The character of Holmes did not have much of a predecessor in Doyle's work other than the guru Ram Singh from his Mystery of Cloomber, drafted in 1883, although there were several literary predecessors and contemporaries who were influential in the creation of this singular character. Political concerns were often central plot elements.

His works feature specific allusions to events and tensions during the era in which Doyle was writing, in addition to referencing other popular writers, philosophers, and musicians. Watson is his loyal and stable companion who narrates the stories and is an everyman stand-in for the reader. Holmes is revealed as a brilliant and eccentric individual whose success in solving crimes derives from his powers of observation and deductive reasoning. The novel featured many of the character traits and plot elements that would be observed in the later Holmes tales. It gained in popularity when the Doyle published several Sherlock Holmes short stories in the Strand Magazine in 1891. Interestingly enough, A Study in Scarlet was only mildly popular at its initial release. The work is considered one of the first (or even the first) detective novels. The title of the work comes from a line within the novel where Holmes describes the case –'There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it' (40). It was the first of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, and only one of four full-length novels featuring the character.

Doyle was rejected three times by publishers Ward, Lock, and Company finally accepted it in 1886 with the caveat of it delaying publication until the following year because the market was flooded with 'cheap fiction'. A Study in Scarlet was written in 1886 and published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887 by Arthur Conan Doyle.

A study in scarlet novel