Undoubtedly the best-known detective in literature, Sherlock Holmes was the creation of British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), who endowed his super sleuth with an extraordinary facility for solving crimes. Drawing on his remarkable powers of observation and deduction, coupled with an encylopedic knowledge of crimes and criminals, Holmes seeks out his prey in the London underworld, where no evildoer is safe from his keen wits and tenacious pursuit.