Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet (1886)

A Study in Scarlet was written in 1886 and published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887 by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle was rejected three times by publishers; Ward, Lock, and Company finally accepted it in 1886 with the caveat of it delaying publication until the following year because the market was flooded with “cheap fiction.” It was the first of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, and only one of four full-length novels featuring the character. The title of the work comes from a line within the novel where Holmes describes the case –”There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it” (40).

The work is considered one of the first (or even the first) detective novels. Interestingly enough, A Study in Scarlet was only mildly popular at its initial release. It gained in popularity when Doyle published several Sherlock Holmes short stories in the Strand Magazine in 1891.

 A Study in Scarlet has been adapted to the screen several times, the first being in 1914 as a silent film. This is now lost, as it was made very poorly. A second silent version was also made, but this was lost too. In 1933 another film was made, but as it only had the rights to the title barely any of the plot elements from the novel were recognizable. In 1968 the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes series adapted it in their second season. There has also been a Soviet adaptation, an animated version, a stage rendition, a graphic novel, and radio versions. Other adaptations use part of the novel, such as the meeting between Watson and Holmes. The most current adaptation is the first episode of the BBC’sSherlock, where the characters of Holmes and Watson operate in the 21st century; the plot is more or less the same as the novel but certain elements are changed to reflect technological, social, and political developments.

Reading Prompts

1. What is the character of Watson like? Find specific parts of the text that provide information about Watson. Why do you think Doyle included him?
2. What is the character of Holmes like? Find specific parts of the text that provide information about Holmes and his particular interests, and what they might suggest about his character (i.e., his violin playing).
3. What contributes to the easy relationship of Watson and Holmes, especially as Holmes does not get along with many people?
4. How are the Mormons depicted?
5. How does Holmes get involved in this murder case? Since he often shows no interest in cases presented to him, why does this particular case appeal to him?
6. Why does Watson get involved in this murder case?
7. What are the shortcomings of Scotland Yard detectives, and why do they need Sherlock Holmes? What is the relationship between Holmes and Scotland Yard? In what ways does Holmes need Scotland Yard? Explain what need might mean in reference to this relationship.
8. What does this novel establish about Sherlock Holmes? About his methods of detection? Do you think his approach to detection reasonable?
9. Why do you think Doyle wrote this so that we see Holmes only as reported through Watson’s eyes? What effect does that have on readers’ view of Holmes? How would this story differ if it were Holmes writing? What if it were told by an anonymous third-person narrator?
10. Did you find yourself charmed by Holmes’s genius?
11. What do you think about his ideas regarding knowledge? (Brain is an attic and only has so much space for information.) Do you agree it is not necessary to know the earth revolves around the sun?
12. Since Holmes often shows no interest in cases presented to him, why does this particular case appeal to him?
13. How does this novel exemplify the tensions present in late 19th century London? What are some of those tensions?
14. What is the symbolism of blood and the word “RACHE?”
15. What do Holmes’ artistic interests suggest about his character?
16. What are the major clues that help Holmes solve this case?
17. Do you agree with Holmes, that without murder, life has no color? Is this maybe why we’re so entranced by murder-y TV shows and movies as well as crime novels and daily blotters?
18. How is Holmes like Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin? Before Conan Doyle creates Holmes, there were few detective stories to use as a template. Is Holmes based on a detective or on a medical student doctor?
19. In some ways, Holmes is a difficult character to like, especially because of his contempt for others in the story and for us. In your opinion, what makes Sherlock Holmes such an important and enduring figure in British fiction? Why do readers like him?
20. In what ways does Holmes represent what we might call a stereotypical Britisher
21. How do you compare the two parts of the story. Did breaking up the story work? Did you feel that the narrative voice of the second half didn’t quite match the narrative voice of the first half?
22. Did the story’s vilification of Mormons intrude on your reading experience at all? Did you just ignore the caricature depiction as a function of the time in which the book was published?
23. London had recently survived the Jack the Ripper attacks when Conan Doyle wrote this story. Do you think the Holmes stories became so popular as a direct result of the crimes?
24. Traditional detective stories present the “facts” to readers and let them work out the crime. Why do you think Conan Doyle rejected this formula? Why are Conan Doyle’s stories so popular if they are a direct contradiction of the traditional detective genre?
25. What do you make of Holmes and Watson and how do they compare to any TV or film adaptations you have seen?

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SHERLOCK: A Study in Pink (BBC, 2010)

In the three new Masterpiece films that aired in fall 2010 (A Study in Pink, The Blind Banker, and The Great Game), written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, actor Benedict Cumberbatch plays a reimagined Holmes in contemporary London. Although he now has the power of the Internet and a smart phone, Holmes still needs only his formidable powers of deduction to determine on first meeting Watson (played by Martin Freeman) that the doctor has just returned from Afghanistan.

Whatever the century, Sherlock continues to fascinate and intrigue audiences. As the BBC notes, “Sherlock Holmes was always a modern man. It’s the world that got old. Now he’s back as he should be: edgy, contemporary, difficult—and dangerous.”

Discussion Questions

1. Who is Sherlock Holmes? Before watching A Study in Pink, think about or jot down how you would describe him. Consider his skills, personality, habits, relationships, and so on. After watching, think back to your initial description. How well do you think the screenwriters updated the character for a contemporary audience, yet kept what was essential about him?
2. What do you expect from any portrayal of this iconic character? What do you think makes this Holmes—or any Holmes—tick? In A Study in Pink he is called a freak, a lunatic, and a psychopath. (“I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research,” he responds.) If you were Holmes’s therapist, what would be your diagnosis for him? In a 2009 New York Times Magazine article, a doctor suggests that Holmes is suffering from both Asperger’s syndrome and bipolar disorder. Given our contemporary understanding of psychology, how believable a character is he? At what points does A Study in Pink show the limits of cold-blooded reason divorced from emotional understanding? How does this new version use humor to make Holmes likable in spite of his limitations?
3. In many ways A Study in Pink is the story of the developing relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. As actor Martin Freeman says, “…still at the heart of the drama is (the) relationship between Holmes and Watson. That’s pivotal.” In one of the opening scenes, Watson’s therapist notes that Watson is having “trust issues.” By the conclusion of A Study in Pink, has Watson resolved his “trust issues”? Does he place his trust in Holmes? If so, at what point does Holmes earn Watson’s trust? What common bond do these two very different characters share, and how does each of them rely on the other to compensate for personal vulnerabilities or shortcomings?
4. Steven Moffat believes that Conan Doyle’s stories “lend themselves incredibly well to a modern setting.” Unlike other writing of the era, they are much more fast-paced, so much so that they “must have given the Victorians whiplash.” Of course, Moffat was referring to the experience of reading Conan Doyle’s stories; now he has reinterpreted that frenetic experience for a contemporary film audience. From the opening credits to the film’s soundtrack, how does the direction and digital-age cinematography of A Study in Pink reflect Moffat’s fast-paced vision of Holmes?
5. How does the availability of cell phones, GPS, and the Internet challenge the conventions of the old-fashioned detective story? How does this film use those devices to update the Holmes stories plausibly, yet still retain the central idea that any technology—whether it be the early forensic science of the original stories or a Google search in this version—is merely another tool for a detective with a superior mind? Do you think the filmmakers matched the right modern technology with Holmes’s character? For instance, why do you think they chose to have him text and create a Web site rather than a Facebook page or a Twitter account?
6. What other mysteries have you read or watched lately that use current technology? Read a brief overview of the history of the genre at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/hound/tg_mystery.html. What “commandments” does the genre still have to obey today, regardless of how society has changed?
7. Just as Holmes and Watson pursue the mystery of the “serial suicides” in A Study in Pink, viewers of the film are attempting to unravel the mystery of Holmes’s character as they watch him interact with other characters. Since A Study in Pink is the first in a series of three films, how do creators Moffat and Gatiss entice viewers to continue watching the series? For instance, which of Holmes’s relationships seem to have an emotionally fraught backstory that has not yet been revealed? What other unanswered questions remain at the end of A Study in Pink?
8. Moffat and Gatiss have revealed that they were inspired by a number of previous film adaptations of Holmes, most notably those starring Basil Rathbone, as well as Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. There have been dozens of film interpretations of Holmes; many popular television characters have also been modelled after Holmes, including Adrian Monk of Monk, Gregory House of House (even his name is a play on “Holmes”), Robert Goren of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and a certain famous extraterrestrial. “What’s Mr. Spock,” Mark Feeney noted in a 2008 Boston Globe article, “but Holmes sent into space with pointy ears? There’s the same stunning intellect—and stunning lack of emotion.” Choose another Sherlock Holmes film or a television show that features a Holmesian detective. What are the essential characteristics that appear in these adaptations? What elements do Moffat and Gatiss echo? Of all the Sherlock Holmes versions you know or have viewed, which one is your favorite, and why?
9. Try your hand at Holmesian deduction at a Sherlock viewing party with one of the following simple parlor games:
   a) At some point during the gathering, ask everyone in the room to relinquish the same everyday object they’re likely to have with them—a set of keys, a wallet, or a cell phone, for instance. Have them do this in secret, perhaps by carrying the object to another room and putting it in a bag, and have them remove or conceal any aspect of the object that makes ownership obvious, such as a driver’s license. Then have the group look together at all the keys or wallets arrayed in one place and sleuth out which object belongs to which person in the room and why. In general, what clues about ourselves do we give away without knowing it?
   b) Before the gathering, cover a tray with seven to ten ordinary but varied objects, such as a mug, a book, or a scarf. Have the tray in the room where you are gathering, placed somewhere where the guests will see it but where it is unobtrusive. Do not call attention to the tray, but at some point take it out of the room. Then ask participants to write down as many objects as they noticed and remembered in as much detail as possible. Bring the tray back in to see who noticed the most and in the greatest detail.