Sixty Stories
You searched for Sherlock Holmes books in order. Here is the answer. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty six short stories about Holmes. That makes sixty stories, gathered into nine books, and the usual order is publication order, starting with A Study in Scarlet in eighteen eighty seven. This video has no spoilers.
Now the catch, and I’ll say it plainly. I went through the full text of two of the nine: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and The Hound of the Baskervilles. For the other seven, you get titles, years and story counts, because that is all I have earned. My pick for where to start comes at the end, and it is only my opinion. First, the nine books on one line.
Nine Books on One Line
Here they are, in publication order, with the year of each book. A Study in Scarlet, a novel, eighteen eighty seven. The Sign of the Four, a novel, eighteen ninety. Then The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, eighteen ninety two, twelve stories. Then The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, listed as eighteen ninety four, though its stories ran in The Strand magazine until December of eighteen ninety three. And the third novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, serialised from nineteen oh one to nineteen oh two.
That is five books. The last four are The Return of Sherlock Holmes, nineteen oh five, thirteen stories. Then The Valley of Fear, a novel, nineteen fourteen to nineteen fifteen. Then His Last Bow, nineteen seventeen. And finally The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, nineteen twenty seven, twelve stories.
Look at the span. From the first book to the last is forty years, eighteen eighty seven to nineteen twenty seven. So when someone says Holmes has one order, they are really talking about four decades of writing.
One warning on the counts. Wikipedia and the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia both give fifty six short stories, but one story, The Cardboard Box, is shelved in different collections by different editions. So Memoirs has eleven or twelve, and His Last Bow has eight or seven. The total never changes.
What I Actually Read
Here is exactly what is behind this video. I went through the whole text of two Project Gutenberg books: ebook sixteen sixty one, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and ebook twenty eight fifty two, The Hound of the Baskervilles. By my count that is about one hundred sixty three thousand words, without the licence text and the contents list. The Adventures is about one hundred four thousand and the Hound about fifty nine thousand.
The other seven I did not read. For A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, the Memoirs, the Return, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow and the Case-Book, I give you the title, the year and nothing about the plot. No ratings and no guesses.
There is one link I can check from the page. The Adventures names A Study in Scarlet twice and The Sign of Four twice, inside its own stories. So even in book three of nine, Watson is looking back at earlier cases. That is a real reason to know the first two exist, even though the stories do not need them.
The Adventures, Story by Story
Now our own table. The Adventures has twelve stories, each a complete case told by Watson, and I counted the words of each one. I also worked out where each begins, as a share of the whole book.
The first four. A Scandal in Bohemia opens the book, at eight thousand five hundred words. The Red-Headed League has nine thousand one hundred, starting eight percent of the way in. A Case of Identity is the shortest, at about seven thousand. The Boscombe Valley Mystery has nine thousand six hundred and begins about a quarter of the way through.
The middle four. The Five Orange Pips is seven thousand three hundred words. The Man with the Twisted Lip has nine thousand two hundred. The Blue Carbuncle has seven thousand eight hundred. And The Speckled Band has nine thousand eight hundred, and it starts just past the halfway mark.
The last four. The Engineer’s Thumb has eight thousand three hundred words. The Noble Bachelor has eight thousand one hundred. The Beryl Coronet has nine thousand seven hundred. And The Copper Beeches is the longest, nearly ten thousand, and it closes the book.
The average is about eight thousand seven hundred words. So no story is a quick read, but any one fits in a sitting.
Not Even Its Own Order
Here is the surprise for anyone chasing a perfect order. Even inside the Adventures, the story clock does not run straight. These are dates the text itself states.
The Speckled Band opens in April of eighteen eighty three. The Five Orange Pips says September of eighteen eighty seven. A Scandal in Bohemia, the very first story, is dated the twentieth of March, eighteen eighty eight. The Man with the Twisted Lip says June of eighteen eighty nine. So the book begins in eighty eight, and the eighth story jumps back to eighty three.
The text also tugs against itself. The Noble Bachelor says it happened a few weeks before Watson’s own marriage, and it gives the bridegroom’s birth year as eighteen forty six and his age as forty one, which points to about eighteen eighty seven. Yet The Five Orange Pips, set in September of that year, has Watson’s wife away visiting her mother. I am only reporting what the pages say, not solving it, and the pointing to eighteen eighty seven is my own arithmetic.
A day by day timeline of all sixty stories is a fan project, and I did not verify one, so I will not hand you one. What I can say is that the Hound’s narration never gives a year for its own events. So publication order is the one clock you can check, and that is why I lean on it.
Fifteen Chapters in London
Now the Hound. It is one case across fifteen chapters, and our table shows the chapter titles as printed, with word counts.
London first. Chapter one is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, at two thousand two hundred fifty words. Chapter two is The Curse of the Baskervilles, nearly four thousand. Then The Problem, Sir Henry Baskerville and Three Broken Threads.
Those five chapters run about sixteen and a half thousand words, and Holmes is on stage in all of them. If you only want to test whether the Hound grabs you, this is your sample, and it is about a quarter of the book.
Where Holmes Steps Out
Then the book does something I did not expect. From chapter six to the end of chapter eleven, Holmes is mostly off stage, and the story is carried by Watson.
Chapter six is Baskerville Hall. Chapter seven is The Stapletons of Merripit House. Chapters eight and nine are Watson’s reports, written as letters. Chapter ten is an extract from his diary. Chapter eleven is The Man on the Tor.
By my count those six chapters are forty four percent of the words, but the name Holmes appears only twenty four times in them, out of one hundred ninety one in the whole book. If a detective story without the detective sounds wrong to you, now you know where it happens.
Holmes Comes Back
Chapters twelve to fifteen finish the book. Chapter twelve is Death on the Moor. Chapter thirteen is Fixing the Nets. Chapter fourteen shares the book’s title, and chapter fifteen is A Retrospection.
In my reading, that last chapter is told as a look back. I will not spoil one name of it. The point for your order is this: the Hound is a single story you can read without any other book, and its pages never ask you to know another case.
What Each Book Adds
Here is what I can honestly say about each book. The Adventures gives you twelve complete cases, with Watson telling each one. Baker Street is named in every one of the twelve, twenty eight times in all.
Irene Adler is named fourteen times in the Adventures, eleven of them in the first story, two in A Case of Identity and one in The Blue Carbuncle. So one story gives the book its most famous name, and the rest only echo it.
The Hound adds something different. It is the shortest of my two, one case in fifteen chapters. The other seven I can only describe by list. Two early novels, then the Memoirs and the Return, then a fourth novel, then two late collections. Whether they are better, I cannot tell you, and I would rather say that than invent a verdict.
Where Do You Start
Now my opinion, and it is only an opinion. If you want the truest answer to your search, read in publication order, starting with A Study in Scarlet. But that is only the safe answer. I have not read it, so I cannot promise it is the best door.
My own pick, from what I did read, is the Adventures. The stories stand alone, and the first one, A Scandal in Bohemia, is a good first meeting between you, Holmes and Watson. If you want a single long case, my second pick is the Hound.
Short on time? Read A Scandal in Bohemia, about eight and a half thousand words, and decide from there. Want something that feels like a novel? The Hound, fifteen chapters. Want the full line? Publication order, nine books, forty years. Pick the door that fits your evening.
Your Turn
Which Holmes book did you start with, and would you change it? Tell me in the comments, and tell me if you ever finished all sixty.
My full guide is on book explained dot com, and the page for this video is linked below. If this chart helped, subscribe, tap like, and I’ll see you in the next one.
