Q 01/05

Which author created Sherlock Holmes?

A) Arthur Conan Doyle

B) Wilkie Collins

C) G. K. Chesterton

D) Edgar Allan Poe

Answer · why

A) Arthur Conan Doyle

Doyle was a practising physician who wrote the first Holmes story while waiting for patients who rarely came.

Q 02/05

In which year did Holmes first appear in print, in the novel A Study in Scarlet?

A) 1891

B) 1895

C) 1887

D) 1901

Answer · why

C) 1887

The debut attracted little notice; Holmes only became a sensation four years later when the short stories began.

Q 03/05

Holmes's debut novel was first published in which magazine?

A) The Strand Magazine

B) Lippincott's Monthly Magazine

C) Collier's Weekly

D) Beeton's Christmas Annual

Answer · why

D) Beeton's Christmas Annual

Only eleven complete copies of that issue are known to survive, making it one of the most valuable magazines ever printed.

Q 04/05

Alongside four novels, how many Holmes short stories did Doyle write?

A) 56

B) 60

C) 64

D) 72

Answer · why

A) 56

The short stories are collected in five books, from The Adventures (1892) to The Case-Book (1927).

Q 05/05

Dr Watson was wounded while serving as an army surgeon in which conflict?

A) Second Anglo-Afghan War

B) First Boer War

C) The Crimean War

D) Second Opium War

Answer · why

A) Second Anglo-Afghan War

He was invalided home on the troopship Orontes and awarded a pension of eleven shillings and sixpence a day.