A Study in Scarlet
How Holmes and Watson met: the very first case.
4 hr 5 min · read by Richard Stibbard
0:00
4:30
About
Who was Arthur Conan Doyle?
Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, the world's most famous detective, in four novels and fifty-six short stories.
His life
Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and trained as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh, where his teacher Joseph Bell, famous for reading patients at a glance, inspired Holmes. He wrote his first stories while waiting for patients who rarely came.
Sherlock Holmes
Holmes and Dr. Watson first appeared in A Study in Scarlet (1887). The short stories in The Strand Magazine from 1891 made them a sensation. Doyle grew tired of Holmes and killed him off in 1893, but readers protested so loudly that he brought him back, first in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). Doyle also wrote historical novels and science fiction, was knighted in 1902, and died in 1930.
You see, but you do not observe.
New to Arthur Conan Doyle?
Start here
A Study in Scarlet
How Holmes and Watson met: the very first case.
4 hr 5 min · read by Richard Stibbard 
The Hound of the Baskervilles
A family curse, a moor and a giant hound. Our most-played Holmes.
5 hr 58 min · read by Luke Oldham
0:00
4:32
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Red-Headed League
A short, funny and clever case.
54 min · read by Richard Stibbard
0:00
3:45
Audiobooks
Listen to Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series
Book 1
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia
Narrated by Ian Michael Turrell
The King of Bohemia has a problem. Years ago he was involved with the adventuress Irene Adler, and she holds a photograph that could ruin his coming marriage. He comes to...
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4:27
Book 2
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Red-Headed League
Narrated by Richard Stibbard
A man with flaming red hair is hired by a strange society, the Red-Headed League, to copy out an encyclopedia for four pounds a week. It is easy money, until one morning...
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3:45
Book 3
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - A Case of Identity
Narrated by Ian Michael Turrell
Miss Mary Sutherland comes to Sherlock Holmes with a puzzle. Her fiance, Hosmer Angel, disappeared on the way to their wedding, and she has no idea where he went. Holmes...
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4:18
Book 5
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Five Orange Pips
Narrated by Richard Stibbard
A young man named John Openshaw comes to Sherlock Holmes in fear. His uncle and father both died after receiving an envelope containing five orange pips, and now he has r...
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3:35
Book 6
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Man with the Twisted Lip
Narrated by Richard Stibbard
Neville St. Clair, a respectable businessman, has vanished. His wife saw him at a window above an opium den in London, and then he was gone, leaving blood on the sill. Ne...
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4:02
More audiobooks
A Study in Scarlet
Narrated by Richard Stibbard
A wounded army doctor, John Watson, comes home to London and shares rooms with an odd man named Sherlock Holmes. Soon Watson is called to the scene of a murder in an empt...
0:00
4:30
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
Narrated by Eric Priessman
A farmer named McCarthy has been found dead near the Boscombe Pool in Herefordshire. His son James is arrested, and the evidence points straight at him. Only the young ma...
0:00
4:31
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Narrated by Luke Oldham
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson hunt a killer stalking the Baskerville heir on bleak Dartmoor. Luke Oldham’s vivid narration heightens the Gothic chill and razor-sharp ded...
0:00
4:32
The Sign of the Four
Narrated by Richard Stibbard
Sherlock Holmes is bored. Then Mary Morstan walks into 221B Baker Street. Her father vanished years ago, and now she receives a pearl in the mail every year from a strang...
0:00
4:19
Life in dates
Arthur Conan Doyle's life
- 1859
Born in Edinburgh.
- 1887
A Study in Scarlet introduces Sherlock Holmes.
- 1891
Holmes stories begin in The Strand Magazine.
- 1893
Doyle kills Holmes off in The Final Problem.
- 1902
The Hound of the Baskervilles; Doyle is knighted.
- 1930
Dies in Crowborough, England.
Questions
Questions about Arthur Conan Doyle
Where should I start with Sherlock Holmes?
A Study in Scarlet, where Holmes and Watson meet. For a single great story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
How many Sherlock Holmes stories are there?
Four novels and 56 short stories.
Are the Sherlock Holmes stories in the public domain?
Yes, all of them in the United States. Each Academy Voices recording is a new performance by a real narrator.
Where can I listen to Arthur Conan Doyle audiobooks narrated by real people?
Academy Voices has 9 Arthur Conan Doyle audiobooks, each performed by a real narrator, with a free sample on every one. Every recording is Certified Human Voice.
Reviewed October 2026 by the Academy Voices team. Sources: Wikipedia, Wikidata .
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