By looking at selected short stories from the famous Sherlock Holmes-canon, this book provides an analysis of two recurring main topics in Doyle's work: gender and race. In doing so, the reader is taken on a literary journey into the darker sides of Victorian values, encountering the fear of the foreign and of independent women. Doyle's detective fiction ultimately re-invents a Victorian male middle-class facing disaster and the breakdown of imperial dreams.
Tobias J. Körtner was born in Bielefeld, Germany, 1980. He graduadet in psychology and English at the University of Vienna and also studied at the University of Aberdeen. Among other things, he has worked as a science journalist for Austrian radio, as translator and in the field of adult education. He currently lives and works in Vienna.