Annotations This book is unique because it contains a literary criticism that was made by Juan AcevedoArthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1859. He studied medicine, obeying the father's will and, after practicing his profession in such unusual places as a whaling ship in the Arctic or a merchant ship in Africa, finally settled in Plymouth, where he married Louise Hawkins. The economic difficulties were many, and the lack of patients gave the young dr. Doyle the time he needed to exercise in his literary work. He began writing historical novels, adventures, poems ... that he sent to magazines and publishers right and left. Occasionally they published something to him. More than once in a while, they paid him some other ...This was how it was decided, one day in March 1886, to write a more ambitious novel than the others, entitled Estudio en scarlata, a detective story. Seen with the perspective offered by the literary career that would later, that first story was simple and quite clumsy. It was built on episodes of Doyle's own biography, flavored effectively with fictitious elements and others extracted from other authors. The result, quite arranged, was the first adventure of the famous Sherlock Holmes.First, however, we know that neither Sherlock nor Watson were called that: the detective had to be called Sherrinford, and the doctor Ormond Sacker. In addition, Doyle had thought to install them at 221B Upper Baker Street. For the figure of Holmes, it seems that Doyle had had in mind an admired professor of medicine who had known during his student years, Joseph Bell, known for his ability to analyze and deduction. As explained by his students, dr. Bell was able to determine at first sight, just by observing the clothes, the spots ... of the patients their illness, and even data relative to their origin, family or tastes.In Estudio en scarlata, we witness intimate moments in the gestation of the myth, like the one in which Sherlock and his assistant Watson -who comes to practice as a doctor in Afghanistan- know each other, giving rise to one of the most famous literary couples in the world. history - with Don Quixote and Sancho's pardon. Here we already discovered some of Holmes' hobbies: the violin, pipe smoking and his mania of applying deductive logic to the field of criminal study.Watson, who at that time had already published a short story in some magazines - it is inevitable not to see Doyle himself behind - becomes the chronicler of the adventures of his peculiar roommate, in which, sometimes, he himself looks more involved than I would have wanted at first. Watson, with his holy innocence / ignorance, identifies with the reader himself, overcome and surprised by Sherlock's insight. Holmes is cold and superhuman. Watson, on the other hand, is closer to the ordinary reader.