In a long story whose title was changed by its author from "A Tangled Skein" to "A Study in Scarlet", Sherlock Holmes was born. It appeared first in Beeton's Christmas Annual of 1887 and received little attention from either critics or the public. Yet it laid the foundation of the greatest literary cult of this century, is now a world classic and in first edition is extremely valuable.
An American named Enoch J. Drebber has been murdered, and no clue exist save word "Rache" scrawled in blood on the wall. No clue, that is, to Inspector Tobias Gregson of Scotland Yard. Holmes, aided by his foil and companion Dr John H. Watson, deduces a little more and is less surprised than the police when the dead man's private secretary is murdered – with "Rache" again written in blood nearby – after the suspect has been placed under lock and key.
Utdrag ur boken:
'Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.'