A Study in Scarlet

Character Guide

Spoiler-free — fuller detail (with spoilers, if you want them) lives in the reader's Guide tab.

Sherlock Holmes (the consulting detective)

A brilliant, eccentric investigator who deduces facts from tiny physical details; he shares rooms with Watson at 221B Baker Street and is famously ignorant of things he considers useless, like the solar system.

Dr. John Watson

An army surgeon recently invalided home from the Afghan campaign who becomes Holmes's roommate and the narrator of the story, chronicling the investigation with a mix of admiration and bewilderment.

Tobias Gregson

An ambitious Scotland Yard detective who calls Holmes in on the Lauriston Gardens murder and competes with Lestrade to solve it first.

Lestrade

Another Scotland Yard detective, described as 'lean and ferret-like,' who rivals Gregson and pursues his own theory of the crime.

John Rance

A police constable who was on duty near the crime scene the night of the murder and is questioned by Holmes about what he saw.

Enoch J. Drebber

An American from Cleveland, Ohio, found dead in an empty house on Lauriston Gardens with no visible wound, launching the central mystery.

Joseph Stangerson

Drebber's secretary and traveling companion, who becomes entangled in the investigation after Drebber's death.

John Ferrier

A pioneer rescued from the desert by Mormon settlers, who raises an orphaned girl, Lucy, as his own daughter and prospers as a farmer in Utah.

Lucy Ferrier (the Flower of Utah)

John Ferrier's adopted daughter, admired throughout the settlement for her beauty and spirit as she grows to womanhood.

Brigham Young (the Prophet)

The stern, powerful leader of the Mormon settlers in Utah, who holds authority over the community's laws and marriages.

Glossary

Rache

German for 'revenge'; the word found scrawled in blood at the crime scene, which the police mistakenly think is the start of the name 'Rachel.'

Danites / Avenging Angels

A secret enforcement society within the novel's depiction of the Mormon Church, said to punish dissenters and enforce obedience through violence and intimidation.

Gentile

In the Mormon-settlement chapters, this term refers to anyone outside the Mormon faith, not to non-Jews as in its more common modern usage.

sealed

A term used for a religious/marital bond in the novel's portrayal of Mormon practice, referring to a woman being formally bound in marriage to a man.

Zion

The name used by the Mormon pilgrims for their promised destination and settlement in the Utah valley.

brain attic

Holmes's metaphor for the mind as a small, finite storage space that must be furnished selectively, explaining why he ignores 'useless' facts like the solar system.

four-wheeler

A horse-drawn cab with four wheels (as opposed to a lighter two-wheeled hansom), used for transport throughout the London chapters.

Trichinopoly cigar

A cigar made in Trichinopoly, India; Holmes identifies its ash as a clue pointing to the murderer's habits.

consulting detective

Holmes's self-invented professional title, describing an independent expert whom other detectives or clients consult when stumped.

prognathous / simious

Archaic descriptive terms used for the dead man's face—'prognathous' meaning a projecting jaw, 'simious' meaning ape-like in appearance.

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