Sherlock Holmes – Page 2 – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Speckled Band’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ is one of the most popular Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Doyle himself recognised that many readers would include ‘The Speckled Band’ among their list of favourite Holmes outings. It’s easy to read Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and enjoy them, with no additional analysis deemed necessary.

But closer inspection reveals its links to previous detective fiction and the reasons for its status as one of the finest of Doyle’s short stories.

A Summary and Analysis of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ was the short story that transformed the fortunes of Sherlock Holmes, or at least those of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Although the great sleuth had previously appeared in two short novels, A Study in Scarlet (1887; it was originally published by Mrs Beeton’s husband, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual) and The Sign of the Four (1890), it would be the short stories, published in The Strand magazine from 1891, that would transform Sherlock Holmes into one of the most recognisable fictional characters in all fiction.

Five Fascinating Facts about Ernest Bramah

A short biography of writer Ernest Bramah

1. Ernest Bramah created a detective whose popularity rivalled that of Sherlock Holmes. Bramah (1868-1942) created Max Carrados, a popular sleuth whose adventures appeared in The Strand magazine, which also published Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. The complete adventures of Max Carrados, a blind detective who can nevertheless solve crimes thanks to his extraordinary skills at reading things with his fingers and paying attention to the sounds that other people overlook, have recently been reprinted as The Eyes of Max Carrados (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural). Carrados first appeared in 1914 and over the next decade his short stories had many readers in Britain gripped. They still stand up well now.

10 Rivals of Sherlock Holmes Everyone Should Read

The best fictional detectives who were contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes

If you’re a fan of Conan Doyle‘s Sherlock Holmes stories, or the BBC TV series Sherlock, you may well be looking for other great detectives from the golden era of the detective short story to discover and enjoy. Here’s our list of ten of the greatest fictional detectives who solved mysteries and brought criminals to justice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the same time as Conan Doyle’s sleuth was lodging at 221B Baker Street. We are indebted to David Stuart Davies’ excellent introduction to Shadows of Sherlock Holmes (Wordsworth Classics) for some of the following information about these authors and detectives, many of whose names have long since fallen into obscurity. We’ve also added a few suggestions of our own. Davies’ collection is a great compendium of these forgotten gems, including some of the best stories featuring the detectives listed below – perfect reading for the fan of detective fiction.

The Best Literary Spin-Offs from Elizabeth Bennet’s Housemaid to Sherlock Holmes’ Housekeeper

Martin Davies offers a Christmas guide to not-quite classic fiction

Christmas! Dreary outside, cosy inside – what better than to curl up with a good read? And if you’re in the mood for something reassuringly familiar, something rich but not entirely strange, what better than a tale firmly rooted in a novel you already know and love? Yes, it’s time for you to dip into the world of literary spin-offs, reimagined classics, crazy mash-ups and favourite characters resurrected from the literary grave. In publishing at the moment, standing on the shoulders of giants is all the rage.

Of course, writers have taken inspiration from the works of other writers since the invention of the pen (and probably long before that). But if you can’t tell your Sense and Sensibility (J Austen) from your Sense & Sensibility (J Trollope), here’s a quick gallop through some of the complexities of spin-off fiction.