Canon of Sherlock Holmes

Short stories

The 56 short stories are collected in five books: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894), The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905), His Last Bow (1917), and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927). The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published on 14 October 1892, contains 12 stories that originally appeared in The Strand between July 1891 and June 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. These include 'A Scandal in Bohemia', 'The Red-Headed League', 'A Case of Identity', 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery', 'The Five Orange Pips', 'The Man with the Twisted Lip', 'The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle', 'The Adventure of the Speckled Band', 'The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb', 'The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor', 'The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet', and 'The Adventure of the Copper Beeches'.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes includes 12 stories published in The Strand from December 1892 to December 1893, also illustrated by Sidney Paget. Doyle later placed 'The Adventure of the Cardboard Box' only in the His Last Bow collection. The stories are 'The Adventure of Silver Blaze', 'The Adventure of the Cardboard Box', 'The Adventure of the Yellow Face', 'The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk', 'The Adventure of the Gloria Scott', 'The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual', 'The Adventure of the Reigate Squire', 'The Adventure of the Crooked Man', 'The Adventure of the Resident Patient', 'The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter', 'The Adventure of the Naval Treaty', and 'The Adventure of the Final Problem'.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes contains 13 stories published in The Strand between October 1903 and December 1904, with original illustrations by Sidney Paget. These include 'The Adventure of the Empty House', 'The Adventure of the Norwood Builder', 'The Adventure of the Dancing Men', 'The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist', 'The Adventure of the Priory School', 'The Adventure of Black Peter', 'The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton', 'The Adventure of the Six Napoleons', 'The Adventure of the Three Students', 'The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez', 'The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter', and 'The Adventure of the Abbey Grange'.

Extracanonical works

Since Arthur Conan Doyle’s death, fans and scholars have endlessly debated whether the Sherlock Holmes canon should include more of his works, including those in other formats. Rumors of lost stories have persisted, and recent research has uncovered pieces beyond the usual collection. No official authority decides what counts as canonical, so it is unlikely that any new work, no matter how strong its claim, will ever be widely accepted into published editions of the complete adventures. Up to eighteen works have been suggested as possible additions, among them plays, poems, essays about the character, and short stories.

Several collections of these extra-canonical works exist. They include Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha, edited by Jack Tracy; The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Peter Haining; The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes, edited by Richard Lancelyn Green; and the final volume of Leslie S. Klinger’s Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, titled The Apocrypha of Sherlock Holmes. Each collection has a slightly different list of contents and discusses where each piece might fit in the canon.

Doyle, sometimes with a co-writer, produced a number of short pieces, play adaptations, and essays featuring Holmes, as well as two short stories where Holmes may make a brief appearance. Most were published while Doyle was alive; one came to light only after his death. All except the plays appear in The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. One example is “The Field Bazaar,” written for a charity event at Edinburgh University. In it, Watson reads a similar request at breakfast, and Holmes correctly deduces who sent the letter and what Watson is thinking. The story echoes the canonical tales, especially in its metafictional twist—Watson replaces Doyle as the author publishing his own stories—and in its use of Holmes’s famous deductive skill and the familiar breakfast scene that opens many Holmes stories.

Sequels authorised by the Conan Doyle Estate

Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist, wrote a Sherlock Holmes short story for the 2006 collection The Ghosts in Baker Street: New Tales of Sherlock Holmes, and with the Doyle estate's approval expanded it into a full novel published in 2005. It is considered a literary pastiche, not canonical. In 2009 Lyndsay Faye published Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson, which pits Holmes against Jack the Ripper and has the blessing of Conan Doyle's heirs. In 2011 Anthony Horowitz published The House of Silk, the first official sequel authorised by the Conan Doyle Estate, followed in 2014 by Moriarty. In April 2024, a new novel Holmes and Moriarty by Gareth Rubin was announced for release in September 2024, authorised by the estate and focusing on Professor Moriarty.