A Case of Identity

About A Case of Identity

The opening conversation about ordinary life prepares a case in which domestic arrangements matter more than spectacular crime. A typewritten letter can disclose what its writer hopes to conceal. Consider the difference between Holmes’s access to an explanation and Mary’s willingness to accept it, particularly when attachment makes uncertainty easier to bear than knowledge.

Reading focus

Follow the small material clues in a courtship whose emotional commitments and available evidence point in different directions.

This reading edition contains 6,984 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.

Opening excerpt

“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”

Read the complete opening section

Reading & download help

Edition details and corrections.