A Study in Scarlet was the career-starting, first Sherlock Holmes story published by Arthur Conan Doyle. Set in 19th-century London, it follows Dr. John Watson, a war veteran, and the enigmatic young Sherlock Holmes, a uniquely gifted detective. Two murders in London have Scotland Yard confounded, and the solution Holmes illuminates transports the reader to America’s Wild West of the 1850s, and beyond. A Study in Scarlet is a seminal work, and one that has transformed the mystery and crime genres. This Essential Classics edition includes a new introduction by Professor Vivian Heller, Ph.D. in literature and modern studies from Yale University.


Arthur Conan Doyle was a writer and physician born in Edinburgh. Doyle is best known for his detective fiction featuring Sherlock Holmes.



Vivian Heller received her Ph.D. in English Literature and Modern Studies from Yale University. She is author of Joyce, Decadence, and Emancipation(University of Illinois Press) and of The City Beneath Us (W.W. Norton & Company),a history of the building of the New York City subway system. She is an associate at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies and is the writing tutor for the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. She is also a long-standing member of the non-fiction committee of the PEN Prison-Writing Committee, which awards prizes to inmates from across the country.



Essential Classics publishes the most crucial literary works throughout history, with a unique introduction to each, making them the perfect treasure for any reader’s shelf.