A Study in Scarlet: Part One

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Hugh Bonneville (0:33)

I'm Hugh Bonneville, and welcome to A Study in Scarlet, Part One.

Originally published in its entirety in Beaton's Christmas Annual 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story and his first novel of any description was written when he was just 27 years old. Little did he know that it would go on to define his career for the next four and a half decades. Or that his central character, a consulting detective called Sherlock Holmes, would prove to be one of the most enduring figures in all of literature. When Doyle wrote this story over the space of about three weeks at the tail end of 1886, he was still working as a doctor in Hampshire. He based the character of Sherlock Holmes in part on one of his university lecturers, a brilliant physician called Joseph Bell. Combined with a more literary nod to Edgar Allan Poe's popular French detective Auguste Dupin, a man whose fierce intellect and attention to detail allow him to seemingly read his companions' minds. But A Study in Scarlet was far from an instant hit. Doyle received multiple rejection letters before Beaton's agreed to publish the story. Even then, his request for a royalty was rejected. He was paid a flat fee of just £25 for the rights. It was an inauspicious start to the young doctor's new career as a novelist. In fact, it wasn't until four years later, with his first Holmes and Watson short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, that he truly began to capture the public's imagination. But with the benefit of hindsight, this debut feature-length adventure for the redoubtable duo is a worthy beginning to their enduring partnership. A dark and sinister tale of passion, power and revenge, and a mystery that spans two continents, from the foggy streets of London to the baking desert plains of Utah.

Over the next seven episodes, we'll be bringing you the adventure that started it all.

From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is A Study in Scarlet, part one.

In the year 1878, I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the Second Afghan War had broken out.

On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Kandahar in safety, where I found my regiment and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster.

I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines. Worn with pain and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed with the great train of wounded sufferers to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied and had already improved so far as to be able to walk around the wards and even to bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched accordingly in the troop ship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth Jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.