Bloomington by Gaslight

For forty years, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle produced what has come to be known as the Sherlock Holmes canon, consisting of four novels and 56 short stories. However, there were other mystery novels that preceded the famous detective: Edgar Allan Poe and Emile Gaboriau established the genre of "tales of ratiocination," while authors such as Wilkie Collins and Fergus Hume solidified the popularity of mystery fiction in the increasingly literate middle class. The legacy of Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction also extends beyond Conan Doyle's lifetime as Holmes and Watson live on in television, plays, movies, and other media. This exhibition follows the history of detective fiction, the turning point of Conan Doyle's works, and the continuing legacy of Sherlock Holmes through selected materials from the Lilly Library collection.