Sherlock Holmes in Reading Order: Free EPUB Editions

This shelf

Books in the series: 8
Total words: 579,446
Reading time: 32.2 h

Sherlock Holmes ran for forty years across four novels and five collections, and he is the rare character whose series can be read strictly in publication order without losing anything: each book stands alone, and the recurring cast — Watson, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Mycroft, Moriarty — accumulates rather than serialises.

This page lists the Holmes titles on editions.ink in first-publication order, with the word count and reading time of each, so you can see what you are committing to before you start.

8titles on site 579,446words 39 hreading time 1887–1915publication span

Sherlock Holmes in reading order

Numbered by first publication. Word counts are estimates from the text.

#	Year	Title	Words	Reading
1	1887	A Study in Scarlet	43,367	~2.9 h
2	1890	The Sign of the Four	44,000	~2.9 h
3	1892	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes	105,000	~7.0 h
4	1894	The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes	95,000	~6.3 h
5	1902	The Hound of the Baskervilles	59,000	~3.9 h
6	1905	The Return of Sherlock Holmes	112,000	~7.5 h
7	1915	The Valley of Fear	58,000	~3.9 h

Where to begin

The short-story collections are the best entry point for most readers; the two early novels are shorter but slower, and The Valley of Fear splits into a mystery and a western flashback.