Genre

Mystery & Detective

Detective fiction became a popular form in the second half of the nineteenth century. Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories fixed the template of the brilliant investigator and the admiring narrator, and Wilkie Collins and G. K. Chesterton explored what else the form could do.

Where to start: Start with the short stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes rather than the novels; each case is self-contained.