The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective living at 221B Baker Street. He would rather have an interesting problem than a comfortable life, and he notices tiny details that everyone else walks past. Brilliant, restless, and often blunt, he is happiest the moment a strange visitor climbs his stairs.

Dr. John Watson is an army surgeon who came home to London wounded and looking for a quieter life, and instead became Sherlock Holmes's flatmate and companion. He is steady, brave, and kind, the sort of person who notices when a frightened client needs a chair and a cup of tea. He tells these stories himself, so readers see Holmes the way an amazed friend sees him.

Mrs. Hudson owns the house at 221B Baker Street and rents its upstairs rooms to Holmes and Watson. She keeps the household running through irregular hours, sudden visitors, and a tenant whose habits would try anyone's patience. Practical and unflappable, she is usually the first person a nervous client meets at the door.

Inspector Lestrade is a professional detective with the London police at Scotland Yard. He is energetic, stubborn, and genuinely hard-working, though he tends to trust the obvious explanation. He and Holmes respect each other in a prickly sort of way, and their paths cross whenever an official case turns strange.

Irene Adler is a celebrated contralto opera singer, born in New Jersey and now living in a quiet villa in London. She is admired for her beautiful voice, and she is as quick-witted and self-possessed offstage as she is commanding on it. When her name first reaches Baker Street, it arrives attached to a private problem a powerful visitor will not discuss in public.

This visitor arrives at 221B in rich foreign clothes, speaking with a German accent and unwilling at first to give his true name. He is used to being obeyed, and he is plainly more worried about a private scandal than about any ordinary crime. Holmes and Watson first see him as a huge, masked figure who fills the sitting-room doorway.

Jabez Wilson keeps a small pawnbroker's shop in a faded London square. He is elderly, rather pompous, and not as sharp as he thinks he is, but he is honest about his own limits. He comes to Baker Street because a strange job advertisement aimed at red-headed men has left him confused and out of pocket.

Vincent Spaulding works for half-wages in Wilson's shop and spends his spare time in the cellar with his photography. He is quick, obliging, and a little too eager to be useful. Wilson thinks him the smartest assistant in the trade.

Mary Sutherland lives with her mother and stepfather and earns her own living as a typist. She is good-humoured, talkative, and not easily talked out of what she wants. She arrives at Baker Street in her best hat, hovering on the pavement before she can make herself ring the bell.

James McCarthy is the only son of a Herefordshire tenant farmer, about eighteen, used to guns, horses, and the countryside around Hatherley Farm. He is caught in a public case before he has had much chance to speak for himself. Newspapers have already decided what they think of him.

John Turner is a wealthy ex-Australian who owns the land around Boscombe Valley and lets Hatherley Farm to the McCarthys. He is old, ill, and still physically imposing. He and his tenant have a long shared past that the neighbourhood only half understands.

John Openshaw is a well-groomed young gentleman of about twenty-two who has been living at his uncle's house in Horsham. He is refined, anxious, and careful with his words. He arrives at Baker Street on a night of violent storm, still wet from the rain, with a story he only half understands.

Mrs. St. Clair lives in a comfortable villa at Lee, in Kent, and is used to her husband commuting into the City each day. She is small, fair, and determined: once she has seen something with her own eyes, she will not be talked out of it. Holmes and Watson first meet her on her own doorstep, lit from behind, asking for news.

Helen Stoner lives with her stepfather at the decaying family manor of Stoke Moran on the western border of Surrey. She is about thirty but already looks worn down by fear. She has travelled since dawn to speak to a stranger, and she is shivering from something colder than the April morning.

Dr. Grimesby Roylott is the last of an old Surrey family, a doctor who spent years in India and has come home to a crumbling manor. He is huge, short-tempered, and used to getting his own way. When he fills the Baker Street doorway, his hat brushes the cross-bar.

Victor Hatherley is about twenty-five, newly qualified, and still waiting for the work that will make his name. He lives alone in lodgings and keeps his nerve even when he is badly shaken. Watson first sees him sitting in the consulting-room in a heather tweed suit, one hand wrapped in a stained handkerchief.

Lord Robert St. Simon is the son of a duke, used to command and to being obeyed. He dresses with almost foppish care and speaks as if the world's opinion were a personal injury. He comes to Baker Street because a fashionable wedding has not gone the way the newspapers expected.

Hatty Doran is the daughter of a California millionaire, newly arrived in English society and much written about in the fashionable press. She has a graceful figure, a striking face, and a frank American manner that startles the people around her. As the story opens, she is the bride in a wedding all London is watching.

Alexander Holder is about fifty, a senior partner in a private bank, used to dignity and to other people's trust. He lives in a suburban house at Streatham with his son and his niece. Watson first sees him running down Baker Street in the snow, past caring how he looks.

Violet Hunter has been a governess for five years and is out of a place through no fault of her own. She is level-headed, well-spoken, and used to weighing a risk for herself. She comes to Baker Street with a letter of terms that she cannot quite make sense of.

Jephro Rucastle is a country gentleman of about forty-five who comes into a West End governess agency looking for a young woman to live at his house, the Copper Beeches, in Hampshire. He is prodigiously stout, endlessly smiling, and talks as if every odd request were only a family whim. Violet Hunter first sees him sitting at Miss Stoper's elbow, watching the ladies who enter.