A Study in Scarlet

 This November will be the 136th anniversary of the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes in Print. A Study in Scarlet was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. It is now a rare collectible and considered the most expensive magazine in the world, with 

a Beeton's 1887 selling for $156,000 at Sotheby's in 2007. 

 Beeton's Christmas Annual was a paperback magazine published from 1860 (volume 1) through 1898 (volume 39).  Each issue also carried a distinctive title reflecting that season's contents.  The 1887 edition, entitled "A Study in Scarlet," was approximately 8.5" x 5.5" and had color pictorial wrappers (cover).  It was issued in November at a price of one shilling and sold out before Christmas.

A Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes story, written in 1887 by 27-year-old Conan Doyle. 
Though Conan Doyle would go on to write 56 short stories of Holmes, A Study in Scarlet was the first of only four full-length novels the author would write.
Though not perhaps the most popular Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet was the first and so deserves considerable consideration.
The story is divided into two parts. The first part introduces the reader to Holmes and Watson and a couple of murders. The second part tells the tale of what led to the murders. This formula would be repeated in The Sign of Four and The Valley of Fear, two other full-length stories. Most of Conan Doyle's short stories of Sherlock Holmes would also use this same formula to some extent.

My second Sherlock Holmes mystery, Cold-Hearted Murder is an homage to A Study in Scarlet; the first half of the story has Holmes and Watson investigating a series of bizarre murders in London, and the second half tells the remarkable story of what led up to these crimes. In A Study in Scarlet the backstory takes place in the American West, while in Cold-Hearted Murder the backstory is set during the Great Klondike Gold Rush in the Canadian North-West.

All of Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon! click here!