It is more than a century since the ascetic gaunt & enigmatic detective Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From 1891 beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the now legendary & pioneering Strand Magazine began serialising Arthur Conan Doyles matchless tales of detection featuring the incomparable sleuth patiently assisted by his doggedly loyal & lovably pedantic friend & companion Dr Watson. The stories are illustrated by the remarkable Sydney Paget from whom our images of Sherlock Holmes & his world derive & who first equipped Holmes with his famous deerstalker hat. The literary cult of Sherlock Holmes shows no sign of fading with time as each new generation comes to love & revere the penetrating mind & ruthless logic which were the undoing of so many Victorian master criminals.