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A Study in Scarlet
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A Study in Scarlet
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A Study in Scarlet
Audiobook4 hours

A Study in Scarlet

Written by Arthur Conan Doyle

Narrated by Stephen Thorne

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Brought together by a mutual friend, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson discover that they have much more in common than the fact that they're roommates. As Watson begins assisting Sherlock with his work as a consulting detective, Holmes notices that Watson has an uncanny ability to assemble deductions based on seemingly minor details.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 16, 2019
ISBN9781974945306
Author

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish writer and physician, most famous for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes and long-suffering sidekick Dr Watson. Conan Doyle was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.

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Reviews for A Study in Scarlet

Rating: 3.8413793103448275 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My first ever Holmes. Wonderfully there is much of the modern understanding of Sherlock Holmes clearly laid out on the page. He is perhaps even more self aware than TV and movie adaptations allow describing his mood swings and eccentricities to Dr. Watson even before they move in together.

    There is a remarkable section in the middle where the narrative goes all Fenimore Cooper and we are transported from London to the snowy peaks of Utah. Quite unexpected. This was more fun even than I had expected. Fortunately I have already purchased further volumes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes story published. Given its age (1886) it reads surprisingly well with crisp non-florid prose, almost like a novel written in 2017 by someone pretending to be from the 1800s. This is the first Sherlock Holmes I've read. It gives a sense that, while you may be confused, someone else understands the world and answers can be had. That is comforting, like a parent reassuring an anxious child. This is echoed in the name "Sure" as in assurance or confidence; "Lock" as in holding the key to the mystery; and "Holmes" which sounds like "Home", a reassuring feeling. The clues to the mystery are somewhat beside the point, contrived and making sense only after the explanation. Regardless, I really enjoyed it and look forward to dipping into more in a sequential fashion as they were published. Giving 5 stars as the origin story of Sherlock Holmes.For modern readers the Mormon sub-plot is weird and maybe a little offensive. However in the 1880s, they were indeed a novel, strange and exotic people who engaged in massacres and "harems". In the story they come to London, to the homes of the readers. It's a classic "invasion novel" popular at the time, similar to Dracula which saw Eastern Europeans as the invaders. The invasion of London by secretive sub-cultures is a common theme Holmes stories.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an enjoyable introduction to both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, and it will be interesting to see how their characters develop across the series. I particularly enjoyed the large section that took place on the American Plains (not something you expect in a Sherlock Holmes book!) and how the story unravelled that led up to events being investigated in London. This was particularly well done. I look forward to continuing with the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I’m a lover of mysteries. I grew up watching Perry Mason with my grandmother (did I just age myself?), Columbo and Matlock came out on top as well, and currently, I enjoy a lot of detective shows. So, Sherlock Holmes always appealed to me, but I never read a full length novel (shocker!). So, in my attempt to rectify this, I decided to listen to the audiobook version of A Study in Scarlet. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a bit of a genius. I wish I could just say, “read this book!” and be done with it, but, I’ll try to be coherent.

    A Study in Scarlet is written in two parts, John Watson is the narrator. He is introduced to Sherlock Holmes and the two agree to share a room together - the famous 221B Baker Street lodgings. Their introduction to each other is detailed and a bit tedious, but we learn, along with Watson, the curious nature of Holmes; his diverse visitors and his strange habits. The case starts, as most do, with a murder. Holmes is called to the scene of the crime where he is asked to aid in the murder investigation of Enoch Drebber, who was found dead in a building with the word “RACHE” scribbled above the corpse. Soon, another corpse shows up - Stangerson, the Drebber’s secretary is found dead with “RACHE” written above the corpse.

    The first part focuses on the present, the murder of the two men and Holmes’s deduction of the killer. As Watson is relaying the story, the reader isn’t privvy to Holmes’s methods until he reveals them to Watson - who asks intellegent questions (even though he does spend most of the beginning questioning Holmes’s authenticity).

    The second part of the story switches to the past and is written in third person. It follows the story of John Ferrier and Lucy, two lone survivors of a party of pioneers who are rescued by a group of Mormons. The sudden switch in story and perspective is a bit jarring, but I was quickly sucked into the society and Lucy’s situation Information on Stangerson and Drebber’s past is revealed in such a way that I felt empathetic towards their murderer - a really interesting twist.

    Though it’s very heavy on the narration and light on the dialogue, and though the pace is rather slow, A Study in Scarlet still managed to capture my imagination and only served to cement my love of Holmes. If you’re a fan of mysteries and smart reads, then A Study in Scarlet will be a great read for you.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    After they caught a suspect the story suddenly changes to the American west. I thought it was a problem with my download, but that is the way the book is. After going through a story that seems to be totally unrelated to the mystery the explanation of the connection comes. The change was very jarring.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Der erste Band der Krimis um Sherlock Homes kann zweifellos als Klassiker des Genres gelten. Mit Sicherheit ist es einer der ersten Krimis, der das deduktive Schließen zur Lösung des Falls benutzt. Außerdem wurde in diesem Krimi das Detektivpaar etabliert, in dem es zum genialen Detektiv den vernünftigen SideKick gibt. In diesem Buch lernen sich Sherlock Homes und Doktor Watson kennen. Sie ziehen gemeinsam in die Wohnung in der Baker Street. Durch Zufall wird Watson von Holmes mit in die Lösung eines Falles hineingezogen, in der ein Mann tot in einer leeren Wohnung aufgefunden wurde. Der mittlere Teil des Buches beschreibt die Vorgeschichte dieses Mordes und ist enorm spannend und fesselnd. Der Fall selber wird von Sherlock Homes auf seine übliche geniale Weise gelöst.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wanted to give this a full 5 stars, but I just couldn't. Still, for my first venture into Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books/stories, I was happy with what I found.

    The thing that turned me off was that after the first part of the book is done and the second begins, I was very confused at what I was reading. There was no transition/introduction mentioning that the story was taking a major change in time, place, characters. It was no longer Sherlock Holmes in London; it was the Mormon migration to Utah.

    But near the end of the book, it all came together and the point of the sudden change was explained. I still think it was too abrupt and could have been done in a different way to preserve the flow, but all-in-all it was a fun read. I'm sure Doyle improved on his writing after this first novel, especially judging by the fact that it's so popular even over a century later.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ** spoiler alert ** I was a little worried going into this, just unsure of how a longer Holmes story would read. I really enjoyed The Hound of Baskerville when I read it but I loved the short stories I read between these two. I shouldn't have been too worried however, this was excellent. I really enjoyed the second portion of the story, deviating from Sherlock and Watson to give us the back story of our murderer. It was different from the previous books in it's delivery and made the victims seem more the villains and our murderer more the almost hero. A great way to turn it around. Overall, a great one. I really enjoyed it and will definitely recommend it for any new fans of the series.Side note - this was the story that the first Sherlock episode is based on. That tickles me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Daring style, funny, original.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really liked this book up to the point where we zoomed out on the world, and back in on the other side of the ocean. Once I figured out it was the background of the criminal, and not entirely a new story, I quickly reengaged. Sherlock is much more relatable in Doyle's writing than in some of their other incarnations. And the book proved a much better place to start than The Hound of the Baskervilles.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing book! Most (all?) of the other Sherlock Holmes books take place totally in Great Britain. This one makes a *very* interesting side trip to the United States.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a page turner. The investigation is interesting from start to finish, though the flashback in the middle comes on a bit too suddenly. I thought for a second that the Holmes story was over and Doyle had thrown in a random Western short story to fill up the book. On second thought, maybe that's exactly why he wrote the flashback. It's a good Western though, so can't really complain.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I think this is the first time I've read a Sherlock Holmes story. They're so familiar from film and TV adaptations that it's good to get back to the original. I was startled by the change of pace in part two, where we're thrown out of 1880s London and into the Mormons' journey to Utah and the story of John and Lucy Ferrier. I'm guessing Conan Doyle doesn't have too many Mormon fans...
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This, the very first Sherlock Holmes story, is a re-read, I have read the whole canon several times before. It is particularly striking as being a story of two halves. After the initial meeting between Holmes and Watson - surely one of the most significant and memorable literary acquaintanceships - the story of murder unfolds against the London backdrop that is considered so typically Sherlockian. The mystery is solved half way through. The second half is then a sympathetic backstory of why the murderer committed his crimes, which takes us to Utah and the Mormons (whose cultish nature depicted here is the source of the evil). This is very atypical Conan Doyle material, but brilliantly and dramatically described, his evocation of the bleak and barren landscape every bit as convincing as that of the more familiar foggy London streets. No doubt this contrastingly wide spaced environment is part of the reason why this story has been much less adapted for the screen than Hound of the Baskervilles (Dartmoor is more accessible and realisable than the Utah desert!) or The Sign of Four (set in London). But this is a real classic that deserves to be better known as the beginning of a literary legend. 5/5
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I've never read any Sherlock Holmes before, so I thought I ought to start at the beginning. Most of the story is told by Watson, recording events after the fact in the form of a rather formal diary. A section is more of a traditional story, recounting events that took place in America which provide the motive for the crime. I didn't enjoy this writing style nearly so much as the first. I found the facts a little thin on the ground, and Holmes supposed deductions far too obscure to form a really engaging mystery. Overall a good book, but not great.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the first novel featuring Sherlock Holmes. As an introduction, it's perfect. Almost. The book comes in two parts. The first part is Holmes meeting Watson and working their first case together. The second part follows the story of the murderer, detailing his background and motive. At the end of that section the two stories join and he relates his tale to Holmes, Watson, and the police.The first part is obviously the best, since it features Holmes. After all, he is the reason I read the book, so it was a little disappointing to have him absent from nearly half of it. On the other hand, this is the first Holmes book, so Conan Doyle had very little way of anticipating the draw his detective would have on the audience.I already know the character so well, most recently from BBC's Sherlock (which, by the way, does a tremendous job at following this story in the episode titled "A Study In Pink.") and I couldn't help but smile at everything that I recognized and all the little details that I knew would figure in later, like testing poison on Watson's dog. I highly recommend this to any Holmes fan. the book is fast and fresh. It may be over 100 years old, but it doesn't feel like it. Go for it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    _A Study in Scarlet_ is an interesting book for several reasons. Here we have the first written adventure of Sherlock Holmes and get both the first introduction to the famous sleuth and his comrade Dr. Watson, as well as details of their first meeting. We are treated to a somewhat humorous précis of Watson’s first impressions of his strange room-mate (detailed in several other reviews) and even manage to see a fledgling Holmes occasionally wrong, or at least not 100% accurate, in some of his initial surmises at the mystery they become embroiled in. We also see the somewhat ambivalent and competitive relationship Holmes has with Scotland Yard and his disdain for the official investigators and their inferior methods of detection.

    The mystery itself involves the double homicide of two Americans and an embarrassment of mysterious clues at the place of the first murder. Of course both Scotland Yard detectives assigned to the case manage to make the wrong assumptions and go off in different directions, though Holmes has to grudgingly admit that they “are coming along” and even wonders at one point if they have managed to beat him to the punch when one of his own assumptions seems to have gone awry.

    The story is actually in two parts, the first of which covers the initial mystery and the very engrossing portrait of Holmes and his many quirks. Holmes ultimately proves able to solve the mystery by the end of this section in a fashion perhaps more mysterious than the murders themselves. From here we go to a flashback of events separated in both time and space by great distance in order to be given the background of the two murders in London and many readers seem to have a big problem with this. I actually found this section, while certainly a bit jarring at first, to be a well-written and entertaining story in itself. Its chief failings seem to be that a) it is not a story involving Sherlock Holmes, and b) the historicity of some of its facts can be considered somewhat questionable as it turns the early Mormons and their leaders into some kind of nefarious secret society rivalling even the Illuminati or Rosicrucians. I didn’t find either of these elements to be too great of an obstacle personally. I knew that we would return to Holmes & Watson in due course to be provided with our explanations and revelations and if I wasn’t being given a straight history lesson on the true founding of Salt Lake City, then I was certainly given an entertaining tale that was probably more interesting than the facts themselves would have been. The only part of this tale I really found questionable was that a man like Jefferson Hope would simply wait a month for Lucy to die of a broken heart after she’d been abducted and didn’t try to rescue her, even if it proved impossible and meant his death.

    The culmination of both stories as they meet in the rooms of Holmes and Watson at 221B Baker Street in London was satisfying and I highly recommend this story. Another 4, or 4.5 star book from Doyle.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I only have one of the Sherlock Holmes books on my Crime Fiction list, and that is The Hound of the Baskervilles, but I prefer to get everything and since there are books set before that one, I decided to read them. Besides, they're available for free on Project Gutenberg. Besides, I saw the new movie, with Robert Downey Jr., a couple of weeks ago. I read this one on the train, more or less without stopping once. I was surprised by how easy it was to read and be absorbed in, given how old it is, but it really is a pleasure to read. Actually reading the books dispels a lot of mental assumptions about Sherlock Holmes which I gained through, I think, some kind of cultural osmosis. E.g. Watson is young, went to war, not a bad doctor, etc.

    I have two main complaints, really. One is that it's not the kind of book that really allows you to find things out for yourself. Holmes is so opaque -- at least to me! -- that I'm really just as confused as Watson, most of the time. And the other complaint is about the big flashback in the middle. I almost wondered if my ebook version had somehow got muddled with another book! It's not uninteresting, but it's hard to see at first how it connects up, because the transition is so sudden.

    Still, enjoyable -- and nice to meet the great detective himself, after so much hearsay.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was my first Holmes book and yes, I am hooked. For me this was a great introduction to how Watson and Holmes met and the backgrounds that created these fascinating men.

    I really like both. Watson is so different from Holmes and is the more practical and immediately likeable.

    I don't read a lot of mysteries and this was a very interesting start for me. Holmes and his observations seem so obvious after the fact and I liked being a passenger in his mind. In this tale, the part that the Mormons played was fascinating and meshed well with some of what I have read to date. But again, I don't like being a generalist and I can see how this would prompt concern amongst Mormons. I suppose it is the same with all writers who take liberties with religion, history and famous personalities.

    This story also reminds me of Dickens and a Tale of Two Cities. Revenge is at the heart and is bittersweet.

    Looking forward to my next mystery!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked the first part - it was fun to read about Watson's first impressions of Holmes. The second part was such a change that I had to check that I was still reading the same book (I read this as part of The Complete Sherlock Holmes)! Although it all tied up in the end, it didn't work that well for me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My first Sherlock Holmes book was without disappointment. A very nice read and would be recommended to anyone asking for something to read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read A Study in Scarlet on the heels of Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe paled when compared to Doyle's rich characters and superb storytelling. My only complaint was the abrupt return to North America which left me reeling as to what the heck had happened but I eventually tuned back in.

    This story is a great introduction (just as it was for the characters) to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great character development that I felt was missing from the later short stories. I'm glad I read this one - it makes me want to read the rest in order.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well, I knew from Tatiana's review that it was an awkwardly constructed story. Even so, I kept wondering if their was something wrong with the edition I'd downloaded, because that shift from London mystery to white settlers in the US West was weird. And sentimental. (I can now totally get Doyle's lack of skepticism for the fairy photos. Dude was a firm believer in the notion of innocent girls.)

    Anyway, it's an odd story. The Spouse assures me that Doyle gets better, so, we'll see.

    ***

    Well, I've got both the girls hooked on the new Sherlock series. So, After finishing the first episode last night, I felt compelled to go back and re-read the original. I appreciate how the screenwriter adapted it.

    2011 aug 31
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Enjoyed reading this in conjunction with the PBS series, "Sherlock"
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the first thing I've read "cover to cover" on a Kindle. Interesting juxtaposition- 19th century London with a Kindle. Also- if you've watched the recent BBC Sherlock Holmes series, you'll find a lot of the characterization faithfully drawn from A Study In Scarlet. And possibly, other Holmes! I've downloaded the set, so we'll see!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This is the first Sherlock Holmes adventure chronologically. It was worth the price - free on my kindle. :) It was good enough (and since it came as part of a collection) I will go ahead and read the next book, too. It was entertaining to read the original adventure of how Sherlock and Watson met and how Doyle brought him to life. But, the entire middle section of the book took place in the 1850s in and around Salt Lake City, Utah. Not only was the all the geography the author describes wrong, but the entire portrayal of Mormons was incorrect. I wondered if the author had done any research at all. But, I also have to consider the time period the book was written in and consider the historical conditions. Perhaps some of Doyle's portrayal of Mormons is how they were perceived by outsiders at the time Doyle was writing, but I found the obvious errors distracting to the story line. The entire middle section of the book is back story on the murderer and their motivation for the crime.So, overall, it was okay and I'm going to give Holmes one more try, but it's nowhere near as good as the BBC Sherlock. ;)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This first story in the Sherlock Holmes original storyline is great. It blew me away. I had no idea it was going to end relating to the Mormon practices of the time!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Published in 1887, A Study in Scarlet is the first Sherlock Holmes novel, introducing the famous detective and his sidekick Dr. Watson. The novel derives its name from a statement by Holmes who calls his murder investigation a 'study in scarlet'. It is divided into two parts, the first one introducing the characters and setting the scene and the second one providing background on the motives of the murder of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson, two Mormons who fled from the United States to England in order to avoid their looming death. Sherlock Holmes is introduced as a consulting detective who helps out Scotland Yard inspectors Gregson and Lestrade in murder investigations.In the second part of A Study in Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle provides a commentary on Mormonism. The reader is informed about how the Latter Day Saints deal with 'Gentiles', that is people with different beliefs from those of Mormonism. When a father does not want to marry his daughter to either Enoch Drebber or Joseph Stangerson, both father and daughter are intimidated by the people in their Mormon community until they finally try to escape their home, their community and even the state of Utah with the help of the daughter's lover, Jefferson Hope. Their flight, however, fails when the father is killed and the daughter taken back into the Mormon community. There she is married to Drebber and dies of a broken heart a month later. That is when Jefferson Hope swears to avenge the deaths of both father and daughter. It is important to mention that Doyle's criticism of Mormonism has to be regarded with respect to the time the novel was written in.There are several things I liked about A Study in Scarlet. First, there are the rightly famous characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson who make a great team of murder investigators and have a lot of witty dialogs. Second, there is Doyle's style of writing which I found amazingly refreshing for a late 19th-century novel. Third, there is the topic of deduction and logic which I think is quite intriguing. While Sherlock Holmes' deductions seem strange at first, Doyle manages to explain them through his narrator John Watson. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle finds a very successful way of passing on knowledge to the reader and thereby influencing and guiding the reading process. On the whole, A Study in Scarlet is a great read which makes me want to read more of the Sherlock Holmes stories. 4 stars.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Since I was young I can always remember Sherlock Holmes portrayed as a portly older man, smoking on his pipe solving mysteries. Then I saw the 2010 Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downy, Jr. (yummmmmmy) and surprisingly enough Holmes was portrayed as an OCD bad ass mystery solver. Huh?! Naturally, I had to read the book now to figure out where they got this Holmes from.
    Turns out the movie was not far off the mark and I’ve been lied to by those old PBS shows. Holmes was a moody freakaziod retaining and using a mass amount of information to solve mysteries. He was a bit of a bad boy who could fight and even smoked cocaine. Who knew?! I’m so glad I picked this up with the encouragement of some of my GR friends, because I thought it was going to be boring but it ended up being exciting.
    I loved the mystery itself and the story behind it, but the story did slow down once the explanation of the mystery occurred. The book just took a completely different turn than what I was expecting and I almost felt like I was reading two separate books. It did come together in the end, but the explanation could have been shortened without losing the overall gist of the plot. From what I’ve been told the Holmes story gets much better with each story, so I look forward to reading more.