Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and writer known around the world for his stories about detective Sherlock Holmes, which all but created the literary field of crime fiction and made the name Sherlock Holmes synonymous with detectives. Aside from the Sherlock Holmes stories, he was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction. The Valley of Fear is the final Sherlock Holmes novel written by Conan Doyle, first published in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. The first book edition was published in New York on 27 February 1915. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson receive a letter from an informant who is known by the pseudonym Fred Porlock.
