Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sherlock Holmes series is reputed to be one of the main reasons behind the wave of crime fiction and has inspired generations of authors not only from the genre. More contemporary readers of this short overview will, however, appreciate a short list of the most recent TV shows and movies about Sherlock Holmes, as obviously listing them all – even the full-length movies – is a task a doorstopper could perhaps accomplish only partially. The most recent series inspired by Sherlock Holmes is the British crime drama titled Sherlock.

The best place to start is the Sherlock Holmes Short Story Collections series, the earliest of Arthur Conan Doyle's multi-book series: it opens with A Case of Identity (1891) and runs to 15 books across 1891–2017, ending with Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection (2017). Arthur Conan Doyle's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

Arthur Conan Doyle has 328 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1667 and 2026. 207 of them belong to 13 named series — the largest being the Sherlock Holmes Short Story Collections series with 15 books — and 121 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Arthur Conan Doyle's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Sherlock Holmes (1887–1890, 2 books), Sherlock Holmes Short Story Collections (1891–2017, 15 books) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891–1892, 12 books), plus 7 more.

This guide splits Arthur Conan Doyle's 328 books into 13 named series and 121 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Sherlock Holmes Short Story Collections (15 books, 1891–2017); The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (14 books, 1892–1901); The Return of Sherlock Holmes (13 books, 1903–1904); The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (13 books, 1921–1927); MIT Press/Radium Age (13 books, 2022–2025), plus 8 further series.