A Brief History of Sherlock Holmes as a Literary Icon

Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published A Study in Scarlet. At the time, detective fiction was still a developing genre, influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin and Émile Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq. Yet Doyle’s creation of Holmes was revolutionary—he combined scientific reasoning, meticulous observation, and deductive logic to craft a character unlike any detective before him.

The partnership between Holmes and Dr. John Watson, introduced from the very beginning, gave readers not only brilliant mysteries but also a human element—Watson’s warmth and loyalty balanced Holmes’s cool rationality. This dynamic duo made its mark with the publication of The Sign of the Four (1890) and later cemented its place in history with the short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892).

By the 1890s, Holmes had become a literary sensation. Readers eagerly awaited each new installment in The Strand Magazine, where Doyle’s short stories were serialized alongside Sidney Paget’s iconic illustrations. Holmes became so popular that when Doyle attempted to kill him off in “The Final Problem” (1893), public outcry was immense—thousands canceled their Strand subscriptions, and Doyle was pressured into resurrecting his detective in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and later stories.