Dec 16, 2009

The Red-Headed League | Historical Context

Turn-of-the-Century Readers
The detective stories Doyle published in the Strand magazine during the 1890s, including "The Red-Headed League," are credited with doubling subscribers to the magazine. During the Victorian Age, which stretched from the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837 to her death in 1901, major writers such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy often published novels serially, in weekly or monthly parts. Doyle, however, was the first to write short stories using a similar method, relying upon interest in a central character rather...