This collection of seventeen classic mystery stories, dating from 1837 to 1914, explores the origins of the detective novel, starting from the earliest short story with relevant content.

It is said that every great writer has stood on the shoulders of giants. This seems to be true for the world-famous and, according to many, unsurpassed author of detective stories Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. After all, how could it not be, considering that writers like Poe and Dickens preceded him by several decades, leaving their mark on the genre?

The illustrious names of Poe and Dickens are followed by others, some less and some more well-known, such as Stevenson, Burton, the French writers Leroux and Vidocq, and various others who contributed with their writings and ignited in Conan Doyle's mind the creation of Sherlock Holmes.

This particular anthology is also of great historical importance, as it informs the reader about the enormous range of authors and heroes of noir literature. Sherlock Holmes is now a figure who has surpassed both his creator (the renowned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and his era (1880–1914). He now belongs to broader pop culture, with his pipe, his deerstalker hat, his proverbial intelligence, and his phlegmatic observational skills.

He has endured over time, made his way onto the small and big screen, was modernized, became the subject of parody, video games... and most importantly, became a reference point for every investigator. But is Sherlock really the first of the first?

In the book The Companions of Sherlock Holmes, you will encounter 17 different authors of the so-called crime fiction (the term “detective literature” appeared decades later), who were not only predecessors but also directly influenced Arthur Conan Doyle in the universe he built around his timeless protagonist.

Three authors from America (Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Benjamin Reeve, Jacques Futrelle), four from France (Émile Gaboriau, Gaston Leroux, Maurice Leblanc, William Tufnell Le Queux), nine from the United Kingdom (William Evans Burton, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Morrison, Richard Austin Freeman, Ernest Bramah, Ernest William Hornung, Charles Warren Adams – the latter with the pseudonym Charles Felix) and a baroness from Hungary (Baroness Orczy), most translated into Greek for the first time in particularly rare texts selected by Graeme Davis.

By reading these delightful texts, on one hand connected to their time (local superstitions, horror stories, metaphysical elements, gothic atmosphere), on the other hand thrilling as if they were published for the first time... yesterday, one cannot help but recognize everything that still governs the structure of a typical detective novel.

It is impressive that texts written a century ago manage to capture even the most demanding reader of 2021 from the very first paragraph—who, meanwhile, has hundreds of theoretically richer and more imaginative stimuli. Some clichés, however, are not accidental; the classic is always in fashion. And with this book, Sherlock Holmes gains the finest company!