Sherlock Holmes in order: all nine books, read aloud
Four novels and five collections of short stories, published over forty years and not in the order the stories happen. Here they are in the order that actually works, narrated straight through in one voice, picking up where you left off.
You do not have to decide anything to start. Press play on the first one and see whether listening suits you. This page will still be here when you finish it and want to know which is next.
The nine, in publication order
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1.A Study in ScarletHolmes and Watson meet and take rooms together at Baker Street.Half of it leaves London altogether for a long flashback in the Utah desert, which takes most first-time readers by surprise.
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2.The Sign of the FourThe second novel. A stolen treasure, a one-legged man and a chase down the Thames.It is also where Watson meets the woman he marries, and where Holmes's cocaine habit is set out most plainly.
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3.The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesThe first collection, and the most quoted: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-Headed League, The Speckled Band.Twelve stories written month by month for The Strand Magazine, which is what made Holmes a household name inside a year.
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4.The Memoirs of Sherlock HolmesEleven more cases, closing at the Reichenbach Falls.Conan Doyle had by then decided he wanted to be free of the character, and wrote the last story to end the series for good.
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5.The Hound of the BaskervillesThe best known of the four novels. Dartmoor, fog, and a family curse.The most adapted thing he ever wrote, and the one most people can picture without having read a word of it.
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6.The Return of Sherlock HolmesThirteen stories, and the longest listen of the nine.The reading public had spent eight years asking for more, and the opening story explains where Holmes had been all that time.
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7.The Valley of FearThe fourth and final novel. Half of it is set in the Pennsylvania coalfields.Like A Study in Scarlet it splits in two: an English country-house mystery, then a long American backstory that explains it.
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8.His Last BowEight stories, with Holmes retired to Sussex and keeping bees.The title story is the only one told in the third person, and the only one that puts Holmes into the politics of his own day.
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9.The Case-Book of Sherlock HolmesThe last collection, published forty years after the first.Two of the twelve are narrated by Holmes himself, which he does nowhere else in the series.
Every one is the complete text, not an abridgement.
Why publication order and not chronological
Because chronological order does not exist at the level of books. The stories jump around the timeline within each collection, so a chronological reading works story by story, all sixty of them, and never lines up with the nine volumes you actually press play on. Publication order is the only sequence that maps onto what you are listening to.
It also happens to put the one pair that must be heard in order in the right places. Conan Doyle grew tired of Holmes and killed him off at the end of the fourth book; the reaction was such that he brought him back eight years later, and the sixth book opens with the explanation. Publication order puts them in that order anyway.
The novels and the collections listen very differently
Worth knowing before you plan your week. The four novels (numbers 1, 2, 5 and 7) are three to four hours of one continuous story, so they want a long walk, or a few commutes close together.
The five collections are longer overall, but every story inside is a self-contained thirty to sixty minutes. You can start one on the way to work, finish it, and pick up a completely different case a fortnight later without having lost the thread. For most people the collections are the easier listening of the two.
What it costs. You get an hour of listening to try it, with no account and no card. Create a free account and you get an hour a month. Unlimited listening is £2.99 a month, and you can cancel any time.
Start with A Study in Scarlet
It is the first one, it is among the shortest, and it is where Holmes and Watson meet. That is the only part of the series that has to come first.
Or browse the whole library: Austen, Dickens, the Brontës and plenty besides. Got a PDF of your own? Upload it and listen to that the same way.