Reading the Sherlock Holmes Books in Order
If you’ve read anything on this site, you already know how I feel about Sherlock Holmes. He is, in my entirely unbiased opinion, the most London thing to have ever not existed. And the fact that he didn’t exist has never really stopped him from feeling completely real. The canon Conan Doyle left behind is one of the most-read bodies of fiction in the English language, and if you haven’t read it yet, or you’ve only seen the adaptations, you’re in for something genuinely special.
Four novels. Five short story collections. Sixty adventures total, published between 1887 and 1927. Here’s how to read them.
The Four Novels
Start here. The novels are where you meet Holmes and Watson, understand who they are to each other, and get the full sweep of what these stories can do.
A Study in Scarlet (1887)
Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet marks the very first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Set in late Victorian London, the novel introduces Holmes as a brilliant but eccentric consulting detective and Watson as his loyal companion and narrator, fresh from military service in Afghanistan. Their fateful meeting in Baker Street sparks one of literature’s most enduring partnerships.
What begins as a baffling crime in London soon expands into a story that spans continents, weaving together science, deduction, passion, and fate. Doyle contrasts the foggy streets of London with the stark landscapes of the American frontier, reminding readers that the “scarlet thread” of human emotion — love, jealousy, vengeance — runs through every society.
The Sign of the Four (1890)
The Sign of the Four is Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes novel. It introduces readers to a case that begins with a mysterious summons and grows into a tale of hidden treasure, betrayal, and pursuit across the foggy streets and rivers of Victorian London. Holmes brings his unmatched powers of deduction, while Watson provides both loyalty and perspective as the mystery unfolds.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
First published in 1902, The Hound of the Baskervilles stands as one of Sherlock Holmes’s most atmospheric and enduring investigations. When the heir to the Baskerville estate fears he is pursued by a legendary spectral hound, Holmes and Watson confront a mystery shaped by ancient superstition and the eerie desolation of the Devon moor.
With Watson observing events at Baskerville Hall and Holmes working from the shadows, the case unfolds through rising tension, unexpected revelations, and the interplay of reason against fear. Blending Gothic mood with brilliant deduction, Doyle crafts a tale that remains a defining moment in the Holmes canon—haunting, tightly constructed, and endlessly compelling.
The Valley of Fear (1915)
The Valley of Fear (1915) was Doyle’s last Holmes novel – a strange, ambitious tale split between a Sussex manor with a working drawbridge and a Pennsylvania mining valley ruled by fear. At its heart lies John Douglas, genial squire by day, scarred Pinkerton detective by night, hunted across continents by a secret society.
It’s Holmes versus Moriarty in the shadows, fear as both emotion and landscape, and one of Doyle’s most experimental works – darker, rougher, and more symbolic than its more famous cousins.
The Five Short Story Collections
This is where the canon really lives. The short stories are the heart of it, the ones that gave us Irene Adler, the Reichenbach Falls, the return, the final bow. Read them in publication order for the full experience.
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
The one everyone knows is A Scandal in Bohemia — the case of Irene Adler, the only woman to ever get the better of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle himself called her “the woman,” and the title stuck. She appears in exactly one story and has never left the public imagination since. Also here: The Red-Headed League (one of the best plots in the entire canon), The Adventure of the Speckled Band (snakes, bell ropes, a locked room — Conan Doyle’s own favourite story), and The Man with the Twisted Lip (Watson finds Holmes in a Limehouse opium den and takes a moment to collect himself).
2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)
Twelve more stories, and this is the collection that ends with The Final Problem — Holmes and Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, and the moment that broke Victorian Britain. Letters of outrage. People wearing black armbands in the street. Conan Doyle genuinely did not anticipate the scale of public grief and privately found it somewhat baffling, having grown tired of Holmes and rather wanted to write other things. The collection also introduces Mycroft Holmes, who is somehow more brilliant than his brother and considerably less motivated to do anything about it.
3. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
After ten years — the Great Hiatus, as devoted readers call it — Holmes walks back through Watson’s door alive, having faked his death using a technique learned from a Tibetan monk (Conan Doyle committed to this completely and with a straight face). The public reaction was the opposite of the grief at his death. Thirteen stories, Holmes restored, and The Adventure of the Empty House — the return itself — remains one of the most satisfying reveals in fiction.
4. His Last Bow (1917)
Seven stories published during the First World War, and the title story is something different: a third-person spy narrative set on the eve of war, in which Holmes comes out of retirement as a beekeeper in Sussex to help the British government. It ends with him standing on a clifftop talking about the east wind coming. The mood is elegiac in a way the earlier collections aren’t, which makes sense given when it was written. Watson updates the reader in a preface on Holmes’s health and whereabouts, like a dispatch from an old friend.
5. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)
The final collection, forty years after A Study in Scarlet, and the darkest of the five. Treachery, mutilation, gothic horror — two stories narrated by Holmes himself rather than Watson, which gives them an entirely different register. Conan Doyle described these as the most unusual things he’d written in the canon, and the post-war disillusionment of the 1920s is all over them. The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane and The Adventure of the Illustrious Client were Conan Doyle’s own picks for the best of the collection.
Where to Start
If you want the proper beginning: A Study in Scarlet, then read in publication order. You’ll understand the full arc — the meeting, the rise, the death, the return, the final bow — as it was meant to be experienced.
If you want the most accessible entry point and you’re not sure you’re ready to commit: The Hound of the Baskervilles stands completely alone, is probably the most atmospheric thing Conan Doyle ever wrote, and has converted more reluctant readers than anything else in the canon.
If you want the short stories first: start with The Adventures and specifically A Scandal in Bohemia. You’ll understand immediately why this character has never gone away.
Visited the London locations? They’re all still there — [here’s where to find them.]