Uncovering Writing

A Study in Scarlet / The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finally read the first Sherlock Holmes mystery. I enjoyed A Study in Scarlet, but not as much as I did the Hound of the Baskervilles, the other tale included in this volume.

The first part of A Study in Scarlet was fun, with the introduction of Dr. Watson and Holmes, how they met, their backgrounds and quirks. It was nice to be able to have some backstory instead of just seeing the convivial relationship that I jumped into with later stories and the various film interpretations. The second part of the story, told mainly in the past, was a little more difficult to parse and not really what I expected from a Holmes tale. Then again, this was the first Holmes and it was a “novel” way of telling the story. A short conclusion tied together the two stories, almost a little too neatly. Like the other story in this volume, A Study in Scarlet was a very quick read. Doyle knows how to write smooth, flowing text that propels you from start to finish. It was hard to keep putting down the story as each successive page begged me to read it. I really loved one specific sentence. It could have been common usage from the time the novel was written, but I thoroughly enjoyed it:

"I will now cut one of these pills in two," said Holmes, and drawing his penknife he suited the action to the word. (p. 68)

I must note that I was a bit put off by the sexism, classism and racism in the story. Doyle paints Native Americans, Arab children, working class people and women very poorly. In the past, I might have said that this was simply a sign of the times and forcing a 20th/21st century mindset onto a late 19th century book. However, after having read one of Doyle’s contemporaries, H.G. Wells, especially in his volume Ann Veronica, I can say that there were authors who were writing progressively at that time. In fact, one can jump back to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and even her parents for progressive works in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. So, that was a bit of a negative for me, but overall, I still enjoyed the story.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is my absolute favorite Holmes story. I’m so happy to finally own it in a physical copy. I’ve read it online and on my Kindle using Project Gutenberg’s edition. I will come back to this volume often, although likely just to reread “The Hound”.

I’d give the Hound five stars, which I did when I reviewed it in another GoodReads entry, and I’d give A Study in Scarlet three to three and a half stars. So, to honestly rate this volume as a whole, I’ll give it four stars.