"In a colorless threads of destiny, there is the scarlet thread called murder. Our duty is to unravel and isolate that thread down the sunlight without missing an inch" - Sherlock Holmes
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. He wrote the story in 1886, and it's published the next year.
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. He wrote the story in 1886, and it's published the next year.
The story,
and its main character, attracted little public interest when it first
appeared. Only 11 complete copies of Beeton's Christmas Annual 1887 are known
to exist now and they have considerable value. Although Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories
featuring Holmes, A Study in Scarlet is one of only four full-length
novels in the original canon. The novel was followed by The Sign of the Four, published in
1890. A Study in Scarlet was the first work of fiction to incorporate
the magnifying glass as an investigative tool.
Conan Doyle
wrote the novel at the age of 27 in less than three weeks. As a general
practice doctor in South Sea, 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 author received £25 in return for the full rights
(although Conan Doyle had pressed for a royalty instead). It was illustrated by
D. H. Friston. The novel was first published as
a book on July 1888 by Ward, Lock & Co., and featured drawings by the
author's father, Charles Doyle. A second edition appeared the following year
and was illustrated by George Hutchinson; a year later in 1890, J. B. Lippincott & Co. released the
first American version. Numerous further editions, translations and
dramatisations have appeared since.
As the first
Sherlock Holmes story published, A Study in Scarlet was among the first
to be adapted to the screen. In 1914, Conan Doyle authorised a silent film be produced by
G. B.
Samuelson. Holmes was played by James Bragington, an accountant who
had never before (and never after) worked as an actor. He was hired for his
resemblance to Holmes as presented in the sketches originally published with
the story. As early silent films were made with film which itself was made with
poor materials and film archiving was rare, this is now a lost film.
The success of this film allowed for a second version to be produced that same
year by Francis Ford, which has also been lost.
The 1933
film entitled A Study in Scarlet,
starring Reginald Owen as Sherlock Holmes and Anna May Wong
as Mrs. Pyke, bears no plot relation to the novel, the producers having only
purchased rights to the title, not the story. (So limited were the purchased
rights, that the famous Baker Street address is "221A" in the film
rather than the renowned "221B.") Aside from Holmes, Watson, Mrs.
Hudson, and Inspector Lestrade, the only connections to the Holmes canon are a
few lifts of character names (Jabez Wilson, etc.). The plot contains an element
of striking resemblance to one used several years later in Agatha
Christie's novel And Then There Were None, that of
murder victims being counted off by lines from the same nursery rhyme (though
the Holmes film takes the precaution of using the phrase "ten little black
boys").
The book has
rarely been adapted in full, notable instances being: an episode broadcast on
23 September 1968 in the second season of the BBC television series Sherlock Holmes, with Peter Cushing
in the lead role and Nigel Stock as Dr. Watson, which put more detail into the
story, including the actor who claims the ring; the first episode of the 1979 Soviet
TV adaptation, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
(combines the story with The Adventure of the Speckled Band. The second
episode adapts the rest of the novel); an 1983 animated version produced by
Burbank Films Australia, with Peter O'Toole
voicing Holmes; Sherlock Holmes and a Study in Scarlet the first episode
of the BBC's complete Sherlock Holmes on Radio 4,
starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson; and a 2007
episode of the American radio series The Classic Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes.
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