The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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The Adventure of the Red-Headed League
2024/25 Group Reads - Archive
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Sherlock Holmes 2025: Week 03/Story 02 - Red-Headed League, The
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A Scandal in Bohemia (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Discussion Questions
1) What is the significance of Jabez Wilson’s attire?
2) Would not Spaulding (the fourth smartest man in London) have recognized Holmes?
3) Why do you think the decline of Wilson’s business is never explained?
4) Where did Clay put the dirt that he excavated?
5) Why was the French gold not in the Bank of England or at least in the strong room of the bank’s head office? After all, they “had several warnings.”
6) What became of Jabez Wilson? Is there a clue in Clay’s remark, “I’ll swing for it”?
7) Do you think a group such as the Red-Headed League is realistic for the time period of the story? What about in contemporary society?
8) Why was the League dissolved before the job was done? One more week at four
pounds, and they would not have been caught.
Gem, I think your questions highlight what is ridiculous in this story, how it doesn't really work at all as detective fiction by contemporary standards. It is fun though. The Red-headed League does feel like something that could exist in the Victorian world, or at least is very much something that rings true with the rest of Victorian fiction.
Mod
It is fun though. The Red-headed League d..."
Thank you!
Something very like the bank robbery plan actually worked (if you don’t count getting caught later). See Wikipedia on The Baker Street Robbery of 1971. No Red Headed League distraction, though, just renting a shop.
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There's a comic movie like this, where they set up a cookie shop next door to a bank so they can tunnel through. Everything goes wrong with the tunneling, but the cookies are a huge success, they franchise the concept and make a fortune that way!
Whilst the story was enjoyable, I think there was an obvious flaw. The copying out of the Encyclopaedia Britannica onto foolscap paper was valueless as a paid occupation. Was the use of ‘foolscap’ a slight hint at the foolishness of his task? It was indicated that the shop keeper was not the brightest man ever to have lived, but even so, such a purposeless task should have raised some concerns from the start. I can think of plenty of other tasks he could have been given that might have seemed authentic. I haven’t been as hard on the shopkeeper as Holmes was. His laughing at and mocking attitude towards the red headed gentleman was rather harsh and he only turned serious in the bank vault, ensuring that Watson had his revolver. Whilst we have to put up with Holmes’ attitude to the rest of civilisation, it felt rather unnecessary. The King of Bohemia deserved Holmes’ contempt far more than the shopkeeper did.
Trev wrote: "The King of Bohemia deserved Holmes’ contempt far more than the shopkeeper did."Hear, hear!
The basic idea of how the robbers scammed the shopkeeper is still used today in various forms, but always involves getting the money from the victim up front and then disappearing.
In spite of the hanging referenced, this was a fun read. Yes, the track of accessing one building through another has been used time and time again. It’s quite common in the mystery series I enjoy so much. But it’s such fun to see it in the 1800s. I wonder when it first reared its head in literature.
I thoroughly enjoyed this farce! I’m treating the Holmes stories as light reading after I’ve read from Hester and it’s working well for me. I borrowed the illustrated version from my local library, oh how I wish I owned the volume like that. It’s worth it just for the illustrations, I just wish I could get out of the habit of looking at them and spoiling the plot!
Mod
Reading Sherlock Holmes stories is a refreshing break from heavier reads. I've read all of the Sherlock Holmes over the years.
It's fun revisiting them in a group discussion.
Jabez Wilson didn't do anything that lots of others would do in a similar situation, so Holmes shouldn't mock him.
Relating to the King of Bohemia, I believe that Holmes declined to shake his hand.
Mod
This is one of the things I have found rather uneven about Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes he's compassionate and protective of the feelings of his clients other times he's mocking and or dismissive.
The Red-Headed League (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Availability - The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1661
Background Information
"The Red-Headed League" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It first appeared in The Strand Magazine in August 1891, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Conan Doyle ranked "The Red-Headed League" second in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories. It is also the second of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in 1892.
Analysis
The dates given in the story do not match the characters' descriptions of time passing. The date that Wilson sees the advertisement is April 27, 1890 and he has been at work for 8 weeks and says, "Just two months ago." Thus that happened by the end of June. However, the story begins by describing Holmes's meeting with Wilson as being on "one day in the autumn of last year" and the date on the door telling of the League being dissolved is that of October 9, 1890, six months after the ad was placed.
Dorothy L. Sayers analyzed this discrepancy and claims that the dates must have been August 4 and October 4 respectively.
Publication History
"The Red-Headed League" was first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in August 1891, and in the United States in the US edition of the Strand in September 1891. The story was published with ten illustrations by Sidney Paget in The Strand Magazine. It was included in the short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, that was published in October 1892.
A Short Review
The writing of short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes was bringing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle more and more popular success, and people would soon be eagerly awaiting the monthly publication of the Strand Magazine.
The short stories seemed to hit the right note with the public, and because of its length, "The Red-Headed League" is fast-paced; whilst the story is short, it is detailed enough for the reader to follow the whole case.
Having dealt with poisoning, conspiracy, and blackmail in the previous stories, initially, a case of a red-headed gentleman losing his well-paid part-time job might not appear worthy of the attention of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes, though, sees the possibility of something far more important than the provided facts and creates a working hypothesis. Holmes then uses his energy to provide the additional facts that confirm that hypothesis.
The absurdity of the case makes "The Red-Headed League" one of the most memorable written stories; the fact that the 1985 Jeremy Brett adaptation as part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a relatively faithful adaptation has helped with the memorability of the story.
Baker Street Robbery
The story inspired the real-life 1971 Baker Street robbery in which a criminal gang tunneled from a rented shop into a bank vault. That robbery was then adapted into the 2008 film The Bank Job.