This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It has been widely reported in the United States and in the international press that a parent in Virginia complained that her daughter was required to read Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet in her sixth-grade class. The complainant apparently felt that the book is a transparent 19th century anti-Mormon piece of pulp and insisted that it be removed from the curriculum.
When the Albemarle School Board granted the request, it failed to consider other, more practical and educational alternatives.
A Study in Scarlet was Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story. It is the fictional story of a Mormon father named John Ferrier and his daughter, Lucy, who lose faith in Brigham Young when he tries to force Lucy to become a plural wife. But Lucy is in love with a non-Mormon miner named Jefferson Hope, who conspires with the Ferriers to escape from the Utah Territory.
During their escape attempt, Young's avenging angels disable Hope, kill Lucy's father and force the "flower of Utah" to marry into a polygamous marriage. Although Hope does not recover before Lucy dies of a broken heart, he eventually tracks down the putative husband and his co-conspirator, while they are in London, and kills them. Sherlock Holmes solves both murders and goes on to become the world's most famous consulting detective.
Doyle's story, which was steeped in polygamy, patriarchy, theocracy and murder, presents a frozen image of a distorted snapshot of 19th century Mormonism. The Scottish-born author purposely chose Mormonism as a backdrop for his first Sherlock Holmes novel because he hoped the inclusion of the controversial religion would attract a wide reading audience.
In fact, Sherlock Holmes became so wildly popular that A Study in Scarlet became instrumental in shaping the international image of Utah and Mormons.
More than three decades after the book was published, Doyle visited Salt Lake City. He was greeted at the Denver & Rio Grande Depot by Levi Edgar Young, a Mormon general authority and the grand nephew of the second Mormon prophet. During their drive from the station to the Hotel Utah, Doyle asked Young if he was related to Brigham and whether the "Mormon stuff" was "a thing of the past." Young responded that significant changes had taken place and that "there were Mormons all over the place."
Young introduced Doyle when he spoke about spiritualism in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and during a luncheon given in his honor at the Alta Club. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Doyle's spiritualist message was full of "cheer and uplift" as was well received by an "attentive audience." Levi Young recalled that Doyle "was somewhat repentant," when he left Salt Lake and that he said "the Mormons didn't look quite so bad to him now" and that he would "do some more writing and retract what I have said about the Mormons."
In Doyle's travel memoirs concerning his "second American adventure," he admitted that he continued to believe polygamy had "done so much harm to the movement," but he praised the church as "he now found it" and noted that "the world will be none the worse in consequence."
Although Doyle recognized that A Study in Scarlet was a work of fiction, and that it was a "rather sensational and over colored picture of the Danite episodes which formed a passing stain in the early history of Utah," the book's main character — Sherlock Holmes, not Brigham Young — became the model for all other fictional detectives. Doyle's book has not only spawned movies, television series, pastiches and graphic novels, but Holmes has also become a super hero. For this reason alone, A Study in Scarlet is an important book which should be read and studied by those interested in English literature.
Nevertheless, some fictional works, even those with literary value, may make some readers (and their parents) uncomfortable.
If Doyle's treatment of polygamy was the hot-button issue that parents and board members found troubling, then the Albemarle School Board could have fostered better understanding of that topic by suggesting that teachers contextualize historical polygamy and contrast it with the modern practice.
If the parents consider A Study in Scarlet to be anti-Mormon, the board could have suggested that students be given access to Doyle's more measured descriptions of Mormons after he visited Utah.
It is elementary (as Sherlock said in the movies) that one should confront the issues raised in the book rather than pretending that they will simply vanish if the book remains on the bookshelf.
Michael W. Homer is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars, an international literary organization. He is also an author.