Read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by email.
Twelve cases, each arriving in two or three parts.
The twelve stories that made the Baker Street detective immortal, told by the man who shared the rooms: a royal scandal, a league of red-headed men, a speckled band in the dark, and the woman who beat Holmes at his own game.
Twelve or thirteen minutes a day, and within each story, every installment opens where the last one left off.
Five weeks from now, you will have read Conan Doyle.
34 installments, one an email
- First published
- 1892
- Installments
- 34
- Each installment
- 12–13 min
How long it takes
- Words
- 104,708
- Reading time
- 7 hours 16 minutes
- At 5 minutes a day
- 3 months
- At 10 minutes a day
- 6 weeks
- At 20 minutes a day
- 3 weeks
At 240 words a minute, the average for adult silent reading. Use your own speed
Why read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?
These are the twelve stories that invented the modern detective. Doyle had already written Holmes into two novels; it was these short cases, published month by month in The Strand Magazine in 1891 and 1892, that made him the most famous fictional character in the world — readers queued at the bookstalls the way audiences now queue for premieres.
They were serial fiction from birth, and they serialize perfectly: every case is complete in itself, no continuity required. Each story arrives as two or three installments of ten to fifteen minutes, split at the story's own natural pauses — the client finishes telling the mystery, Holmes goes to work, the truth comes out. Within a story, a short recap picks up the thread; when a case closes, the next begins fresh.
The dozen includes the pillars of the whole canon: “A Scandal in Bohemia,” where Irene Adler out-plays the great detective; “The Red-Headed League,” the most perfect of all the plots; and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the locked-room terror Doyle himself ranked first. Baker Street, the fog, the pipe, “the game is afoot” — it all starts here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?
About seven hours straight through (104,708 words). By email, it's 34 installments of ten to fifteen minutes — twelve complete stories in about five weeks, or faster at a premium pace.
Which stories are included?
All twelve of the first Holmes collection, in order: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-Headed League, A Case of Identity, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Five Orange Pips, The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Blue Carbuncle, The Speckled Band, The Engineer's Thumb, The Noble Bachelor, The Beryl Coronet, and The Copper Beeches.
Are the stories standalone?
Completely. Each case opens and closes on its own, so every few days you get the satisfaction of a solved mystery. Longer stories arrive as two or three parts, each ending at one of Doyle's own natural pauses.
Why are these installments longer than other books'?
A detective story diced into two-minute fragments would be unreadable — you'd meet the clue on Monday and the deduction on Thursday. So Holmes ships in ten-to-fifteen-minute parts that keep each movement of a case intact. It's the length of a Strand sitting, which is how these were meant to be read.
Do I need to have read A Study in Scarlet first?
No. Watson reintroduces everything you need in the first page of the first story. These twelve cases are where most readers have always started.
Do the recaps spoil anything?
No. Recaps appear only on the continuation parts of a story, covering the previous part — and one story is never recapped into the next, so no solution can leak ahead of Doyle's own reveal.
How does it arrive?
One installment per email, one email a day, at the hour you pick. Free. Unsubscribe or pause anytime.
Standard Ebooks edition, public domain. Texts from Standard Ebooks and Project Gutenberg editions. Not affiliated with either.