It is difficult to imagine the shape which detective fiction might have taken had it not been for the creation by Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle took a form of fiction which had become popular through the works of his predecessors, Edgar Allan Poe and Emile Gaboriau, and reshaped it, adding elements which made his own contributions among the most popular fiction of all time. The stories themselves have been considered in several contexts, both serious and facetious.

The period within which the stories were set and against which they can be examined was one of social, economic, and political change. They came at a time when the growing degree of literacy was combined with an expanding amount of leisure time. Thus,the era was right for the particular type of story which they represent. The periodical was a significant channel of communication; fiction had...