"A Study In Scarlet" By Arthur Conan Doyle!!
By JadeFinch
Listening to *A Study in Scarlet* on audiobook is really good.
Reader discussion: A Study in Scarlet
Public reader discussion about A Study in Scarlet in the WeRead Catalog by Arthur Conan Doyle.
What is the most random sentence/phrase you'll always remember from a book?
By Panther7
All I really remember from *The Marriage Plot* is this weird line about “hearing him pee with taurine force.” I doubt Jeffrey Eugenides meant for that to be what I’d keep, but I feel like that’s how it goes for me with a lot of books—most of it slides right off, and then years later there’s just one random sentence/phrase that I can’t let go of. It usually doesn’t even seem that important in the book, and I don’t think other readers would latch onto it either. Does anyone else get that? What’s the one moment that’s stayed in your head?
What's your favorite quote from a book?
By StarSteady98
I’d also love it if you’d include the book title :) And if you feel like it, why you liked it. For mine, I keep going back to this part (The Count of Monte Cristo): the whole thing about him being too drunk to go get more wine, but not drunk enough to actually forget. It’s kind of wild how vivid it is, like he’s just stuck there staring at these empty bottles while all these weird “specters” and shadowy stuff shows up around him.
Why the hate for the Study in Scarlet backstory?
By nebula-horse6
It took up a pretty big chunk of the book, but I still found it pretty enjoyable to get through. I did feel like it dragged in spots, though. On the plus side, it helped round out Mr. Hope as a real person. And honestly, I might be a little biased because I love picturing that gorgeous mountainous part of the US, so I ended up having fun imagining what was happening during all the horror.
Does the Heirloom Collection (vol 1-4) actually have every Sherlock story Doyle wrote?
By PageKettle
I’m trying to hit my next reading goal by going back and reading the stuff of his that I haven’t gotten to yet. I’ve read a bunch of his work, but definitely not all of it, and some of the Amazon reviews make it sound like it’s actually a full complete collection (not just “complete” in the title). Still, I feel like I should get a second opinion before I buy.
[Discussion] Sherlock Bonus Books - A Study in Scarlet Part 1 by Arthur Conan Doyle
By WhiteFinch
Welcome, detectives! I’m basically sitting here waiting to read everyone’s theories about Part 1 of A Study in Scarlet. It ends with clueless detectives, street kids who end up helping crack the case, and, sadly, a dead dog. Sherlock seems pretty sure he’s got the murderer in the end. So, let’s hear it, yeah? Come back next week on September 12 when u/eeksqueak helps us finish off this first mystery.
Sherlock Holmes and his literary antecedents, are there any?
By basil_yarn
I was watching an episode of Elementary and then I remembered I’d been reading the Holmes books on my e-reader. It just hit me that the Holmes “type” is everywhere and pretty successful, but Holmes himself doesn’t seem to line up neatly with the usual mythic or literary molds. Like, we’ve got Monk and House, and other TV stuff that basically transforms Sherlock, but then Elementary keeps it more or less straightforward in the modern setting. Even the movies/TV that do it “period correct” feel like they’re using the same core setup. And of course there’s the whole detective genre. But right now I honestly can’t think of any real earlier version of Holmes as a person/character. I know about the Poe story and a couple other things, but those feel more like puzzle stories than anything like Holmes the character. I’m kind of wondering if Doyle really created a totally new kind of hero and personality.
Why is there a Part 2 in the middle of A Study in Scarlet with 5 chapters of completely unrelated story?
By DawnBookworm2
It doesn’t seem totally unrelated, but yeah, I think it’s a little too much. *A Study in Scarlet* has this really strange structure, honestly.
Sherlock Holmes and A study in scarlet (A study in pink as in the TV series adaptation.)
By tealPath
Just to say up front, I’m not really into the whole HEX color theory, but I can’t shake the idea that it might tie into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s *A Study in Scarlet*. At first it doesn’t look connected at all, but there are a few things I’ve noticed that feel kind of too perfect to be random… or maybe I’m just reaching. I tried looking further and kinda hit a dead end, but maybe someone else can connect more dots. Here’s what I’ve got: 1. In one of Pawel’s streams, he talks about the community and mentions “a lot of internet detectives” trying to solve the mystery, and he sounds like he’s being extra careful. It made me wonder if he was accidentally going to say “Sherlocks” instead (people mix those up all the time). I know that’s a big assumption, but still—watching the second stream clip made me think it might be intentional. 2. The second thing is that the Sherlock TV series Benedict Cumberbatch is in is titled *A Study in Pink*. So if we’re talking HEX, we’re basically doing a “study in pink” right? 3. Both the book and the TV series use “RACHE” as some sort of clue, and in the end it turns out to be more of a red herring. That made me think maybe the devs are doing something similar—like part of the code or a piece of the mystery is meant to throw us off. 4. There are also other references that seem Sherlock-related, like the kind of conversation shown here. 5. The whole “element” / “elementary” vibe shows up a lot with the “monks” stuff. Like “Elementary Watson.” 6. And then the pink suitcases—there are pink cases all over the night city, which could be pointing to the show where Sherlock figures things out after looking closely at the victim’s suitcase. I’m sure there’s more, but I didn’t finish my own little research and I wasn’t super thorough. Anyway, if you’re on the HEX side of things, I’d love to hear what you think.
What is something from a book that is largely insignificant but has stayed with you forever?
By trail-pale
I’ll jump in. I swear at least a couple times a month I remember that in *Where the Red Fern Grows* the main kid traps a raccoon by putting something shiny in a hole—like the hole is just wide enough for the raccoon’s hand to go through, but not enough for its fist to come back out. The whole idea is that the raccoon keeps holding on, so it ends up “stuck” until it can be found later. This morning it hit me again while I was getting ice from the dispenser. I could get my hand into the gap, but once I had the ice in there I couldn’t pull my fist back out. And I was immediately thinking… I’m basically that raccoon!! Lol Anyone else get weirdly reminded of stuff like this from books you read when you were younger, or just me? :)
What do you think is the best version of A Study in Scarlett?
By ashanchor
Has Brett ever redone this story? If you have links to your favorite versions, can you drop them here?
A Study in Scarlet
By BookmarkEpilogue
So I just finished the first Sherlock book yesterday and I’m honestly into it. I love Sherlock and how he goes about everything in this super methodical, kind of cold way. And I also bought into the whole RACHE angle—especially since it feels like “Lock” explained what was going on. Watson’s military background is cool too, I just kinda wish it got used more. I also thought it was funny how Watson is basically taking notes on Sherlock like it’s totally normal, even though it’s more like “yeah he’s a weird dude, but hey, meet him first” energy. The second half threw me off a bit at first since it feels like it shifts gears. It does explain itself, but I was hoping it’d click together more by the very end—like it was headed toward Jekyll and Hyde and then didn’t quite land the same way. Anyway I’m gonna start book 2 soon.
I just finished "The Sign of Four," by Arthur Conan Doyle, and I have no one to talk about it with, so I'm going to leave a review here.
By Hidden_Bison67
Hey! I’ve dropped a few reviews on here lately and the whole vibe has felt pretty responsive, so I’m back again. Also, this one’s extra fun for me because I already reviewed *A Study in Scarlet*, the first Holmes/Watson thing, so I can actually say whether I think the series gets better. If you want to know what I thought before, here are my earlier ones: - *The Big Sleep* - *A Study in Scarlet* - *The Murder of Roger Ackroyd* Anyway—on to *The Sign of Four*. *****SPOILERS-ish below***** ## Sherlock: Drug User? Okay, so the book basically wastes no time with a hook. The very first paragraph has Sherlock doing cocaine, and I read it twice because I couldn’t believe it was just… said so casually. It also made me wonder if people really looked at cocaine that way back in 1890, but maybe not? Either way, Watson clearly thinks it’s gross/reprehensible, and then the book starts talking about “The Science of Deduction.” Sherlock basically says he uses it to keep his mind occupied when he’s not in the middle of a complicated case. Sure, I can understand the logic, I guess. My main weird thing is: it shows up at the start, then disappears for most of the book, then comes back near the end. It doesn’t really matter to the story in the middle, so it feels like either setup for something later or just another “Sherlock being Sherlock” quirk. And honestly… if it’s a quirk, that’s kind of a wild one. As for the actual case part: Sherlock is on fire in this one. In *A Study in Scarlet* I felt like his deductions/observations were sometimes kind of vague or like they came from nowhere. Here, I can follow what he’s doing. It’s still clearly way beyond normal person abilities, but it actually makes sense while you’re reading it. Also, that early chapter where he talks through his deduction method had me thinking, “Maybe I should try doing some of that in real life.” Which is either a compliment to the writing or me being too easily influenced. And I’ll also say this: in the first book, Sherlock kind of vanishes for a big chunk, and it hurt my enjoyment. This time he’s way more present, and I’m sure that’s part of why I liked it so much more. He was my favorite in the first one and still is here. ## Dr. Watson: More than just a camera My first impression of Watson was that he was mostly there to frame the story—like the audience stand-in. Not that it’s bad, because that role is important, but I didn’t expect much more. This book surprised me because Watson actually feels like a real person. He has opinions, and there’s even a love story. I should admit I’m biased because I usually like love stories, even when readers complain they “happen too fast.” I agree in general that it’s better when romance grows naturally, but if it’s sudden, I don’t automatically hate it. It doesn’t make the story worse for me as long as it still fits. Watson meets Miss Mary Morstan, and it’s pretty much immediate. Within the story, she’s basically set up to inherit a lot of money, which (old-timey values, I guess) would put her out of reach for him. But what I liked is that it gives Watson this chance to show he’s genuinely noble—he still helps solve the case even though if Holmes succeeds, Miss Morstan gets the money and Watson loses his chance. That kind of selfless choice hit me hard (especially after *The Big Sleep*, where I felt emotionally wrecked). By the end, of course, they end up together. Some people might find it too quick since the timeframe isn’t super long (I think it’s under a month and it’s clear they’re attracted from the start), but I found it sweet. Also, because Watson is the one telling it, it kind of reads like a husband looking back on the case that brought him his wife. That makes the “romanticizing” feel warmer instead of random. One more thing: Watson is definitely not a sexist in this book. At one point Holmes says you can’t trust a woman (even “the best” ones), and Watson is horrified by that. Not a high bar, but good job anyway. ## Climax: Boat chase + gunshots I don’t have some super deep analysis for this part. The climax is just flat-out fun. There’s a boat chase on the Thames, bad guys in a faster boat, good guys in a slightly faster boat, revolvers come out, people get shot. It was genuinely exciting and I almost don’t care if I can’t explain why it worked so well—it just did. If nothing else, the book is worth it for that scene. ## Denouement: Why so long? This is where I have to be a little negative. I’ve been reading crime/mystery stuff and now I basically know what a “denouement” is supposed to do: tie everything together quickly, reveal what happened, show how the killer was caught. Like Columbo or Poirot or any other “here’s how it all went down” moment. In *A Study in Scarlet*, I complained that the second half dragged and didn’t feel as satisfying. I think I get why now: that reveal went on forever. This time, the denouement is about twenty pages, and apparently that’s improvement. So yes, faster is good. But I still struggled with it. The villain’s motivation is pretty simple—Johnathan Small finds the Agra Treasure, gets screwed over by the rich guy, wants to kill him and get it back. I didn’t need a huge backstory to understand that. And then the backstory takes up a lot of the final chunk, with people from it showing up way late, when there are only a few pages left. It made me kind of zone out while reading, like “okay but what’s the point of all this?” Once the important characters came back, I snapped into it again and the ending moved smoothly after that. Still, the timing felt off. ## Ending thoughts Overall, I think *The Sign of Four* is way better than the first one. I especially liked Watson more, loved the sweet romance, and Sherlock is still my favorite. The villain also felt more memorable than the one from the first book, even though I complained about the backstory problem. The climax was basically action-movie energy. I just hope future books handle the wrap-up parts more efficiently. Thanks for reading! I love getting pushback, so please disagree with me as hard as you want. Also, I think I’m in the mood to go back to Agatha Christie with *The Mysterious Affair at Styles*. I’ll probably review that next. And I’ve been thinking about starting my own blog too. I love this community a lot, but I feel like the rest of the internet is kind of a mess. Not sure yet—just rambling.
What Are You Reading This Week and Weekly Rec Thread
By WrenThunder44754
Hey, what have you been reading this week? What did you finish, and do you have any recs (or anything you’re looking for)? Just naming books isn’t really enough—tell us what you thought while you were reading too. Anything that’s just a title with no thoughts won’t be kept.
A Study In Scarlet [SPOILERS]
By BinaryMeadow
A Study in Scarlet was kind of a big deal for me and for novels too. It was the first detective/mystery book I ever read, and apparently it was also the first time Sherlock Holmes showed up in a novel, so yeah, this is basically where it all starts, the whole Sherlock thing, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book. What stood out most to me was Holmes’s way of working. His deduction stuff felt pretty revolutionary, like the tiniest detail can matter. I’d also guess that by today’s standards he’d probably be seen as neurodiverse or something like that, since he seemed to know almost nothing outside his own narrow area, and Watson points out his limits pretty early on. Watson himself is the narrator, and I liked getting the story through him. He was a doctor in the British army, got sent to Afghanistan, got wounded, and had to come back. Because of that he couldn’t really manage living alone, and then he ends up hearing about Holmes through a friend who mentions the move to 221B Baker Street and that Holmes wanted a roommate. Holmes’s skills still seem wild even now. He can tell a cigar or tobacco from ash, figure out someone’s height, what shoes they wore, and just go through every possibility. That makes Lestrade and Gregson from Scotland Yard look pretty small-minded next to him. They even jump to a woman named “Rachel” because of a wedding ring and the word “RACHE” in blood, which is... yeah. The book is split into two parts, with the first part about the Brixton Road case and the second part explaining who actually did the murder and what happened. And it matches up really well with what Holmes had already worked out just by looking at the scene with a tape measure and magnifying glass and using his whole data approach, which he calls data, and I guess that word is old now. You also get a bit about Holmes loving the violin, both playing it himself and watching Norman Neruda, and Watson hints at him using drugs at one point. Honestly there’s a lot here, so I’d just say read it. It’s not even that long, and it’s a classic for a reason. Really worth it.
[Discussion] Sherlock Bonus Books - A Study in Scarlet Part 2 by Arthur Conan Doyle
By rainocean45
Hey everyone, welcome back for the second (and last) check-in for A Study in Scarlet. They added a few more links to the case file: the schedule, marginalia, and some stuff on the Great Salt Lake Desert and Mormonism. For question 2, there are a couple articles too: one about the “repentant writer” and how Sherlock Holmes’ creator apparently upset some Mormons, and another about a school district pulling the novel from 6th grade for an “anti-Mormon” reason. Also don’t forget we’re doing The Sign of Four Part 1 next week—okay, detectives, let’s jump in.
Finished A Study in Scarlet: is the reader also supposed to be able to deduct what happened?
By photongoose
After watching HBomberGuy’s Sherlock video again, I ended up pulling out my Complete Sherlock Holmes from the shelf and actually reading it. I just got through the first book, and honestly I’m kind of let down, so I’m hoping someone can clear some things up for me. One of the points in that video was that BBC Sherlock acts like he just magically knows everything, like some all-seeing guy. I figured the books would be pretty different, but I’m not really seeing that. Spoilers, obviously. At the end, Holmes explains how he reached some of his conclusions. A few of them, I think, you could have figured out yourself if you were paying close attention, like the ring suggesting revenge over a woman. But then he says he sent a telegram to Cleveland and got answers back, and we never actually saw that happen. Same kind of thing with the cab horse being left alone and the blood from Hope’s nose while he was walking, and I’m not even sure how that led Holmes to decide the killer was sturdy and red-faced. And that whole bit about the “woman” who came to claim the ring after the ad... what? It feels strange that Holmes didn’t notice a man was dressed as a woman, and then there’s the part about her vanishing too, even if we assume Hope was the cab driver. Plus, at the end, even though Hope knows Watson’s address from the ad and knows his partner was onto them, he still shows up at 221B and acts surprised when he gets cuffed. For a moment I thought maybe the woman was just a fake lead and it was actually some random woman trying to get the gold ring, but then that idea doesn’t really work and I’m left without an explanation. English isn’t my first language, so maybe I’m missing something, and some of the older wording didn’t help either. I skipped over a few bits without checking meanings, but that was mostly in the more descriptive parts, so I’m not sure that’s the issue. Anyway, I’m still planning to read The Sign of the Four after I watch a few versions of A Study in Scarlet first (open to suggestions). If anyone can help me make sense of these parts, I’d really appreciate it.
A Study In Scarlet Review
By deer_moon
A Study in Scarlet is that 1887 mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle that kicks off Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, which is wild because that pair ended up being everywhere. I’ve been meaning to read it for a while, and I spotted the first book at a Salvation Army looking at me like it knew what I’d do, so I grabbed it and jumped in soon after. It’s not very long—just a little over 160 pages—so it’s an easy day or two. The main plot is mostly about a murder, but then it kind of opens up and gets way more intense, with a big chunk of the back half happening in Salt Lake City with a Mormon group. It gives a super broad background and honestly it surprised me. And yeah, it definitely introduces Holmes properly—detective stuff, his whole dynamic with Watson, even the 221B Baker Street details. If it weren’t about Holmes, I feel like I’d probably rate it a bit lower, but the book does a really good job getting you into him and all his little quirks. Plus, with how many Holmes stories there are, I figured at least one of them I’d end up really liking… right?