Sherlock Holmes, fictional character created by the Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The prototype for the modern mastermind detective, Holmes first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887. As the world’s first and only “consulting detective,” he pursued criminals throughout Victorian and Edwardian London, the south of England, and continental Europe.A Study In Scarlet: Dr John H. Watson meets the great detective Sherlock Holmes and together they solve a case of murder, in which Watson is amazed at Holmes' "science of deduction".Support the show