Detective fiction has often been categorized as pure entertainment. For this reason, much critical opinion of "The Red-Headed League" and Doyle's other Sherlock Holmes stories is influenced by a particular critic's viewpoint on the value of this literary niche. In recent decades, criticism has begun to shift toward a more serious consideration of these tales. Doyle's detective stories are seen as fascinating clues to the culture in which they were written and as explorations of the attitudes characteristic of late-Victorian life.

Most early book reviewers had favorable opinions of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in which "The Red-Headed League" appeared. Typical is the judgment voiced by one anonymous critic in a British periodical, The Athenaeum, who said of the collection, "Of its kind it is excellent; there is little literary pretension about it, and there is hardly any waste of time about subtle character-drawing; but incident...