The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet
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A Study in Scarlet
Discussion Questions
Part I
1) Why do you think Doyle wrote this so that we see Holmes only as reported through Watson’s eyes? What effect does that have on readers’ view of Holmes? How would this story differ if it were Holmes writing? What if it were told by an anonymous third-person narrator?
2) What are your favorite bits of backstory on Sherlock and/or Holmes? Why do you think Holmes is eager to have Watson as a companion? How does Watson’s military background qualify him to be Holmes’ partner?
3) Since Holmes often shows no interest in the majority of cases presented to him, why do you think this particular case appeals to him?
4) Sherlock is described as having extensive knowledge in subjects such as anatomy and chemistry, but Watson is shocked to learn that he knows little about literature, philosophy, and politics and isn’t bothered by his own ignorance. Is Sherlock’s focus on scientific areas a strength or a weakness? Are we meant to admire that? Did you find yourself charmed by Holmes’s genius?
5) What do you make of Doyle’s portrayal of Scotland Yard? And the relationship between Holmes and Scotland Yard? Sherlock seems both amused and annoyed by the detectives while they rely on Sherlock to help solve their crimes and then reap the benefits. What does Sherlock get from this? What roles do Gregson and Lestrade play at the Lauriston Gardens crime scene?
6) Are the political views expressed in the London newspapers regarding the murder pertinent to the plot?
7) Is Sherlock right to withhold evidence from the detectives because he thinks they will scare off the killers?
Part II
8) Part II reads a bit like a separate story from Part I; it’s not exactly a standard style for a murder mystery. Did breaking up the story work? Did the change in style confuse you or deepen your understanding of the murderer’s motivations? Did you feel that the narrative voice of the second half didn’t quite match the narrative voice of the first half?
9) How does the depiction of Mormons impact your opinions on the story? From your knowledge is the depiction realistic? Is Mormonism an important attribute of the characters? Could they belong to any faith? Did you just ignore the depiction as a function of the time in which the book was published?
10) Consider John Ferrier’s decision. Should he have joined up with the Mormons for the sake of his and Lucy’s safety or should they have rejected their advances? Why doesn’t he fully buy into the Mormon faith?
11) Did you expect Lucy’s tale to lead us back to Enoch Drebber, the first victim? What were your other theories on how these narratives were related to each other?
12) Jefferson Hope asserts “You may consider me to be a murderer, but I hold that I am just as much an officer of justice as you are” to Sherlock and Lestrade. To what extent are his actions justified? Hope dies before his trial, did you find this satisfying or annoying?
Entire Book
13) Sherlock uses his “powers of analysis” to observe and hypothesize. Do you think it’s realistic that you or I have the skills to accomplish the same miracles of deduction with a little practice?
14) Traditional detective stories present the “facts” to readers and let them work out the crime. Why do you think Conan Doyle rejected this formula? Why are Conan Doyle’s stories so popular if they are a direct contradiction of the traditional detective genre? How did this impact your reading experience?
15) London had recently survived the Jack the Ripper attacks when Conan Doyle wrote this story. Do you think the Holmes stories became so popular as a direct result of the crimes?
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Here is my overall impression of the book:
Part 1 was an amazing introduction to Sherlock and Watson. Doyle is good at describing the setting and creating atmosphere-and a great mystery.
Part 2 was a real let-down, for many reasons. One reason is the description of the Mormon society, and if I remember, it's also overly dramatic.
But I enjoyed the book, since I've read it twice.
The classic “fair play” detective story did not yet exist as a genre when Doyle invented Holmes, so he felt free to use Watson as an imperfect observer through whom to filter information.That is, Watson sees the same things, but he doesn’t grasp their significance and try to fit them into an hypothesis, and so doesn’t report them to the reader in full.
This trick is played through all the novels and all but a couple of the short stories. Watson is not dense, as classically portrayed in the Basil Rathbone films: he just isn’t as brilliant (and quick-witted) as Holmes.
The situation was varied in the Nero Wolfe stories, in which legman Archie Goodwin observes everything, but makes no particular sense of it, and just reports it.
Sherlock Holmes’ profession of ignorance on various topics here has been explained by some Sherlockians as a joke Watson didn’t get. Sherlock seems to have somehow picked up some technical philosophy (although he constantly confuses deduction, induction, and abduction, these are common errors): for evidence, see David Baggett on “Sherlock Holmes as Epistemologist” and Massimon Pugliucci’s “Sherlock’s Reasoning Toolbox,” both in The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Philop Tallon and David Bagget (2012).His disclaimer of astronomy is a little more secure. It shows up in “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” although there it is a practical matter of not following the phases of the moon properly, not knowledge of whether the heliocentric theory beats the geocentric theory.
If anyone out there ever had to read Aristotle’s Poetics (and I had it assigned three times at least, once in a course which included “The Scarlet Letter”), The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes also contains “Aristotle on Detective Fiction,” in which Dorothy L. Sayers demonstrates that although Aristotle was stuck with Greek Tragedy, he was really yearning for a well-conducted mystery. She also sheds some light on her own Lord Peter Wimsey novels in passing. Although she doesn’t mention it, this explains why Aristotle preferred “Oedipus Rex” as the best-conducted tragedy he knew, although it violates several rules for his ideal tragedy. We investigated it as a detective story in the same UCLA class that included “The Scarlet Letter,” if memory serves, although Sayers was not on the reading list.
I have always enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as the Nero Wolfe books, but until I read Ian's comments, I didn't see the resemblance between the two. Thanks for that!One thing I noticed as I re-read this novel was how succinct Arthur Conan Doyle's prose was compared to that of other Victorian writers. Was this a sign of moving into a new era of literature?
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I miss that show (though I didn't enjoy Season 4 and like to pretend it ended after The Abominable Bride).
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I have been working my way through the New York-based Holmes homage series "Elementary" which I am really enjoying-I had turned up my nose at it originally as likely being "too American" for a Holmes tale but the cast is excellent and it's a great police/Holmes procedural-if you didn't already see it I've found it a great replacement for Sherlock and the Jeremy Brett Holmes shows.
I read this in a burst over the weekend. A reread, but I believe I haven't read it since I was twelve or thirteen.I was a HUGE Holmes fan around that age. I don't think I can overstate the effect of Sherlock Holmes on developing my reading taste, and even my writing style. But I hadn't read ASIS since then as I remembered it being quite bland.
I was pleasantly surprised. It's by no means a classic of the series, but it clipped along nicely and even the second act with its Mormon story read quite nicely I thought (I feel I've read much worse from Conan Doyle set in America; he didn't get too caught up in dialect or American posturing here).
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I have real trouble picturing Holmes and Watson in Utah!
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Will check that out, thanks! I have a couple days left of my Hulu subscription so I'll at least watch a few episodes.
I suspect one would have to investigate popular fiction after, say, Dickens, to determine if Doyle was setting a new style. My personal suspicion is that Doyle was writing rapidly, and was not planning on a long serial in which he had to keep filling a minimum number of pages in each installment, a common way of people publishing fiction in Victorian times, which was being supplanted by the fiction magazine which wants short serials or short stories, to provide variety.It certainly bears little resemblance to the endless verbiage if “Varney the Vampire,” which was as endless as a soap opera, and far not prolix. Which is my chief exposure to Victorian popular fiction, except for Sheridan Le Fanu and some other specialists in ghost stories or mysteries. And some of them were pretty prolix.
The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
Books mentioned in this topic
The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes (other topics)The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes (other topics)
A Study in Scarlet
Availability: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/244
Background Information
"A Study in Scarlet" is an 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in English literature. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet": "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."
The story, and its main characters, attracted little public interest when it first appeared. Eleven complete copies of the magazine in which the story first appeared, "Beeton's Christmas Annual" for 1887, are known to exist now, and they have considerable value. Although Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories featuring Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet" is one of only four full-length novels in the original canon. The novel was followed by "The Sign of the Four," published in 1890. "A Study in Scarlet" was the first work of detective fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as an investigative tool.
Publication
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the novel at the age of 27 in less than three weeks. As a doctor in general practice in Southsea, Hampshire, he had already published short stories in several magazines of the day, such as the periodical "London Society." The story was originally titled "A Tangled Skein" and was eventually published by Ward, Lock & Co. in the 1887 edition of "Beeton's Christmas Annual", after many rejections. Conan Doyle had pressed for royalty but instead received £25 in return for the full rights (equivalent to £3,371.95 considering inflation). It was illustrated by David Henry Friston.
The novel was first published as a book in July 1888 by Ward, Lock & Co., and featured drawings by the author's father, Charles Doyle. In 1890, J. B. Lippincott & Co. released the first American version. Another edition published in 1891 by Ward, Lock & Bowden Limited (formerly Ward, Lock & Co.) was illustrated by George Hutchinson. A German edition of the novel published in 1902 was illustrated by Richard Gutschmidt. Numerous further editions, translations, and dramatisations have appeared since.
Depiction of Mormonism
According to a Salt Lake City newspaper article, when Conan Doyle was asked about his depiction of the Latter-day Saints' organization as being steeped in kidnapping, murder and enslavement, he said: "all I said about the Danite Band and the murders is historical so I cannot withdraw that, though it is likely that in a work of fiction, it is stated more luridly than in a work of history. It's best to let the matter rest. Conan Doyle's daughter has stated: "You know, father would be the first to admit that his first Sherlock Holmes novel was full of errors about the Mormons." Historians speculate that "Conan Doyle, a voracious reader, would have access to books by Fannie Stenhouse, William A. Hickman, William Jarman, John Hyde and Ann Eliza Young, among others", in explaining the author's early perspective on Mormonism.
Years after Conan Doyle's death, Levi Edgar Young, a descendant of Brigham Young and a Mormon general authority, alleged that the author had privately apologized, saying that "He [Conan Doyle] said he had been misled by writings of the time about the Church" and had "written a scurrilous book about the Mormons."
In August 2011, the Albemarle County, Virginia, school board removed A Study in Scarlet from the district's sixth-grade required reading list following complaints from students and parents that the book was derogatory toward Mormons. It was moved to the reading lists for the tenth-graders and remains in use in the school media centers for all grades.