Doyle wrote nine books that are on this site, and only six of them feature Sherlock Holmes. The order below is publication order, which is also the order in which Holmes ages and the order in which the stories were written.
The Holmes books are a series and are best read in sequence, because Doyle killed the character in 1893 and then brought him back in 1903, and the two later novels assume you know that history. The historical novels, The White Company and The Lost World, sit to one side; they are where Doyle put the adventure writing he could not fit into a detective story.
The Sherlock Holmes books also have their own page on this site, with the series collected in one place. This page adds the non-Holmes novels and the word counts so you can see how much of Doyle you are taking on at once.
Where to start
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — twelve short stories rather than a novel, which makes it the fastest way to find out whether the Holmes formula works for you. The two novels before it are fine, but he had not found the rhythm yet.
Arthur Conan Doyle in publication order
Numbered by first publication. Word counts and reading times are for the text on this site.
| # | Year | Title | Words | Reading time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1887 | A Study in Scarlet | 43,000 | 2.4 h | First Holmes novel, 1887. · sherlock holmes |
| 2 | 1890 | The Sign of the Four | 43,000 | 2.4 h | Second Holmes novel, 1890. · sherlock holmes |
| 3 | 1891 | The White Company | 151,000 | 8.4 h | Historical adventure; no Holmes. |
| 4 | 1892 | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | 106,000 | 5.9 h | Twelve stories, 1892. · sherlock holmes |
| 5 | 1894 | The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes | 94,259 | 5.2 h | Eleven stories, ending in “The Final Problem”. · sherlock holmes |
| 6 | 1902 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | 59,000 | 3.3 h | Holmes novel published after his apparent death. · sherlock holmes |
| 7 | 1905 | The Return of Sherlock Holmes | 112,155 | 6.2 h | Thirteen stories, after the return in 1903. · sherlock holmes |
| 8 | 1912 | The Lost World | 80,000 | 4.4 h | Professor Challenger; no Holmes. |
| 9 | 1915 | The Valley of Fear | 57,665 | 3.2 h | Fourth Holmes novel, 1915. · sherlock holmes |
How to read Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Holmes series. A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures, The Memoirs, The Hound, The Return and The Valley of Fear, in that order. This is what the Sherlock Holmes series page collects.
- The non-Holmes novels. The White Company, a medieval adventure published in 1891, and The Lost World, a Professor Challenger story from 1912. Neither requires any Holmes context.
- Shortest first. A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four both run to about 43,000 words, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is the shortest of the collections at roughly 94,000.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is set before the events of the final story in The Memoirs but was published after it, so read it after The Memoirs if you care about the chronology of the character rather than of the author.
Every title above has a page here with chapter summaries, the word count, reading time, and free EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB files. Arthur Conan Doyle’s shelf · Sherlock Holmes in reading order · Detective and mystery classics — or go back to Arthur Conan Doyle for the full shelf.