The Valley of Fear

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The Valley of Fear is a Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story was first published in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. The first book edition was published in New York on February 27, 1915.

The story itself takes place in 1888, with a flashback based on Allan Pinkerton's book about the Molly Maguires in the coal mines of Pennsylvania which is set in 1875. The structure of the novel falls more or less into two halves. In the first half, Sherlock Holmes, employing his usual techniques, discovers the identity and location of a killer; when the killer is apprehended, the main plot makes way for a verbose third-person account of the history between the killer and his victim, which is based on the real life Molly Maguires organisation in America, before returning at the end to tie up a few loose ends. In this way The Valley of Fear, the last Sherlock Holmes novel, echoes - perhaps deliberately - the structure of A Study in Scarlet, the first.

The Valley of Fear is also notable for the involvement of Professor Moriarty, making Arthur Conan Doyle himself the first of many writers to ignore the fact, established in "The Final Problem", that Dr. Watson first heard of Moriarty shortly before Moriarty's death, with no unrecorded adventures in between.

The name "The Valley of Fear" is the English translation of the place name of an exceedingly narrow valley in the South of France. During the period of the Crusades, it was populated by the pious Cathars, and some suspect the Holy Grail arrived there from the Holy Land.

v • d • e
Sherlock Holmes books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Novels: A Study in Scarlet • The Sign of Four • The Hound of the Baskervilles • The Valley of Fear

Short story collections: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • The Return of Sherlock Holmes • His Last Bow • The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Main characters: Irene Adler • Inspector Bradstreet • Tobias Gregson • Mycroft Holmes  • Sherlock Holmes • Stanley Hopkins • Inspector Baynes • Inspector Lestrade • Sebastian Moran • Professor Moriarty • Mary Morstan • Mary Russell • Doctor Watson

See also: Canon of Sherlock Holmes • 221B Baker Street • Sherlockiana

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