Sherlock Holmes Book Order: How to Actually Read Arthur Conan Doyle Without Getting Confused

You’d think it would be simple. You pick up a book, you read the first page, and you move on to the next. But Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't exactly thinking about your 21st-century binge-reading habits when he was churning out stories for The Strand Magazine. If you try to follow the Sherlock Holmes book order based on when the stories actually take place in Sherlock's life, you are going to give yourself a massive headache. Honestly, it’s a mess.

Doyle wrote these things over the span of four decades. He killed Sherlock off because he was bored of him, then brought him back because the public (and his bank account) demanded it. This means the publication dates and the internal chronology of the Great Detective’s life are two very different beasts. If you're a purist, you'll want to stick to the order the Victorian public saw them. If you’re a timeline nerd, you’re in for a wild ride involving a lot of "Dr. Watson forgot what year it was" excuses.

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Why the Publication Order is Usually the Best Bet

Most people should just start with A Study in Scarlet. It's short. It’s where Holmes and Watson meet at St. Bart’s Hospital. It establishes the "science of deduction." If you don't start here, you're missing the literal foundation of the most famous friendship in literature.

After that, you've got The Sign of Four. This one is a bit weirder. It involves a stolen treasure from India, a secret pact, and it’s where we meet Mary Morstan. It’s essential, even if some of the Victorian era's colonial attitudes in the book make you cringe a little today.

Then come the short stories. This is where Sherlock Holmes really became a superstar. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories, and basically, every single one is a banger. "A Scandal in Bohemia"? Classic. "The Red-Headed League"? Utterly bizarre and brilliant. You can see Doyle finding his rhythm here. He isn't trying to write a sweeping epic; he’s writing punchy, atmospheric mysteries that fit perfectly into a commute or a quiet evening.

The Problem With The Memoirs and The Return

Here is where it gets tricky for the Sherlock Holmes book order. Doyle published The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes next, which ends with "The Final Problem." Holmes "dies" at Reichenbach Falls. Doyle was done. He wanted to write historical novels about knights.

But then, ten years later, he caved. He wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, but he set it before Sherlock’s death. It was a prequel. It wasn't until The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1905 that he actually resurrected the character in the "current" timeline. If you’re reading for the first time, don't skip around. Just follow the release years. It preserves the emotional impact of the "Great Hiatus" that readers felt back then.

The Full List by Release Date

If you want to keep your shelf organized or your Kindle library in check, here is the sequence as the world first saw it:

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1. A Study in Scarlet (1887) – The novel where it all starts.
2. The Sign of Four (1890) – The second novel.
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) – The first short story collection.
4. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) – The collection ending in the Reichenbach Falls showdown.
5. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) – A novel set before Holmes' "death."
6. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905) – The collection explaining how he survived.
7. The Valley of Fear (1915) – A novel that heavily involves Professor Moriarty.
8. His Last Bow (1917) – Stories set later, including some World War I era context.
9. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927) – The final collection, often considered the weakest by critics, but still essential for completionists.

Should You Try the Chronological Order?

Kinda? Maybe? Not really.

Technically, the first story in Holmes' personal timeline is "The Gloria Scott," followed by "The Musgrave Ritual." These are stories from his university days, before he met Watson. They appear in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

If you try to read chronologically, you’ll be jumping between books constantly. You'd read a story from book four, then two from book one, then a novel from book seven. It’s exhausting. Plus, Dr. Watson’s narration is inconsistent. Sometimes he mentions cases that Doyle never actually wrote. Scholars like Leslie S. Klinger, who edited The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, have spent years trying to reconcile the dates, but Doyle was notorious for being sloppy with his own continuity. Watson’s old war wound even moves from his shoulder to his leg between books.

The "Must-Read" vs. The "Skip-If-You're-Bored"

Let's be real. Not every Holmes story is a masterpiece.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is widely considered the best mystery novel ever written. It’s atmospheric, scary, and perfectly paced. Read it. Twice.

The Valley of Fear is a bit polarizing. The first half is a classic English manor house mystery. The second half is a flashback to a secret society in America that feels like a completely different book. Some people love the hard-boiled detective vibe of the second half; others just want to get back to Baker Street.

Then there’s The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. By the late 1920s, Doyle was deeply into spiritualism and was getting a bit tired of the rigid logic of Holmes. Some of these stories, like "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane," are written in the first person by Holmes himself rather than Watson. They feel different. They are darker, sometimes a bit more gruesome, and arguably less "Sherlockian" in the traditional sense.

Understanding the "Canon"

In the world of Sherlockians (the hardcore fans), these four novels and 56 short stories are known as "The Canon." Anything written by other authors later—even the good stuff by Anthony Horowitz or Nicholas Meyer—is "apocrypha" or "pastiche."

When you're looking for the Sherlock Holmes book order, you’re sticking to the 60 original works. The beauty of these books is that they are surprisingly modern. Doyle’s prose is lean. He doesn't waste time. Even a hundred years later, the reveal of a clever "locked room" mystery feels satisfying.

One thing you'll notice is the drug use. In the early books, Holmes uses a "seven-percent solution" of cocaine to combat boredom. As the series progressed and public attitudes changed—and as Doyle himself became more conservative—this trait was largely phased out. Reading in publication order lets you see the character evolve (or settle down) in real-time.

Actionable Steps for New Readers

If you are ready to dive into 221B Baker Street, don't just buy a "Complete Works" brick that weighs ten pounds and sits on your shelf collecting dust.

• Start with the Penguin Classics or Oxford World's Classics editions. They have great notes that explain the Victorian slang and historical context.
• Don't binge the short stories all at once. They were meant to be read month-to-month. If you read ten in a row, you'll start to notice Doyle's formulaic tendencies. Space them out.
• Listen to the radio plays. If you struggle with the 19th-century language, the BBC radio adaptations with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams are legendary and cover every single story in the canon.
• Watch for the Moriarty myth. Modern TV shows make Moriarty out to be a constant arch-nemesis. In the books, he's barely in them. Reading the books in order reveals how small a role he actually played in the original text compared to his massive presence in pop culture today.

The best way to experience the Sherlock Holmes book order is to follow the breadcrumbs Doyle left for the original readers. Start with the foggy nights in A Study in Scarlet and work your way through to the bittersweet farewells in His Last Bow. By the time you reach the end, you'll understand why the world refused to let this character stay dead.

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To get the most out of your reading, pick up an annotated version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes first. It provides the necessary Victorian context for things like telegrams, hansom cabs, and the strange currency of the time, making the logic of the mysteries much easier to follow for a modern reader.