u/Initial-Lawyer2143 — reddlx

Hello everyone,

I’m putting together a chronology of the Holmesian canon, and I’ve run into a bit of a timeline issue with The Red-Headed League (REDH). I know Conan Doyle wasn’t always very strict with dates from one story to another, but here the inconsistency seems to be within the same story.

Right from the first sentence, we’re told it takes place in autumn: “I had called upon my friend, Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year [...]” - pretty clear.
Then later: “just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, [...]”, which places A Case of Identity (IDEN) before REDH chronologically.
Then, about the newspaper Watson is shown: “It is the Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago.” This is reinforced by the client saying his assistant “came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very paper in his hand, [...]”. So at first I thought the events took place around June 27, 1890 - but that doesn’t really fit with the autumn mention at the start.
Finally, the client reads: “The red-headed league is dissolved. October 9, 1890.” - which brings us back to autumn again.

So I get that Conan Doyle wasn’t too concerned with strict continuity, but here nothing really seems to line up...

My question is: does REDH take place in June 1890, or in October 1890?

^(English isn’t my first language, so apologies for any mistakes!)>!!<