some tedium by skipping over all the flashback, reading just the first seven chapters and then the last two, which actually feature the super sleuth solving the case.

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Feb 03, 2012 Tanu Das rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: excellent-prose, favorite-protagonist, really-good

Rating: 4 stars

This is my first Sherlock Holmes novel and yes, I am ashamed for not having read it earlier. I suppose that, what LOTR trilogy is to the fantasy world, Sherlock Holmes is to the detective/crime genre. Reading it is kind of like getting a degree. So anyway friends, I have graduated and am finally an official member of the crime/mystery fandom.

And I am most definitely a part of the bandwagon of Sherlock Homes fans.
description

Okay, off to the plot them:

“A Study in Scarlet” introduces the famo...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, audio-books, conan-doyle

_A Study in Scarlet_ is an interesting book for several reasons. Here we have the first written adventure of Sherlock Holmes and get both the first introduction to the famous sleuth and his comrade Dr. Watson, as well as details of their first meeting. We are treated to a somewhat humorous précis of Watson’s first impressions of his strange room-mate (detailed in several other reviews) and even manage to see a fledgling Holmes occasionally wrong, or at least not 100% accurate, in some of his ini...more _A Study in Scarlet_ is an interesting book for several reasons. Here we have the first written adventure of Sherlock Holmes and get both the first introduction to the famous sleuth and his comrade Dr. Watson, as well as details of their first meeting. We are treated to a somewhat humorous précis of Watson’s first impressions of his strange room-mate (detailed in several other reviews) and even manage to see a fledgling Holmes occasionally wrong, or at least not 100% accurate, in some of his initial surmises at the mystery they become embroiled in. We also see the somewhat ambivalent and competitive relationship Holmes has with Scotland Yard and his disdain for the official investigators and their inferior methods of detection.

The mystery itself involves the double homicide of two Americans and an embarrassment of mysterious clues at the place of the first murder. Of course both Scotland Yard detectives assigned to the case manage to make the wrong assumptions and go off in different directions, though Holmes has to grudgingly admit that they “are coming along” and even wonders at one point if they have managed to beat him to the punch when one of his own assumptions seems to have gone awry.

The story is actually in two parts, the first of which covers the initial mystery and the very engrossing portrait of Holmes and his many quirks. Holmes ultimately proves able to solve the mystery by the end of this section in a fashion perhaps more mysterious than the murders themselves. From here we go to a flashback of events separated in both time and space by great distance in order to be given the background of the two murders in London and many readers seem to have a big problem with this. I actually found this section, while certainly a bit jarring at first, to be a well-written and entertaining story in itself. Its chief failings seem to be that a) it is not a story involving Sherlock Holmes, and b) the historicity of some of its facts can be considered somewhat questionable as it turns the early Mormons and their leaders into some kind of nefarious secret society rivalling even the Illuminati or Rosicrucians. I didn’t find either of these elements to be too great of an obstacle personally. I knew that we would return to Holmes & Watson in due course to be provided with our explanations and revelations and if I wasn’t being given a straight history lesson on the true founding of Salt Lake City, then I was certainly given an entertaining tale that was probably more interesting than the facts themselves would have been. The only part of this tale I really found questionable was that (view spoiler)

The culmination of both stories as they meet in the rooms of Holmes and Watson at 221B Baker Street in London was satisfying and I highly recommend this story. Another 4, or 4.5 star book from Doyle.
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Jan 19, 2010 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 19th-century, goth-goth-baby, fiction, brit-lit, heard-not-read, victorian

Who knew that Mormons make the perfect gothic villians? And so long ago! You didn't even have Big Love for inspiration. Bravo, well done you! And any simplicity of plot is totally forgiven for lines like "the scarlet skein of murder runs through the plot of life." You delicious mind, you.

Also, this definitely could have been subtitled The Seduction of Doctor Watson. You can see how Holmes and Watson grow from strangers (where Watson's kind of iffy about sharing rooms with a crazy man) to friends...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Bonnie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Bonnie by: Maja

Shelves: classics, mystery-thriller, banned-books, sherlock-my-love

Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!

Part I

The Storyline
This being the first story in the Sherlock Holmes series, this is also the introduction of the two main characters: Holmes and Watson. After meeting one another they agree to move in together as they were both in need of a roommate. Shortly after, a man is discovered as being murdered and Sherlock Holmes is asked to evaluate the scene to determine if there is any evidence of who may have done it. The only clue is a woman’s weddin...more

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Apr 28, 2010 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

This is the first of Sherlock Holmes, it is very cool and I enjoyed it. The very interesting part of the book is that it is Doyle's first try at historical fiction. In the introduction it talked about how he was not very accurate with his history but remember it is fiction. I find it interesting because I am a member of The Church of Jesus Crist of Later-Day Saints also known as "the Mormons".
In this book the two people that are murdered are Mormons and the Murderer is not Mormon but lived amon...more This is the first of Sherlock Holmes, it is very cool and I enjoyed it. The very interesting part of the book is that it is Doyle's first try at historical fiction. In the introduction it talked about how he was not very accurate with his history but remember it is fiction. I find it interesting because I am a member of The Church of Jesus Crist of Later-Day Saints also known as "the Mormons".
In this book the two people that are murdered are Mormons and the Murderer is not Mormon but lived among them. The way that Doyle portrays Mormons in this book is consistent to how people in England Viewed Mormons in the late 1880's but it is completely inaccurate to what Mormon's were then and now. It is quite funny how they are portrayed in this book. The murderer is in love with a young woman who is being forced into a polygamous marriage that was arranged by Brigham Young. The woman, her father and the murderer all try to escape but the tight Mormon community locks down like a military zone with people on guard and secret pass codes to get to and fro. It is so inaccurate that the introduction says "The Brigham Young [Doyle:] produced, while owing more to the English Jesuits and Scots Calvinists of his own past, carried one quality of its historical original: his force." In other words Doyle only got one thing right. It was funny to see the Mormon’s portrayed as the villains in the book. I was not offended at all about this book and found everything very funny as I read how people portrayed Mormon’s back then. My mother joined the Mormon Church about 40 years ago in England and says they still had bits of this reputation when she looked into them.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Sherlock Holmes because it lives up to the reputation and he is able to see clues that others do not and the way he caught the murderer was an awesome surprise. Then the explanation of how he did it is written just as if Holmes does not understand why others did not see all the clues yet he does not say in this book that "it was elementary" I think that comes later.
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Aug 28, 2010 A.U.C. rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really, really enjoy mystery and detective novels. So when I told a friend about this, she asked "and have you ever read the Sherlock Holmes series?" I said "no", yet I knew what my next mission was: to read them.

So, I started the book, and unlike most 19th century novels, this book was entertaining from the first page onwards. It was extremely well written, its language being precise and sort of scientifical (like Sherlock Holmes himself) but also with an entertaining and, if I may say so, go...more

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Dec 28, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Kristel

Shelves: 501, detective, british

Not related to the book yet

This is the book that completes my 2011 Goodreads Reading Challenge! 275 books and I still have 3 days to spare. My first target was 200 because that was the the annual target of the author Nicholas Sparks as he said in one of his interviews. But I achieved it in September so I changed it to 250. But I achieved 250 on the last week of October and I thought I could still read 25 more. So, here I am, proud that I was able to read 275 books!!! Last year, I only read 196 b...more

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May 28, 2010 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery, detectives

Sherlock Holmes is a dick. And I don’t mean that as a reference to the character being a private detective.

Sure, he may be brilliant, but he’s also arrogant, condescending, cold, rude, self-absorbed and generally an insufferable douche bag. If Watson wasn’t such a brown-noser, he’d have snapped and pimp slapped the shit out of Holmes about five minutes after meeting him.

It’d been a long time since I’d read any of the Holmes stories, and I thought I’d check some out after watching Robert Downey...more

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Jan 05, 2013 midnightfaerie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

A Study in Scarlet by Sherlock Holmes was another enthralling and suspenseful mystery. Doyle wins again with his ever lovable Holmes and Watson duo. This was his first Holmes story, and I loved that it was a novel and not a short story. To me, there was much more depth and description to the characters that really added to the novel. I'm in the progress of creating a list of reasons that these books are classics, but I don't know yet, if it's just the Holmes stories that I consider classics, or...more A Study in Scarlet by Sherlock Holmes was another enthralling and suspenseful mystery. Doyle wins again with his ever lovable Holmes and Watson duo. This was his first Holmes story, and I loved that it was a novel and not a short story. To me, there was much more depth and description to the characters that really added to the novel. I'm in the progress of creating a list of reasons that these books are classics, but I don't know yet, if it's just the Holmes stories that I consider classics, or Doyle overall as an author. I have to read some more of Doyle's work before I decide that. But I'll eventually make a page for it like I did Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens. Reading this book it's easy to see why Sherlock Holmes is one of the most influential personas of all time. His brilliance and flaws all rolled into one make him one of the most interesting and alluring characters ever.

I had an introduction to my book by David Stuart Davies, a British writer who has written extensively about Sherlock Holmes, both fiction and non-fiction. In it, he brings up some points that I didn't know previously and found both delightful and surprising. The first being Doyle's non-attention to detail, the opposite of our beloved character, Sherlock Holmes. For a man who writes about a character who pays so much attention to the smallest clue, it's no wonder I was shocked to find that he wasn't a big fan of re-reading his own novels, or fact checking his work to make sure the stories all matched in facts. For example, in this book, Watson's army wound is on his shoulder, but in the next, The Sign of the Four (which I will be reading next), Watson's old army wound is in his leg. There are several of these inconsistencies throughout the Sherlock Holmes stories and I find it kind of fun to try and locate them.

Another fact I found fascinating was that Doyle met Oscar Wilde at a luncheon for a magazine launch, who was also commissioned to write some books for the magazine. Wilde was to write The Picture of Dorian Gray while Conan Doyle was to be the second Holmes adventure, The Sign of the Four. This meeting has been said, by some to be the thing that might have inspired Doyle to make Holmes a drug user, a past time popular during that era in Victorian society. There is also speculation that the character, Thaddeus Sholto, has some Wilde-like qualities about him and may have been inspired by him. There are more fascinating facts about Conan Doyle, but I'll leave that for future reviews, or hopefully, for my readers to read on their own. Overall, I very much enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading more Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

ClassicsDefined.com (less)

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Sep 21, 2010 Emma Frost rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sherlock-holmes

A Study in Scarlet is wonderful right up until the point where there's an entirely separate story wedged into the middle of it. I understand the relevance of having the perspective of the criminals, but I think ACD got a little carried away. I've never read this before, however, so to see the first ever meeting of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson was enjoyable, and seeing how they grow to each other.

A Sign of the Four, on the other hand, is definitely my preferred of the two. Maybe I pay too much...more

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May 02, 2010 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, mystery-and-thrillers, 2010, reviewed, religion-related, challenge-1010

I really enjoyed this story, and now begin to wonder why I've never read any of these Sherlock Holmes stories before. (I did like to read the Slylock Fox mystery cartoon in the Sunday paper as a kid, but that hardly counts. :P)

This is the very first of all of the SH stories, and it introduces us to Holmes, Watson, and the methodology of Holmes's practice and brilliance. I loved Holmes's witty, dry humor, and his quirkiness and genius. I also loved Watson's more socially accepted gentleman role....more I really enjoyed this story, and now begin to wonder why I've never read any of these Sherlock Holmes stories before. (I did like to read the Slylock Fox mystery cartoon in the Sunday paper as a kid, but that hardly counts. :P)

This is the very first of all of the SH stories, and it introduces us to Holmes, Watson, and the methodology of Holmes's practice and brilliance. I loved Holmes's witty, dry humor, and his quirkiness and genius. I also loved Watson's more socially accepted gentleman role. He's fresh back from the Afghanistan war, after being wounded and ill, and is intrigued by the mystery that is Holmes, but isn't exactly keeping up with him all that well. I always get a kick out of reading Victorian lit when it comes to people's constitutions, and how the simple exertion of morning errands can be enough to wear someone out, or how excitement can lead to a bed-ridden state of ill-health. What would these people think if they were to see a single episode of CSI? They'd probably keel right over dead from shock. I love Victorian lit for this reason, it amuses me.

I love that Holmes is sort of falsely self-deprecating. He's brilliant, and knows it, but for him it's normal, so he tries to act like he's normal, while all the while being brilliant because he just can't help it. He loves flattery though, so mention he's brilliant next time you see him and I'm sure he'll be pleased. ;)

The story is narrated by Watson, or rather, catalogued by Watson, except for the middle, which is the first part of the 2nd half. I was kind of thrown off by this, and wasn't sure how the two completely different stories had anything to do with each other, but I was rewarded for my patience, I think. I mean, the whole thing was barely a novella, it's not like it was any huge commitment to stick with it. The middle section details the back-story of the events that led to the initial murder which Holmes and Watson investigate. Once I realized that's where it was going (which took a few pages, even in a barely-novella length story), I was intrigued to see how it would end.

There is, in this section, a rather blatant anti-Mormon sentiment. High ranking Mormons (referred to as the "Holy Four") were depicted as essentially bad men who care more about power and expansion than they do of the happiness and Godliness of their community. They dictated rules of behavior and instilled fear in the community by invoking terror - any dissent, no matter how small, was cause for harsh repercussions. People would just vanish... Add to that the attitude towards women, calling them "heifers" as if they are chattel rather than people, etc, and you have yourself a pretty dislikable group.
This is not the first I've heard of this kind of thing regarding Mormons, but I was surprised to see it here! I'm all for people believing what they want, but with that comes freedom to choose.

This section did interrupt that flow of the story, for me, and kind of drug out a little too long. I think that it could have probably been worked into the story differently in order for the story to flow better. I really loved the conclusion, where Holme's explains his deduction and how he came to solve the mystery. The hints of clues were there, so that we could follow along as Watson did, but the solving is all Holmes. I'm OK with that though. All in all, I really liked it and look forward to smooshing in more of these stories as my schedule permits. :)
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Sep 09, 2007 Heather's Mum rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Any Sherlock Fan

Shelves: mysterydetectivelaw, heathersmumfavorite

In spite of the indulgence of illogical character development and basic deduction flaws in Doyle's first Sherlock novels, they are, in my opinion, still priceless literature. The novels, irregardless of the inconsistencies, are wonderfully woven with threads of colorful clues in varied intensity of terror, keen observation, "elementary" deduction and incredible chain of reasoning... including elimination.

".. when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be t...more

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Feb 20, 2009 Ouise rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book in a second-hand bookshop and as always with Conan Doyle, it transported me to a whole different world. This is the first Sherlock Holmes' novel and it mixes the crime genre with the travelling-to-uncommon-places narration that I am fond of in Conan Doyle. I particularly liked the first encounter with Sherlock Holmes, the description made by Dr. Watson of his new peculiar "flatmate" and the discussion they have about the brain-attics. Sherlock Holmes explains to Dr. Watson that...more

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Jun 11, 2010 Timmy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: noir-mystery, united-kingdom

The first book in the Sherlock Holmes series is far from Doyle's best, but it's a great success for evoking Mormon apologists to somehow find deep in the recesses of their polygamist pockets a lost "historical inaccuracies" card---discolored, peeling, forgotten, and foul-odored.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went on to write superior Sherlock Holmes novels; Joseph Smith never improved his religion.

Sir Doyle himself was a spiritualist and he never apologized or recanted his criticism of the Mormons as t...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: also-have-on-audiobook, 2012-audiobook, detectives, victorian, classics, read-2010-or-earlier, first-in-series, british-fiction, books-i-own, completed-series, london, 19th-century, collector-s-library, reviewed, book-group-victorians

Read a couple of years ago. Listening to the Derek Jacobi audiobooks now. Added thoughts on narration and such over at my blog: here and here

Overall star rating: 3.5

A Study in Scarlet - 3 stars

There are some truly brilliant parts of this novel, the growing relationship between Holmes and Watson, the interactions between Holmes and the police, the deductive reasoning that sees Holmes pulling solutions almost from thin air, the mystery itself...Why then only three stars? Well... once the mystery...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-literature, sherlock-holmes, own, personal-favourites

There often tends to be something special about the very first book of an incredible series of brilliant books. And those adventures chronicling the pursuits of Sherlock Holmes are no different. Yet at the same time the shine of this book is let down by a single piece of narrative featuring love, Mormons and revenge. How, you ask, does that fit into a Sherlock Holmes adventure? Not to mention the very first Sherlock Holmes adventure. Therefore let me explain.

A Study in Scarlet introduces the now...more There often tends to be something special about the very first book of an incredible series of brilliant books. And those adventures chronicling the pursuits of Sherlock Holmes are no different. Yet at the same time the shine of this book is let down by a single piece of narrative featuring love, Mormons and revenge. How, you ask, does that fit into a Sherlock Holmes adventure? Not to mention the very first Sherlock Holmes adventure. Therefore let me explain.

A Study in Scarlet introduces the now famous method of the worlds greatest consulting detective. I believe we have to say that the greatest action detective may be Batman but when it comes to analysing psychology, clues and working out the entire picture Holmes wins out. Here is also introduced John Watson and Inspector Lestrade who will become solid base characters in the detectives' famous existence.

It has been said that Doyle's stroke of genius was to have Watson narrate the adventures. And it is clear to see as through his eyes we observe the flaws and intricacies of the highly eccentric genius. But clearly if you're reading this you know the basics of the Holmes' canon.

However I know no way of properly explaining the plot to you without spoiling it. Suffice to say if you're reading this after having seen the BBC A Study in Pink version the two are very different and yet complementary. A Study in Pink having taken elements from the original story and then flipped them around. (view spoiler)

What I will explain is the one part which let me down. There is a part in the narrative where our story splits to explaining the backstory of our murderer. Which as before mentioned involves his being in love with a woman living in a Mormon community. (view spoiler)

If that hasn't created enough intrigue to lead you to explore the roots of Holmes then I don't know what will. Maybe I should throw a bunch of dancing, tight-rope walking monkeys with a mass murdering clown who plays the harpsichord into some kind of narrative also involving two elderly women and a young man caught in a deadly love triangle after a snake charming door to door salesman hypnotises them with his charms. Well if you'd prefer a more structured and orderly mystery I suggest you explore Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's excellent prose. Its an excellent beginning for any series and it's staggering to think it was intended as a stand alone work. However if you prefer the monkeys, clowns, love triangles and dastardly door to door salesmen I think we could talk. ~~On the phone while I'm underground and as far away as possible.~~ (less)

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Jul 27, 2011 Hayes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, gutenberg, read-in-2011, banned-or-challenged

[See below for review, which contains spoilers.]

I confess: I have never read "A Study in Scarlett", although I have read many other Holmes stories. The book has been challenged in Virginia* because of its unsuitability for younger readers (I might agree that 6th grade is a little young for Sherlock Holmes), and because of its portrayal of Mormons and Mormonism.

There is nothing I like more than reading a challenged book.

* Albemarle School Board to vote on expelling 'A Study in Scarlet'

= = = = =...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Valerie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Valerie by: Gerson

Shelves: classic, male-protagonist

Maybe I should've starting reading the books before watching the movie (the one with the guy from Iron Man) because I was kind of disappointed. I should also mention that I’ve seen no other adaptation—at least I don’t remember seeing any.

I knew that Holmes is supposed to be a conceited and arrogant fellow. This I’m okay with but what I wanted was for Watson not to add fuel the fire, it made Holmes more, I don’t know, complacent I guess. Watson didn't really help any either. Maybe this will chang...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Callista rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-suspense, literature-esd

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was pleasantly surprised at the beginning of this story--it was more engaging than I expected for a work of its era. I'd been afraid that those stodgy PBS Jeremy Brett {?} episodes were more true to the source material than the Robert Downey, Jr. & Jude Law movie was. I enjoyed seeing the beginning of Watson's and Holmes' friendship. And, as the recent moviemakers asserted, there is more to Watson and Holmes than some productions would lead you to believe. Watson is a veteran of the wars i...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Fernando Évora rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

O que mais gosto nos livros policiais é a técnica com que o autor nos cativa, o suspense sempre presente, e, claro, o mistério. Na minha adolescência devorava policiais (quando me perguntam que autor mais li, respondo que foi Agatha Christie), procurando descobrir o criminoso antes do Poirot, da Miss Marple ou Tommy e Tuppence. Qual o motivo? Qual o furo do alibi? Qual a arma? Enfim, perguntas que nos colocamos e que os grandes autores de policiais teimam quase sempre em nos surpreender com as s...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Cristopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

I like a lot this first Holmes' novel. It's very easy to read and I finished in two days. The descriptions made by Sir Arthur about Utah are absolutely amazing. I guess that he was in that place at least one time. I think that the change of subjects in the middle of the book was a little abrupt. Maybe he could do a better job in that sense, interspersing the two stories in the book. Now I will start to read the second book, "The Sign of Four".

Me gustó bastante la primera aparición de Holmes. Es...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Marla rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: series, mystery, classics, historical-fiction, mixed-reviews, 2013, 2013-team-challenge-wild-blue-d, adult, religion, challenged

3.5 stars. Buddy Read. Forward was fascinating. I really enjoyed the beginning of the book and learning about Dr. Watson and how he and Sherlock Holmes met and became colleagues.

Part 1 (4 stars) was lively and interesting. Part 2 (3 stars) was much slower, but I liked the love story. Jefferson Hope was quite a determined man and I was cheering for him. It was tied together nicely in the end.

I was glad to hear that subsequent Sherlock Holmes tales do not have the lengthy flashback to explain the...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Ellie (a.k.a. QE3) rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked it, although since I was reading a kind of typo-full edition on my nook, I was uncertain as to whether the sudden jump into the Mormon section in the book was really part of the story. I was thinking that they might have just jumped into another book, or something. But apparently it was, and I found it interesting, though it probably should have been shortened, or told by the person it concerned to make the plotline less choppy.

A ~~rant~~ further note about that edition on my nook: I am ver...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Kaixuan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am only on Chapter 3, but I am enjoying the book alot. I didn't expect the book to be in the voice of Watson, because i thought Sherlock Holmes would have been the main focus of the book. I like the language that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses, they are a little tough to understand, but it makes the book seem more worthwhile to read.

I found it exciting when the author first mentions that the character (it is written in first person, which makes it easier to follow, since the focus is mainly on on...more

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Sep 25, 2011 Jared Millet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, mystery

Well, that was cool. Having seen umpteen bazillion variations of Sherlock Holmes in film, TV, and literary pastiche, it's pretty much impossible to come at the original source material "cold," and yet A Study in Scarlet still managed to surprise me.

Even with the recent Cumberbatch and Downey Jr. versions fresh in my mind, the Holmes my brain defaults to is Jeremy Brett. Doyle's Holmes in this first novel is younger than any of those, except possibly Cumberbatch, and his arrogance isn't nearly as...more

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About Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle was born the third of ten siblings on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was born in England of Irish descent, and his mother, born Mary Foley, was Irish. They were married in 1855.

Although he is now referred to as "Conan Doyle", the origin of this compound surname (if that is how he meant it to be understood) is uncertain. His baptism record...more

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Books by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #3)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes, #5)

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4)

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Quotes from A Study in Scarlet

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.” — 250 people liked it

“I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” — 222 people liked it

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