That remark was the inception of the book, but I should add that the plot and every word of the actual narrative was my own. It arose from a remark by that fine fellow, whose premature death was a loss to the world, Fletcher Robinson, that there was a spectral dog near his home on Dartmoor. The result was The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Sign of Four. He had commissions for several British authors, and invited Oscar Wilde and myself to dinner to discuss the matter. As a consequence Mr Lippincott sent an ambassador over to treat for a successor. There was no American copyright in 1887 when the Study in Scarlet was written, so that the book had a circulation in the United States, and attracted some attention. Many of the great lessons of life are to be learned in the pages of the novelist. It is all very well to sneer at the paper detective, but a principle is a principle, whether in fiction or in fact. On the whole, taking the series of books, my view has been justified, as I understand that in several countries some change has been made in police procedure on account of these stories. Having endured a severe course of training in medical diagnosis, I felt that if the same austere methods of observation and reasoning were applied to the problems of crime some more scientific system could be constructed. It represented a reaction against the too facile way in which the detective of the old school, so far as he was depicted in literature, gained his results. The Study in Scarlet was the first completed long story which I ever wrote, though I had served an apprenticeship of nearly ten years of short stories, most of which were anonymous.

Other writers may however succeed where I fail. Whatever you add to the one central quality of astuteness must in my opinion detract from the general effect. This expansion must express itself in action, for there is no room for character development in the conception of a detective. The following stories paint Mr Sherlock Holmes and his activities upon a somewhat broader canvas where there is room for expansion. Sherlock Holmes - The Complete Long Stories (1930-1931, Musson Book Co.Sherlock Holmes - The Complete Long Stories (14 september 1929, John Murray's Imperial Library ).Sherlock Holmes - The Complete Long Stories (14 september 1929, John Murray ).

The complete stories of sherlock holmes