On this day in 1915, the fourth (and final) Sherlock Holmes book The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle was first published as a novel. The story was first published as a serial in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. Legend has it that the story is based on the “real-life exploits of the Molly Maguires and Pinkerton agent James McParland.” One of the unique things about this novel is that – like Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, a Study in Scarlet – there is quite a bit of “omniscient narration;” exposition that recalls story events that are unknown to Holmes or Watson.
