Point of View

"The Red-Headed League" is narrated from the first-person perspective of Dr. Watson, who participates in all aspects of Sherlock Holmes's case. What makes this narrative style especially clever is that Doyle creates a narrator who sees and hears the same information that Holmes does and who can relay the information systematically to readers, but who cannot interpret it. This technique is characteristic of the early detective story, pioneered by Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the sleuth Dupin. It creates suspense, since readers—along with the sidekick narrator—do not have access to the detective's innermost thoughts until he finally chooses to reveal them after the mystery is solved.

Setting

When Jabez Wilson shows Holmes and Watson the newspaper in which he first learned of the Red-Headed League, we learn that the events of the story take place in 1890, only a year before Doyle wrote the story...