The Red-Headed League

When Watson remarks that Holmes is the benefactor of the human race, Holmes replies with a quote. He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use,” he remarked. “...

The first clue that helps Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery of the red-headed league is the fact that Mr. Wilson’s assistant at the pawn shop is willing to work at half wages just so that he can...

Holmes deduced that The Red-Headed League did not exist, and it was actually nothing more than a ruse to get Mr. Wilson out of his shop so Clay and his accomplice could dig a tunnel. Mr. Wilson...

There is a short answer and a long answer to this question. The league was ostensibly a society established by an eccentric rich man that benefited red-headed men by employing them. The league...

Jabez Wilson not only needs money but is characterized as, among other things, a man who deals in money as a pawnbroker and who is very tight with his money. A detective as famous as Sherlock...

When Watson comes to visit his friend Sherlock Holmes and meets Jabez Wilson for the first time, Watson amuses himself by trying to make deductions about Wilson in imitation of Holmes. But Watson...

When Holmes first meets Dr. Watson in the novel A Study in Scarlet, he describes himself as "a consulting detective." There are many police detectives and many private detectives, but Holmes is the...

One literary device that Arthur Conan Doyle uses in this, and other Sherlock Holmes stories, is characterization. Through the narrator, John Watson, the reader gains a very clear picture of what...

First of all, the whole idea of the Red-Headed League was obviously to keep the pawnbroker out of the office for a number of hours each day. He could not leave the little office they placed him,...

When Holmes sets a trap for John Clay and is waiting in the bank's basement strongroom for him to emerge through the flooring, the reader is shown the prize the notorious criminal is after. Mr....

In creating Sherlock Holmes, Doyle was deeply influenced by Edgar Allen Poe's description of what makes a great detective, such as Dupin, stand out. It is not merely analytic ability or a...

In “The Red-Headed League” Holmes uses logic to solve a seemingly bizarre case of a man who is given a job copying the encyclopedia because he realizes that the suspects are trying to get the man...

Watson describes Jabez Wilson as having fiery red hair. Arthur Conan Doyle took pains to make it plausible that Wilson would not have heard about the so-called Red-Headed League before his new...

Holmes is suspicious of Mr. Wilson's assistant, and so he visits Wilson's shop and pretends to be seeking directions in order to make observations about the assistant's appearance. Before doing so,...

The answer to your question can be found in detail in the last few pages of the story. It is characteristic of many of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes that the master...

Differences between Conan Doyle's short story "The Red-Headed League" and the 1954 film adaptation (actually a BBC T.V. series episode, one of several such series episodes) are many, but...

There are many clues. Holmes determines the identity of Wilson's helper through his description:“Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he's not short of thirty....

Sherlock Holmes used reason and deduction from minute clues to solve the puzzles with which he was faced. He begins by demonstrating his prowess in this area to his client in this story. He says...

Holmes and Watson listen to Mr. Jabez Wilson tell his story of the Red-Headed League. They both found the story to be fantastic and humorous. However, Sherlock tells Mr. Wilson that his problem...

Jabez Wilson is the victim of an elaborate scheme to get him out of his shop during the day so that his new employee John Clay, who calls himself Spaulding, can work on a long tunnel from Wilson's...

Peter Jones and Mr. Merryweather come into the story as it is nearing a climax. Jones is "the official police agent." He is from Scotland Yard. Mr. Merryweather is chairman of the bank directors....

Sherlock Holmes meets Mr. Jabez Wilson, the pawnbroker, when he comes to Holmes's rooms on Baker Street to seek his help. Wilson is upset that he has suddenly and without any reason been fired from...

There are several ways to try to evaluate how much money the phony Red-Headed League paid Jabez Wilson for copying pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The exchange rate for American dollars to...

Although people who have not read the Sherlock Holmes books carefully, or only watched film versions, may dismiss Watson as bumbling and incompetent, that is not actually the case. Watson is a...

The key events of the story, in chronological order, are as follows: The City and Suburban Bank gets a shipment of 30,000 gold napoleons. John Clay interviews for a job as assistant to Jabez Wilson...

Like many Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Red Headed League" is a celebration of the human intellect. We see this most notably with Holmes himself. As he does in many stories, Sherlock Holmes is able...

In the short story "The Red-Headed League," even the great detective Sherlock Holmes thinks the events that occur to Wilson are bizarre. Holmes even tells Watson they both share a "love of all that...

Wilson should have seen that the office of this supposedly important organization established by a millionaire was very sparsely furnished. There was only one room, and nothing in it but one table,...

At the end of the story, Sherlock Holmes explains why he banged his stick on the ground in front of Wilson's home. As he states: I was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or...

On the night in question, Holmes and Watson meet with Peter Jones, a police officer, and Mr Merryweather, a bank director, at Baker Street. From there, the four men travel to the vault of Mr...

Arthur Conan Doyle freely acknowledged that he had gotten his inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes mysteries from Edgar Allan Poe's tales of ratiocination about C. Auguste Dupin, particularly from...

The league ended when the criminal, John Clay, no longer needed Mr. Wilson away from his shop during the day. The Red-Headed League was highly unlikely. It was brought to Mr. Wilson’s attention...

Jabez Wilson finds out about the Red-Headed League through an advertisement which had been placed in the newspaper. This advertisement said that a salary of £4 per week would be payable to members...

At the end of "The Red-Headed League," Sherlock Holmes responds to Dr. Watson's enthusiastic praise and congratulations with these words: “It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I...

Sherlock Holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour,...

Onomatopoeia refers to the formation of words that imitate sounds. Good examples include "cuckoo," "sizzle," and "bang." You will often hear people referring to the "clinking" of glasses when they...

The advertisement itself doesn't give much information about the Red-headed League. It simply says there is an opening which will give a red-headed man a well-paying job doing "nominal," which...

Sherlock Holmes has a cynical view of human nature that remains unchanged throughout the story "The Red-Headed League." At the beginning of the story, Holmes tells Dr. Watson that "for strange...

In this story, as in many of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes seems so superior to the police that they barely seem to be engaged in the same profession. That said, Jones actively seeks Holmes'...

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have been depicted in many motion pictures and television series over the years. Holmes is invariably portrayed as tall, thin, nervous, sharp-featured, ascetic- and...

Early in his career Sherlock Holmes trained himself to become a "private consulting detective." He told Watson when they first started sharing rooms at Baker Street that he was not interested in...

Sherlock Holmes and John Clay have some attributes in common, although they are on opposite sides of the law. We learn from Mr. Jones, the police agent, that John Clay is "at the head of his...

John Clay, who uses the name Vincent Spaulding, went to work for Jabez Wilson because Wilson's pawn shop was well situated for tunneling about one block to the bank where the gold French napoleon...

Your first two questions are interrelated, so I can answer them both without going against eNotes policy of answering only one question per posting. Mr. Merryweather, the pompous bank director, is...

Mr. Jabez Wilson consults Sherlock Holmes for the purpose of solving the mystery of his sudden loss of employment with the Red-Headed League. Accordingly, Wilson is a pawnbroker at Saxe-Coburg...

Jabez Wilson is a very thrifty man. As such, he does not subscribe to a newspaper or go out and buy one off a news vendor, although newspapers in those days probably only sold for a penny. Even if...

In terms of their powers of observation, Watson makes many broad observations but is unable to deduce things form them, while Holmes hones in on smaller details and uses those to get a greater...

All of Sherlock Holmes' deductions about Jabez Wilson are contained in a single short paragraph. "Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he...

When Holmes and Watson visit Saxe-Coburg Square, Holmes surprises Watson by beating on the pavement with his walking stick. Later he explains: "I was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out...

What interests Holmes about the information given by Jabez Wilson is the strong possibility that Vincent Spaulding is a master criminal known to the detective as John Clay. The most significant...