Hidden Star

On this day in 1887 Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print. His debut case was called A Study in Scarlet. The story revolves around a man and a girl who are stranded in the western American wilderness. They are rescued by Mormon pioneers who force them to adopt their religion and to marry within the faith. I think it’s sad that an educated and otherwise open-minded man like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle felt comfortable writing about the LDS religion and people when he knew so little about them. If his audience hadn’t been equally ignorant and frightened of the Mormons, he might have been less successful as a writer. And that would have been a pity, because the world might never have known the famous literary detective who taught us, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”