Do the Sherlock Holmes stories appear to follow a set formula?

Do the Sherlock Holmes stories appear to follow a set formula?



The Sherlock Holmes stories were written by a man named Arthur Conan Doyle. They were written during Queen Victoria’s reign around the 1880’s. They were detective fiction stories. Detective fiction is basically a story based upon a mysterious crime that has been committed, and then solved by a detective – who is seen as a shining light of reason and logic in a dark, supernaturally gothic case. He detective is a genius who can spot clues and other sorts of things that other human beings would never notice. The detective solves the crime, which seems to other people to be supernatural, by using science, reason and logic to prove that the crime was committed by that of a criminal mastermind and not by supernatural elements.

Detective fiction originated from Edgar Allen Poe’s story, Murder In The Rue Morgue (Death Street). This was written in 1848 and was a new type of fiction that had neve...