Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based consulting detective, Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his skillful use of "deductive reasoning" while using abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) and astute observation to solve difficult cases.


Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories that featured Holmes. All but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Sherlock Holmes himself, and two others are written in the third person. The first two stories, short novels, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890, respectively. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the beginning of the first series of short stories in The StrandMagazine in 1891; further series of short stories and two serialised novels appeared until 1927. The stories cover a period from around 1878 up to 1907, with a final case in 1914.

Conan Doyle, when asked if there was a real Sherlock Holmes, always maintained that Holmes was inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Sherlock Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations. Dr. Bell was also interested in crime and assisted the police in solving a few cases.