Editing Detective fiction (section)

==History==
===Ancient===
Some scholars, such as R. H. Pfeiffer,  have suggested that certain ancient and religious texts bear similarities to what would later be called detective fiction. In the Old Testament story of [[Susanna (Book of Daniel: 13)|Susanna and the Elders]] (the [[Protestant]] [[Bible]] locates this story within the [[apocrypha]]), the account told by two witnesses broke down when [[Daniel (biblical figure)|Daniel]] cross-examines them. In response, author [[Julian Symons]] has argued that "those who search for fragments of detection in the Bible and Herodotus are looking only for puzzles" and that these puzzles are not detective stories.<ref>{{cite book|last=Scaggs|first=John|title=Crime Fiction (The New Critical Idiom)|url=https://archive.org/details/crimefiction00scag_758|url-access=limited|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0415318259|page=[https://archive.org/details/crimefiction00scag_758/page/n8 8]}}</ref>

===Early Arabic===
''[[One Thousand and One Nights]]'' contains several of the earliest detective stories, anticipating modern detective fiction.<ref name="Gerhardi">{{cite book |last1=Gerhardi |first1=Mia I. |title=The Art of Story-Telling |date=1963 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill Archive]] |pages=169–170 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f88UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA169}}</ref> The oldest known example of a detective story was "[[The Three Apples]]", one of the tales narrated by [[Scheherazade]] in the ''[[One Thousand and One Nights]]'' (''Arabian Nights''). In this story, a fisherman discovers a heavy, locked chest along the [[Tigris]] river, which he then sells to the [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid Caliph]], [[Harun al-Rashid]]. When Harun breaks open the chest, he discovers the body of a young woman who has been cut into pieces. Harun then orders his [[vizier]], [[Ja'far ibn Yahya]], to solve the crime and to find the murderer within three days, or be executed if he fails in his assignment.<ref>{{citation|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=978-90-04-09530-4|pages=86–91}}</ref> [[Suspense]] is generated through multiple [[plot twist]]s that occur as the story progresses.<ref>{{citation|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=978-90-04-09530-4|pages=93, 95, 97}}</ref> With these characteristics this may be considered an [[archetype]] for detective fiction.<ref>{{citation|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=978-90-04-09530-4|page=91}}</ref> It anticipates the use of [[reverse chronology]] in modern detective fiction, where the story begins with a crime before presenting a gradual reconstruction of the past.<ref name="Gerhardi"/>

The main difference between Ja'far ("The Three Apples") and later fictional detectives, such as [[Sherlock Holmes]] and [[Hercule Poirot]], is that Ja'far has no desire to solve the case. The [[whodunit]] mystery is solved when the murderer himself confesses his crime.<ref>{{citation|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=978-90-04-09530-4|pages=91–92}}</ref> This in turn leads to another assignment in which Ja'far has to find the culprit who instigated the murder within three days or else be executed. Ja'far again fails to find the culprit before the deadline, but owing to chance, he discovers a key item. In the end, he manages to solve the case through reasoning in order to prevent his own execution.<ref>{{citation|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=978-90-04-09530-4|pages=96–97}}</ref>

On the other hand, two other ''Arabian Nights'' stories, "The Merchant and the Thief" and "Ali Khwaja", contain two of the earliest [[fictional detectives]], who uncover clues and present evidence to catch or convict a criminal known to the audience, with the story unfolding in normal chronology and the criminal already known to the audience. The latter involves a [[Climax (narrative)|climax]] where the titular detective protagonist Ali Khwaja presents evidence from [[expert witness]]es in a court.<ref name="Gerhardi"/>

===Early Chinese===
[[Gong'an fiction]] ([[:zh:公案小说|公案小说]], literally："case records of a public law court") is an early genre of Chinese detective fiction.

Some well-known stories include the [[Yuan dynasty]] story ''[[Circle of Chalk]]'' (Chinese: [[wikt:灰|灰]][[wikt:闌|闌]][[wikt:記|記]]), the [[Ming dynasty]] story collection ''[[Bao Gong An]]'' (Chinese: [[wikt:包|包]][[wikt:公|公]][[wikt:案|案]]) and the 18th century ''[[Di Gong An]]'' (Chinese: [[wikt:狄|狄]][[wikt:公|公]][[wikt:案|案]]) story collection. The latter was translated into English as ''[[Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee]]'' by Dutch sinologist [[Robert Van Gulik]], who then used the style and characters to write the original [[Judge Dee]] series.

The hero/detective of these novels was typically a traditional judge or similar official based on historical personages such as [[Judge Bao]] ([[Bao Zheng|Bao Qingtian]]) or Judge Dee ([[Di Renjie]]). Although the historical characters may have lived in an earlier period (such as the [[Song dynasty|Song]] or [[Tang dynasty]]) most stories are written in the later [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] or [[Qing dynasty|Qing]] dynasty period.

These novels differ from the Western tradition in several points as described by Van Gulik:<ref>{{Cite book|title=Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee|last=Gulik|first=Van|publisher=Dover Publications|year=1976|isbn=978-0486233376|pages=[https://archive.org/details/celebratedcaseso00guli/page/1 1–237]|url=https://archive.org/details/celebratedcaseso00guli/page/1}}</ref>
* The detective is the local magistrate who is usually involved in several unrelated cases simultaneously;
* The criminal is introduced at the very beginning of the story and his crime and reasons are carefully explained, thus constituting an [[inverted detective story]] rather than a "puzzle";
* The stories have a supernatural element with ghosts telling people about their death and even accusing the criminal;
* The stories are filled with digressions into philosophy, the complete texts of official documents, and much more, resulting in long books; and
* The novels tend to have a huge cast of characters, typically in the hundreds, all described with their relation to the various main actors in the story.

Van Gulik chose ''Di Gong An'' to translate because in his view it was closer to the Western literary style and more likely to appeal to non-Chinese readers.

A number of [[Gong An story|Gong An]] works may have been [[Lost literary work|lost]] or destroyed during the [[Literary Inquisition]]s and the [[List of Chinese battles|wars]] in ancient China.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62103/1/MPRA_paper_62103.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150218202726/http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62103/1/MPRA_paper_62103.pdf |archive-date=2015-02-18 |url-status=live|title=The Literary Inquisition: The Persecution of Intellectuals and Human Capital Accumulation in China|last=Koyama|first=Mark|date=February 11, 2015}}</ref> In traditional Chinese culture, this genre was not prestigious, and was therefore considered less worthy of preservation than works of philosophy or poetry.

===Early Western===
[[File:Edgar Allen Poe 1898.jpg|thumb|[[Edgar Allan Poe]] (1809–1849)]]

One of the earliest examples of detective fiction in Western literature is [[Voltaire]]'s ''[[Zadig]]'' (1748), which features a main character who performs feats of analysis.<ref name=Silverman171/> ''[[Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams]]'' (1794) by [[William Godwin]] portrays the law as protecting the murderer and destroying the innocent.<ref>{{cite journal|first =Gay|last =Clifford|date =1977|title =''1Caleb Williams'' and ''Frankenstein'': First-Person Narratives and "Things as They Are"|journal =Genre|number =10|pages =601–617|url =http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/clifford.html|access-date =2013-12-10|archive-date =2014-11-03|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20141103113438/http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/clifford.html|url-status =live}}</ref> [[Thomas Skinner Surr|Thomas Skinner Sturr]]'s anonymous ''Richmond, or stories in the life of a Bow Street officer'' was published in London in 1827; the Danish crime story ''[[The Rector of Veilbye]]'' by [[Steen Steensen Blicher]] was written in 1829; and the Norwegian crime novel ''Mordet paa Maskinbygger Roolfsen'' ("The Murder of Engine Maker Roolfsen") by [[Maurits Hansen]] was published in December 1839.

"[[Mademoiselle de Scuderi|Das Fräulein von Scuderi]]" is an 1819 short story by [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]], in which Mlle de Scudery establishes the innocence of the police's favorite suspect in the murder of a jeweller. This story is sometimes cited as the first detective story and as a direct influence on [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s "[[The Murders in the Rue Morgue]]" (1841).<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Seven Basic Plots|last=Booker|first=Christopher|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|year=2004|isbn=978-0826480378|page=[https://archive.org/details/sevenbasicplotsw0000book/page/507 507]|url=https://archive.org/details/sevenbasicplotsw0000book/page/507}}</ref> Also suggested as a possible influence on Poe is 'The Secret Cell', a short story published in September 1837 by [[William Evans Burton]]. It has been suggested that this story may have been known to Poe, who worked for Burton in 1839.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories|last=Sims|first=Michael|publisher=Walker Books|year=2011|isbn=978-0802779182|pages=2–3}}</ref> The story was about a London policeman who solves the mystery of a kidnapped girl. Burton's fictional detective relied on practical methods such as dogged legwork, knowledge of the underworld and undercover surveillance, rather than brilliance of imagination or intellect.

===English genre establishment===
Detective fiction in the English-language literature is considered to have begun in 1841 with the publication of Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue",<ref name=Silverman171>{{Citation | title=Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance | last=Silverman | first=Kenneth | author-link=Kenneth Silverman | publisher=Harper Perennial | location=New York | edition=Paperback | year=1991 | page=[https://archive.org/details/edgarpoe00kenn/page/171 171] | isbn=978-0-06-092331-0 | url=https://archive.org/details/edgarpoe00kenn/page/171 }}</ref> featuring "the first fictional detective, the eccentric and brilliant [[C. Auguste Dupin]]". When the character first appeared, the word ''detective'' had not yet been used in English; however, the character's name, "Dupin", originated from the English word dupe or deception.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.librarypoint.org/detective_fiction_origins|title=A History of Detective Fiction: Literary Origins|website=www.librarypoint.org|language=en|access-date=2018-03-29|archive-date=2018-04-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180401033508/http://www.librarypoint.org/detective_fiction_origins|url-status=live}}</ref> Poe devised a "plot formula that's been successful ever since, give or take a few shifting variables."<ref name="NDHB">Kismaric, Carole and Heiferman, Marvin. ''The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. p. 56. {{ISBN|0-684-84689-6}}</ref> Poe followed with further Auguste Dupin tales: "[[The Mystery of Marie Rogêt]]" in 1842 and "[[The Purloined Letter]]" in 1844.

Poe referred to his stories as "tales of [[wikt:ratiocination|ratiocination]]".<ref name=Silverman171/> In stories such as these, the primary concern of the plot is ascertaining truth, and the usual means of obtaining the truth is a complex and mysterious process combining intuitive logic, astute observation, and perspicacious inference. "Early detective stories tended to follow an investigating protagonist from the first scene to the last, making the unravelling a practical rather than emotional matter."<ref name="NDHB" /> "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" is particularly interesting because it is a barely fictionalized account based on Poe's theory of what happened to the real-life [[Mary Rogers|Mary Cecilia Rogers]].

[[William Russell (fiction writer)|William Russell]] (1806–1876) was among the first English authors to write fictitious 'police memoirs',<ref name="Saunders">{{cite journal |last1=Saunders |first1=Samuel |title='To Pry Unnecessarily into Other Men's Secrets': Crime Writing, Private Spaces and the Mid-Victorian Police Memoir |journal=Law, Crime and History |date=2018 |volume=1 |url=https://www.academia.edu/35910203 |access-date=4 May 2021 |archive-date=29 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220829201450/https://www.academia.edu/35910203 |url-status=live }}</ref> contributing an irregular series of stories (under the [[pseudonym]] 'Waters') to ''[[Chambers's Edinburgh Journal]]'' between 1849 and 1852. Unauthorised collections of his stories were published in [[New York City]] in 1852 and 1853, entitled ''The Recollections of a Policeman''.<ref name="Circulating">{{cite web |title=Author Information: William Russell |url=http://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/show_author.php?aid=2566 |website=At the Circulating Library: A database of Victorian fiction |access-date=4 May 2021 |archive-date=4 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210504074135/http://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/show_author.php?aid=2566 |url-status=live }}</ref> Twelve stories were then collated into a volume entitled ''Recollections of a Detective Police-Officer'', published in London in 1856.<ref name="Bookhunter">{{cite web |title=Mysterious Waters |url=https://ashrarebooks.com/2015/06/04/mysterious-waters/ |website=The Bookhunter on Safari |date=4 June 2015 |access-date=4 May 2021 |archive-date=4 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210504075505/https://ashrarebooks.com/2015/06/04/mysterious-waters/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Dickens by Watkins 1858.png|thumb|left|[[Charles Dickens]] (1812–1870). Photo from 1858|196x196px]]Literary critic Catherine Ross Nickerson credits [[Louisa May Alcott]] with creating the second-oldest work of modern detective fiction, after Poe's Dupin stories, with the 1865 thriller "V.V., or Plots and Counterplots." A short story published anonymously by Alcott, the story concerns a Scottish aristocrat who tries to prove that a mysterious woman has killed his fiancée and cousin. The detective on the case, Antoine Dupres, is a parody of Auguste Dupin who is less concerned with solving the crime than he is in setting up a way to reveal the solution with a dramatic flourish. Ross Nickerson notes that many of the American writers who experimented with Poe's established rules of the genre were women, inventing a subgenre of domestic detective fiction that flourished for several generations. These included [[Metta Fuller Victor]]'s two detective novels ''The Dead Letter'' (1867) and ''The Figure Eight'' (1869).<ref name="Nickerson2010">{{cite book|last=Ross Nickerson|first=Catherine|editor=Catherine Ross Nickerson|title=The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HlkUqB7wYpsC|date=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-13606-8|pages=29–41|chapter=4: Women Writers Before 1960}}</ref> ''The Dead Letter'' is noteworthy as the first full-length work of American crime fiction.<ref name=pabook>{{cite web|first=Miranda|last=Orso|year=2002|title=Victor, Metta Victoria Fuller|url=http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Victor__Metta_Fuller.html|access-date=2013-11-04|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515194856/http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Victor__Metta_Fuller.html|archive-date=2013-05-15}}</ref>

[[Émile Gaboriau]] was a pioneer of the detective fiction genre in France. In ''[[Monsieur Lecoq (novel)|Monsieur Lecoq]]'' (1868), the title character is adept at disguise, a key characteristic of detectives.<ref>Bonnoit, R: ''[[Émile Gaboriau]] ou la Naissance du Roman Policier'', Paris: Librairie Philosophique J Vrin, 1985, p. 198</ref> Gaboriau's writing is also considered to contain the first example of a detective minutely examining a crime scene for clues.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gunning |first1=Tom |title=Lynx-Eyed Detectives and Shadow Bandits: Visuality and Eclipse in French Detective Stories and Films before WWI |journal=Yale French Studies |date=2005 |issue=108 |pages=74–88 |doi=10.2307/4149299 |jstor=4149299 }}</ref>

Another early example of a whodunit is a subplot in the novel ''[[Bleak House]]'' (1853) by [[Charles Dickens]]. The conniving lawyer Tulkinghorn is killed in his office late one night, and the crime is investigated by Inspector Bucket of the Metropolitan police force. Numerous characters appeared on the staircase leading to Tulkinghorn's office that night, some of them in disguise, and Inspector Bucket must penetrate these mysteries to identify the murderer. Dickens also left a novel unfinished at his death, ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood]]''.<ref>[[Kate Dickens Perugini]] (1906), "''Edwin Drood'' and the Last Days of Charles Dickens", ''Pall Mall Magazine'', Vol. 37.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Dickens, Drood and the Detectives|last=Dubberke|first=Ray|publisher=Todd & Honeywell|year=1989|isbn=978-0899628264}}</ref>

[[File:Wilkie-Collins.jpg|thumb|[[Wilkie Collins]] (1824–1889)]]
Dickens's protégé, [[Wilkie Collins]] (1824–1889)—sometimes called the "grandfather of English detective fiction"—is credited with the first great mystery novel, ''[[The Woman in White (novel)|The Woman in White]]''. [[T. S. Eliot]] called Collins's novel ''[[The Moonstone]]'' (1868) "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels... in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe",<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel|last=David|first=Deirdre|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0521182157|page=179}}</ref> and [[Dorothy L. Sayers]] called it "probably the very finest detective story ever written".<ref>Hall, Sharon K (1979). ''Twentieth century literary criticism''. p. 531. University of Michigan</ref> ''The Moonstone'' contains a number of ideas that have established in the genre several classic features of the 20th century detective story:

* [[English country house]] robbery
* An "[[wikt:inside job|inside job]]"
* [[Red herring (plot device)|red herrings]]
* A celebrated, skilled, professional investigator
* Bungling local constabulary
* Detective inquiries
* Large number of false suspects
* The "least likely suspect"
* A rudimentary "[[Locked room mystery|locked room]]" murder
* A reconstruction of the crime
* A final twist in the plot

[[File:Conan doyle.jpg|thumb|[[Arthur Conan Doyle]] (1859–1930)]]
Although ''The Moonstone'' is usually seen as the first detective novel, there are other contenders for the honor. A number of critics suggest that the lesser known ''[[The Notting Hill Mystery|Notting Hill Mystery]]'' (1862–63), written by the pseudonymous "Charles Felix" (later identified as [[Charles Warren Adams]]<ref name=collins/><ref name=buckler>{{cite journal |last1=Buckler |first1=William E. |title=Once a Week under Samuel Lucas, 1859–65 |journal=PMLA |date=1952 |volume=67 |issue=7 |pages=924–941 |doi=10.2307/459949 |jstor=459949 }}</ref>), preceded it by a number of years and first used techniques that would come to define the genre.<ref name=collins>[[Paul Collins (American writer)|Paul Collins]]. [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/books/review/Collins-t.html "The Case of the First Mystery Novelist"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616150018/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/books/review/Collins-t.html |date=2022-06-16 }}, in-print as "Before Hercule or Sherlock, There Was Ralph", ''[[New York Times Book Review]]'', January 7, 2011, p. 46</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History|last=Symons|first=Julian|publisher=Penguin Books Ltd|year=1974|isbn=978-0140037944|page=51}}</ref>

Literary critics Chris Willis and Kate Watson consider [[Mary Elizabeth Braddon]]'s first book, the even earlier ''[[The Trail of the Serpent]]'' (1861), to be the first British detective novel.<ref name=Watson>{{cite book |last=Watson |first=Kate |date=2012 |title=Women Writing Crime Fiction, 1860–1880: Fourteen American, British and Australian Authors |page=46 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ZQrQAx7BvgC |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc. |isbn=978-0-7864-6782-2}}</ref> ''The Trail of the Serpent'' "features an innovative detective figure, Mr. Peters, who is lower class and mute, and who is initially dismissed both by the text and its characters."<ref name="Watson"/> Braddon's later and better-remembered work, ''[[Aurora Floyd]]'' (printed in 1863 novel form, but serialized in 1862–63<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.broadviewpress.com/product.php?productid=95 |title=Broadview Press: "Aurora Floyd" |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |website=www.broadviewpress.com |publisher=Broadview Press |access-date=27 February 2014 |archive-date=28 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228121521/https://www.broadviewpress.com/product.php?productid=95 |url-status=live }}</ref>), also features a compelling detective in the person of Detective Grimstone of Scotland Yard.

[[Tom Taylor]]'s melodrama ''[[The Ticket-of-Leave Man (play)|The Ticket-of-Leave Man]]'', an adaptation of ''Léonard'' by Édouard Brisbarre and Eugène Nus,<ref>"The Ticket-of-Leave Man" in ''Dictionary Central'' http://www.dictionarycentral.com/definition/the-ticket-of-leave-man.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212084002/http://www.dictionarycentral.com/definition/the-ticket-of-leave-man.html |date=2013-12-12 }} . Accessed 2013.12.10.</ref> appeared in 1863, introducing [[Hawkshaw the Detective]]. In short, it is difficult to establish who was the first to write the English-language detective novel, as various authors were exploring the theme simultaneously.

[[Anna Katharine Green]], in her 1878 debut ''[[The Leavenworth Case]]'' and other works, popularized the genre among middle-class readers and helped to shape the genre into its classic form as well as developed the concept of the series detective.<ref name="Nickerson2010"/><ref>{{cite news |last= Grondahl |first= Paul |title= Secret to longevity? Elementary, for Holmes while the Master happily tends bees in the Sussex countryside, his fans each January 6 fete him on his birthday|work= [[Times Union (Albany)|The Times Union]] |location= Colonie, New York |publisher= [[George Randolph Hearst III]] |date= January 15, 1995|url= http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=0FB5F01E4F4C41D5&p_docnum=2&p_queryname=1 |access-date= January 8, 2013}}</ref>

In 1887, [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] created [[Sherlock Holmes]], arguably the most famous of all fictional detectives. Although Sherlock Holmes is not the first fictional detective (he was influenced by Poe's [[C. Auguste Dupin|Dupin]] and Gaboriau's [[Monsieur Lecoq|Lecoq]]), his name has become synonymous for the part. Conan Doyle stated that the character of Holmes was inspired by Dr. [[Joseph Bell]], for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the [[Edinburgh Royal Infirmary]]. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations.<ref>{{Citation |last=Lycett |first=Andrew |title=The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |publisher=Free Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7432-7523-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/manwhocreatedshe00lyce/page/53 53–54, 190] |url=https://archive.org/details/manwhocreatedshe00lyce/page/53 }}</ref> A brilliant London-based "consulting detective" residing at [[221B Baker Street]], Holmes is famous for his [[intelligence|intellectual prowess]] and is renowned for his skillful use of astute [[observation]], [[deductive reasoning]], and [[forensic]] skills to solve difficult [[legal case|cases]]. Conan Doyle wrote four [[novels]] and fifty-six [[short stories]] featuring Holmes, and all but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend, assistant, and biographer, [[Dr. Watson|Dr. John H. Watson]].