A Study in Scarlet

Doyle unsuccessful in his medical practice in need of money and a more satisfying career had already sold a number of magazine stories when he wrote the novella A Study in Scarlet the first Sherlock Holmes story which after many rejections was published in Beetons Christmas Annual for 1887. Doyle got twenty-five pounds for all rights to the story. He never received another penny for it although fortunately in one of those little contractual details that could have changed literary history.