Download 'A Study in Scarlet' Novel

A Study in Scarlet is a detective mystery novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, introducing his new character of Sherlock Holmes, who later became one of the most famous literary detective characters.

Conan Doyle wrote the novel at the age of 27 in less than three weeks. As a general practice doctor in Southsea, Portsmouth, 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 Beeton's Christmas Annual 1887, after many rejections.

The Summary of Study in Scarlet (Last)

Part II: "The Country of Saints"
The Mormon Nauvoo Legion, considerably overlapping with the Danites.

The story flashes back to the Utah Territory in 1847, where John Ferrier and a little girl named Lucy, the only survivors of a large party of pioneers, lie down near a boulder to die from dehydration and hunger. They are discovered, however, by a large party of Mormons led by Brigham Young. The Mormons rescue Ferrier and Lucy on the condition that they adopt and live under their faith. Ferrier, who has proven himself an able hunter, is given a generous land grant with which to build his farm after the party constructs Salt Lake City. Years later, a now-grown Lucy befriends and falls in love with a man named Jefferson Hope.

The Summary of Study in Scarlet (First)

Part I: "Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD, Late of the Army Medical Department"

The story begins in 1881, where Dr. John Watson runs into an old friend, Stamford. Due to a shoulder injury sustained in the Anglo-Afghan War, Watson was forced to retire and is now looking for a place to live. Stamford reveals that an acquaintance of his, Sherlock Holmes, is looking for someone to split the rent at a flat at 221B, Baker Street.

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As we emerged from the sitting-room  a woman, who had been waiting in the passage, took a step for- ward and laid her hand upon the Inspector ’s sleeve. Her face was haggard and thin and eager, stamped with the print of a recent horror.

“Have you got them? Have you found them?” she panted.

“No, Mrs. Straker. But Mr. Holmes here has come from London to help us, and we shall do all that is possible.”

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I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat down  together to our breakfast one morning.

“Go! Where to?”

“To Dartmoor; to King’s Pyland.”

I was not surprised.   Indeed, my  only  wonder was that he had not already been mixed upon this extraordinary  case, which was the one topic of con- versation through the length and breadth of England. For a whole day my companion had rambled about the room with his chin upon his chest and his brows knitted, charging and recharging his pipe with the strongest black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of my questions or remarks.

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Then I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that  it  is no easy matter  to know  which  to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have al- ready gained publicity  through the papers, and oth- ers have not offered a field for those peculiar quali- ties which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which  it  is the object of these papers to illus- trate.   Some,  too, have baffled his analytical  skill, and would  be, as narratives, beginnings without  an ending, while others have been but partially  cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logi- cal proof which was so dear to him.

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I slept at Baker Street that night,  and we were engaged upon our toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed into the room.
“You have really got it!”  he cried, grasping Sher- lock Holmes by either shoulder and looking eagerly into his face.
“Not  yet.”
“But you have hopes?” “I have hopes.”
“Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone.” “We must have a cab.”
“No, my brougham is waiting.”
“Then that will  simplify  matters.” We descended and started off once more for Briony Lodge.

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At  three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned.  The landlady in- formed me that he had left the house shortly  after eight o’clock in the morning.  I sat down beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he might be. I was already deeply in- terested in his inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it  a character of its own.

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To Sherlock Holmes  she is always the woman.   I have seldom heard him  men- tion her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. 

All  emotions, and that one particularly,  were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world  has seen, but as a lover he would  have placed himself in a false position.   He never spoke of the softer passions, save with  a gibe and a sneer.