Introduction & Overview of The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Red-Headed League Introduction

"The Red-Headed League" first appeared in a popular British magazine, the Strand, in August of 1891. It was republished in 1892, along with eleven other Sherlock Holmes stories, in the collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Its style and structure make it a nearly perfect example of the modern detective story, first devised by Edgar Allan Poe fifty years previously. Doyle's ingenious plots and captivating central characters, Holmes and his sidekick Watson, brought the author literary success in his own time. Further, the Sherlock Holmes stories provided later writers with models for their own work. The existence of today's popular detective tales, whether in the form of books, movies, or television shows, are in large part due to Doyle's influence.

Many readers enjoy matching their wits against Sherlock Holmes, trying to see if they can solve the mystery along with him. This is usually a task doomed to failure...
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