Little is known of Sherlock Holmes' life prior to his association with John Watson beginning in 1881. What little information we do have comes in dribs and drabs. Watson's recounting of Holmes' "first case" - The Gloria Scott - introduces us to Victor Trevor, a classmate at Oxford. Again, it is a college chum who involves Holmes in the Musgrave Ritual.

Beyond those adventures, we have a few, but not that many, references to cases Holmes had been employed on previous to 1881, cases with interesting names such as The Case of Vanderbilt and the Yeggmanand The Dreadful Business of the Abernetty Family of Baltimore.

These cases were taken up at a time prior to Holmes' installing himself in Montague Street, London, where he remained for three years, fully developing his powers. The previous cases were accidental, in that he had been in the right place and at the right time, and was able to afford some support in their solution. It is the Montague Street cases, however, that preceded Holmes' historic meeting with Watson which are explored in this memoir.