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 fandom Sherlock fandom Sherlock fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, especially of the Canon of Sherlock Holmes. The fans are known as Sherlockian or Holmesian. Fans of the literary detective Sherlock Holmes are widely considered to have comprised the first modern fandom, holding public demonstrations of mourning after Holmes was "killed off" in 1893, and creating some of the first fan fiction as early as about 1897 to 1902. Fans often play "The Grand Game", contending that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were real people and Conan Doyle was merely Watson's literary