A Study in Scarlet is the first ever published work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring Sherlock Holmes. In the debut of literature's most famous sleuth, a dead man is discovered in a bloodstained room in Brixton, London. The only clues are a wedding ring, a gold watch, a pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, and a word scrawled in blood on the wall. With this investigation begins the partnership of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The story, and its main characters, attracted little public interest when it first appeared. Only 11 complete copies of the magazine Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 in which the story first appeared are known to exist now and they have considerable value. The novel was followed by The Sign of the Four, published in 1890. A Study in Scarlet was the first work of detective fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as an investigative tool. It has been adapted extensively in films, television, and in theatre. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, born in 1859 was an Irish-Scots writer and physician. He was best known for his detective fictional stories featuring the character Sherlock Holmes and his side-kick Dr. Watson. Conan Doyle's stories, with their ingenious plots are still being read all over the world. He was a prolific writer whose works include nearly 200 novels, science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.