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Originally Posted by orlok
To those that have read their first Holmes with A Study in Scarlet and are less than impressed, I would urge you to try another, as I don't feel this is entirely representative of the full body of Conan Doyle's work (I would recommend The Hound of the Baskervilles). The departure mid-story in the US and Hope's back story was untypical - so much so that I thought the tale had ended, and we had moved onto a non-Holmes story for a little while...
That said, it was a great introduction to Holmes and Watson, and to a certain extent felt like a scene-setter whose main purpose was to introduce us to the characters for the many stories to come.
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Here, here. I'd also add that this is the 1st Sherlock Holmes story ever written and that the genre was still in its infancy at the time when it was written. So it's more than possible that A.C. Doyle was still finding his proper voice in regard to his most famous creation. Hound of the Baskervilles was written yrs later (I believe after 'The Final Problem' and before 'The Empty House') by which time A.C. Doyle's writing style had no doubt matured quite a bit. Judging by how many people world wide know of the great detective through story, OTR, TV and movies there has to be something to his stories that has held up well over time. Holmes appeared in Dec. 1887 in Beaton's Christmas Annual and he's still going strong 126 yrs later in 2013.