A Scandal in Bohemia

A Scandal in Bohemia is Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story about an attempt to recover a compromising photograph. A royal client engages Holmes to prevent its use, but Irene Adler recognizes and answers the detective’s strategy with one of her own. Watson’s narration draws attention to the assumptions through which she is initially judged. The resolution unsettles a simple confidence that social rank determines who deserves assistance, while giving Adler a lasting place in Holmes’s esteem.