The Best Sherlock Holmes Stories

Baker Street Journal Poll by Randall Stock

Sherlockians from around the world selected the best Sherlock Holmes stories in the largest and most comprehensive survey ever conducted. Experts chose the top short stories and novels. See also the best new Holmes books of the year.

Ranking the Holmes Novels

Story	Points	Rating
1. The Hound of the Baskervilles (179)	880	100
2. The Sign of [the] Four (24)	602	68
3. A Study in Scarlet (23)	535	61
4. The Valley of Fear (17)	413	47

The Top 12 Holmes Short Stories

Story	Points	Rating
1. "The Speckled Band" (50)	1,713	100
2. "The Red-Headed League" (40)	1,668	97
3. "A Scandal in Bohemia" (37)	1,468	86
4. "Silver Blaze" (23)	1,332	78
5. "The Blue Carbuncle" (20)	1,282	75
6. "The Musgrave Ritual" (14)	1,013	59
7. "The Final Problem" (9)	880	51
8. "The Empty House" (2)	791	46
9. "The Dancing Men" (3)	766	45
10. "The Six Napoleons" (4)	715	42
11. "The Bruce-Partington Plans" (6)	696	41
12. "The Man with the Twisted Lip" (4)	463	27

Rating the Collected Tales

Volume	Rating	Top 12	Rank
Adventures (1892)	100	5	1, 2, 3, 5, 12
Memoirs (1893)	58	3	4, 6, 7
Return (1905)	53	3	8, 9, 10
Last Bow (1917)	39	1	11
Case-Book (1927)	14	0

Choosing Your First Holmes Book

Although the Holmes series began with a novel, you should start by reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It includes the first Holmes short stories and 5 of the top 12 overall. To read The Adventures, see the best hardback and the best paperback edition.

Looking for new Holmes stories? See this list of the best new Holmes books of the year.

Notes on the Poll

First-place votes are listed in parentheses after the title.
Points: A 12-point weighting model was used to determine the best short stories.
"Ratings" for individual stories were computed by dividing each score by the maximum score for that category and multiplying by 100. This provides a simple value for comparing the relative positions of stories within a category.
"Ratings" for the collected tales were based on the average score of all the stories in a volume and indexed for a top rating of 100. Although "The Cardboard Box" is often included in His Last Bow, it was counted as part of the Memoirs because of its original publication date.
Rank for collected volumes denotes which ranked stories in the Top 12 appear in that collection.
See the best Sherlock Holmes book recommendation for the best print edition of these stories.
Randall Stock, "Rating Sherlock Holmes," The Baker Street Journal, December 1999, pp. 5-11. Poll conducted summer/fall 1999.

Bibliographical Note: Originally published as The Sign of the Four in Lippincott's Magazine, the title was shortened to The Sign of Four for the first English book edition.

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Major Polls to Rate the Sherlock Holmes Stories

1999: Randall Stock, "Rating Sherlock Holmes," The Baker Street Journal, December 1999, pp. 5-11.

1989: Nicholas Utechin, "The Twelve Best," The Sherlock Holmes Journal, Winter 1989, pp. 69-70.

1959: Edgar W. Smith, "The 'Ten Best' Contest," The Baker Street Journal, October 1959, pp. 237–240.

1954: Edgar W. Smith, "The 'Ten Best' and the 'Ten Least'," The Baker Street Journal, April 1954, pp. 117–119.

1944: Edgar W. Smith, "The Twelve Best," The Baker Street Journal, October 1946, pp. 457-460.

In 1927, The Strand Magazine held a Sherlock Holmes Competition in which it challenged its readers to list the twelve best Holmes stories as selected by Conan Doyle. None of the stories from The Case-Book were eligible since it had not yet been published in book form. Sir Arthur later gave his choices in "How I Made My List" in the June 1927 issue of The Strand Magazine.

More Information

This website includes other "top 10" lists for the best Holmes quotes, the best Basil Rathbone movies, the best Sherlock Holmes gifts, and more.

This page also provides supplementary "story rating" information below for a four-part series of articles by me that appeared in the December 1999 Baker Street Journal. Please refer to the original articles for the principle results and conclusions.

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"Irregular Participation"

The Baker Street Journal reported on three polls to rate the Canon from 1944 to 1959. However, those reports raised a number of questions about exactly how the polls were conducted. My article "Irregular Participation" clears up some mysteries surrounding these prior polls.

"Rating Sherlock Holmes" Supplement

Since the prior polls all had certain limitations, I sent a proposal to Don Pollock, Editor of the BSJ, to carry out a new and more reliable poll of Sherlockian experts. The 1999 poll of Baker Street Journal readers was the largest and most comprehensive survey ever conducted. My article "Rating Sherlock Holmes" describes and analyzes the 1999 poll results, including rankings for the short stories, the long stories, and the collected tales.

The 1999 poll used a 12-point weighting method to rank the short stories. Since the number of first-place votes provides additional critical insight, this information also appears in the table of results. There are, however, many other potential weighting models and some were mentioned in the article.

Appendix Table A2 lists the results using six different scoring models.

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"A Study in Sherlockians" Supplement

I had never seen any demographic information on Sherlockians and thought that the 1999 poll offered a great opportunity to get a better sense of this community. I also wanted to see if a voter's experience or affiliations would relate to their choice of the best stories. My article "A Study in Sherlockians" covers both of these topics for the first time.

Because of the large number of participants in the 1999 poll, it was worthwhile to compare the choices of various groups of voters. The December 1999 BSJ article listed only the top choices from these groups. Complete story rankings are provided here for:

Invested BSI Members (Table 1)

Members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London (Table 2)

Women versus Men (Table 3)

Men versus Women (Table 3b, each group sorted separately)

Publishing Experience (Table 4)

Regions - USA versus ROW (Table 5)

Countries (Table 6)

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"The Best of the Best" Supplement

After researching prior polls and conducting the 1999 effort, it was clear that each poll brought some unique Sherlockian insight to rating the Canon. My article "The Best of the Best" summarizes the history of these appraisals and determines the all-time greatest stories.

Results from five polls reported in the BSJ and SHJ between 1944 and 1999 were analyzed to determine the all-time greatest Sherlock Holmes stories. The December 1999 BSJ article listed only the top choices from these polls. The complete tables are provided here for:

Rankings by Story (Table 2)

Relative Story Scores by Poll (Appendix Table A1)

Thanks!

A special "thank-you" to everyone who participated in the 1999 poll. The response was outstanding! I especially enjoyed the notes that many of you included with your ballots.

My first contact with the official Sherlockian community was Donald Pollock. He helped to re-ignite my Canonical interests and his guidance is much appreciated. Thanks for being a great BSJ Editor!

I am always interested in hearing about prior polls and welcome your e-mail on the topic. I am particularly interested in any ballots from the 1944 - 1959 polls and in story scores from the 1989 Sherlock Holmes Journal poll that were not published in the SHJ.

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Now that you know the best Sherlock Holmes stories, be sure to read about The 10 Most Famous Quotations from the Holmes Stories, the best Basil Rathbone Holmes movies and DVDs, the best Sherlock Holmes gifts, and more top-10 topics.