A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1) in Never too Late to Read Classics

May 07, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it really liked it

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 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.

...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Mar 26, 2024 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: published-1899-and-earlier, to-read-in-2024, challenge-bingo-2024

Over the years, I have read (I thought) all of the stories in my hardcover copy of Doubleday’s 1,122 page The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. But somehow, I missed the most important story of all, A Study in Scarlet, the story which introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. What a joy that I inadvertently saved the best for the last.

A Study in Scarlet was so interesting in that Doyle developed his story in two parts. Part I took place in London and introduced the re ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Mar 27, 2017 Jamie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm surprised it took me this long to read Sherlock Holmes. I absolutely love mysteries as well as the style of writing in this book. I have obviously been familiar with Sherlock Holmes being that it is a household name but reading stories makes me realize why the character is still so popular over a hundred years after his creation. I loved learning how Dr. Watson and Sherlock became companions and how he has obtained all of his detective skills over the years. I hope people implore this type o ...more

Like · see review

Oct 05, 2017 Nancy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: murder-mystery, mormon

This is the book, where Watson and Sherlock meet, and become roommates. I happened on this book, when I watched the story of the Hotel Utah, which was turned into the Joseph Smith building, in Salt Lake city. In that story, they told of Arthur Conan Doyle staying at the hotel. He had written A Study in Scarlet, and after going to Salt Lake City, had changed his view of the Mormons. Doyle wrote a very dark view of Mormon's and polygamy in A Study in Scarlet, and that is my reason for giving a low ...more

Like · see review

Dec 17, 2022 Helena rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed this. It’s not my usual genre but I was gripped from start to finish. I will definitely be reading more Sherlock Holmes in the future!

Like · see review