
A Study in Scarlet
Arthur Conan Doyle(Author)
Nicholas Daly(Editor)
Oxford University Press
2nd Edition
Published on 9. March 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-0-19-885604-7 (ISBN)
Description
'There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life.'
In Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet a popular cultural phenomenon is born. We meet two of the most famous characters in modern literary history: the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, an army doctor home on sick leave, for the first time. Through Watson we learn a little about the eccentric figure who is his new room-mate at 221B Baker Street, before they encounter their first case: an American visitor to the city has been killed in an empty house off the Brixton Road, and the only clue the police have is the mysterious word 'Rache', scrawled in blood-red letters on the wall. As Holmes sets to work with his unique forensic methods, behind the murder a tangled skein of love, religion, and revenge gradually unwinds, taking us from the streets of London to the Utah Territory, and back again.
As Nicholas Daly's Introduction describes, out of this gripping tale grew the Holmes and Watson stories that would make Conan Doyle the best-paid author of his time. His creations have become household words, inspiring not only countless adaptations and imitations, but a Sherlock Holmes museum, Sherlock Holmes-themed pubs, and a whole array of Holmesian merchandise, from cushions to jigsaw puzzles. Here, though, we meet Holmes and Watson before they became famous, and we can see how their extraordinary impact on our popular culture derives from the late-Victorian world from which they emerge.
In Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet a popular cultural phenomenon is born. We meet two of the most famous characters in modern literary history: the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, an army doctor home on sick leave, for the first time. Through Watson we learn a little about the eccentric figure who is his new room-mate at 221B Baker Street, before they encounter their first case: an American visitor to the city has been killed in an empty house off the Brixton Road, and the only clue the police have is the mysterious word 'Rache', scrawled in blood-red letters on the wall. As Holmes sets to work with his unique forensic methods, behind the murder a tangled skein of love, religion, and revenge gradually unwinds, taking us from the streets of London to the Utah Territory, and back again.
As Nicholas Daly's Introduction describes, out of this gripping tale grew the Holmes and Watson stories that would make Conan Doyle the best-paid author of his time. His creations have become household words, inspiring not only countless adaptations and imitations, but a Sherlock Holmes museum, Sherlock Holmes-themed pubs, and a whole array of Holmesian merchandise, from cushions to jigsaw puzzles. Here, though, we meet Holmes and Watson before they became famous, and we can see how their extraordinary impact on our popular culture derives from the late-Victorian world from which they emerge.
More details
Series
Edition
2nd Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Edition type
Revised edition
Dimensions
Height: 193 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
150 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-885604-7 (9780198856047)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Arthur Conan Doyle | Nicholas Daly
A Study in Scarlet
E-Book
02/2023
2nd Edition
OUP eBook
€4.99
Available for download

Arthur Conan Doyle | Nicholas Daly
A Study in Scarlet
E-Book
02/2023
2nd Edition
OUP eBook
€4.99
Available for download
Persons
Nicholas Daly is Professor of Modern English and American Literature at University College Dublin, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has also taught at Wesleyan University, Dartmouth College, and Trinity College Dublin. His publications include the books Modernism, Romance, and the Fin de Siecle (1999), Literature, Technology and Modernity (2004), Sensation and Modernity in the 1860s (2009), and The Demographic Imagination and the Nineteenth-Century City: Paris, London, New York (2015). He has edited Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel and Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda for Oxford World's Classics. His Ruritania: A Cultural History, from The Prisoner of Zenda to the Princess Diaries appeared from Oxford University Press in 2020.
Darryl Jones (General Editor) is Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin, where he teaches nineteenth-century literature and popular fiction. He is the author or editor of ten books, including the Oxford World's Classics editions of M. R. James's Collected Ghost Stories (2011), Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic Tales (2016), H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (2017), and The Island of Doctor Moreau (2017), as well as Horror: A Very Short Introduction (2021).
Darryl Jones (General Editor) is Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin, where he teaches nineteenth-century literature and popular fiction. He is the author or editor of ten books, including the Oxford World's Classics editions of M. R. James's Collected Ghost Stories (2011), Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic Tales (2016), H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (2017), and The Island of Doctor Moreau (2017), as well as Horror: A Very Short Introduction (2021).
Author
Editor
University College Dublin
General editor
Professor of Modern British Literature and CultureProfessor of Modern British Literature and Culture, Trinity College Dublin
Content
Introduction
A Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
Chronology
A Study in Scarlet
Explanatory Notes
A Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
Chronology
A Study in Scarlet
Explanatory Notes