The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes of the Speckled Band" as his overall favourite. Arthur Conan Doyle began writing while studying medicine at university in the late 1870s, and had his first short story, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", published in September 1879. After eight years, "A Study in Scarlet", Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story, was published by Ward Lock & Co. The novel was well received, but Doyle was paid little for it, and despite a sequel novel, "The Sign of the Four", which was published in Lipincott's Monthly Magazine, he shifted his focus to short stories. In early 1891, the first editor of "The
Sherlock Holmes link between medical investigation and the detection of crime. Other inspirations have been considered. One is thought to be Francis "Tanky" Smith, a policeman and master of disguise who went on to become Leicester's first private detective. Another might be "Maximilien Heller", by French author Henry Cauvain. It is not known if Conan Doyle read "Maximilien Heller", but he was fluent in French, and in this 1871 novel (sixteen years before the first adventure of Sherlock Holmes), Henry Cauvain imagined a depressed, anti-social, polymath, cat-loving, and opium-smoking Paris-based detective. Details about Sherlock Holmes' life are scarce in Conan Doyle's stories.