The Great Grouse Massacre

1888 was a busy year for Holmes and Watson. If Dr. Watson is to be believed, The Sign of Four, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” and “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” all took place in this year (I would also argue that The Valley of Fear is set in the same year - ed.). As if all that weren’t enough, 1888 is remembered (albeit infamously) as the year that Jack the Ripper unleashed an autumn of terror on the citizens of London. While there are no Holmes vs. the Ripper stories in this volume, the authors of the later stories have all alluded to the atmosphere of terror permeating Holmes’s London at that time.