Talk:A Study in Scarlet

Supporting Evidence for Conan Doyle's perspective

I have added a line under the section on "Depictions of Mormonism," which previously only contained LDS criticism of Doyle's depictions. I, for one, had come to the article sometime back looking for a fair evaluation of Doyle's depiction but had only found the LDS church's criticism noted here. I thereafter did my own research and found evidence supporting Doyle's take, so that I added the following line, for the benefit of future readers who come to the page looking for a fair (and not one sided) evaluation of Doyle's depiction of Mormonism:

• However, it must be noted that Ann Eliza Young, one of Brigham Young's plural wives who later apostated, gives clear and vivid descriptions of the existence as well as actions of the Danite band / Destroying-Angels in Utah, in her book Wife No. 19, Chapter 15, which corroborate with Conan Doyle's fictional depictions of happenings in Utah.

User:FyzixFighter who seems to be in the habit of trolling LDS related content had reverted this edit, but I have restored this edit. Just wanted to leave a note here so that the appropriateness of the edit can be judged by the wider audience. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:72:0:6420:1:0:0:18 (talk) 21:54, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what you've added is original research. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and works by citing already published material from reliable sources. Bottom line: if you can start with a direct quote from a reliable or academic secondary source stating the above in relation to the subject of this article, then you can add it to the article. DonQuixote (talk) 03:45, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

@DonQuixote:Fine, the secondary source I needed was already cited in the wiki page :D Also, In your apparent over zealousness to suppress relevant information rather than tag it a "citation needed", you reverted my fixing grammatical errors introduced by a previous edit, and have let the grammatical errors in again. You can clean the up after yourself since I am upset with my one Wikipedia edit experience so far - the land of Bureaucrats! On the good side, most people are slowly learning to not just look at face content, but at edit history when looking up wikipedia for contented information - good thing intelligent editors can tag their edits with descriptive comments, and the history can not be easily deleted! I still don't understand the opposition to putting both sides of a perspective than just one side - note that some of the perspective content already on there was also Point of View.

The issue here was not that what I had originally written was inaccurate. Rather it wasn't presented in a fashion consistent to Wikipedia's requirements. Yet, instead of guiding the newbie editor in properly presenting the material, the editorial response was to totally blot out the information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:72:0:6420:1:0:0:18 (talk) 04:59, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

True, no OR can be allowed. The Mormon Church (LDS) has been covering up its real history for years, but all information must be properly sourced. Otherwise, the LDS apologists who publish here will have to remain unrefuted.

I believe E.C. Bentley wrote on this subject, and had his detective Phillip Trent talk about “Brigham Young’s penny-dreadful tyranny in Utah”. In the USA Jerald and Sandra Tanner and Walter Martin offer factual critiques (as opposed to nuts like Ed Decker), and a response to the historical record is offered by the pro-Mormon Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR).

Doyle did say that he thought some of his portrayals in ‘Scarlet’ were intemperate, but said, effectively, that the historical record is what it is. This article needs more work, and less interested special pleading. 2A00:23C3:E284:900:7022:35C4:8ED2:4C9 (talk) 19:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Points to research:

The "holy four" and “nine to seven” are things I've never encountered in modern or historical Mormonism. I'd label them fiction.

Secret raids for women: this is unlikely because the Mormons used their own route as pioneers so there wouldn't be anyone nearby during the trek. Also, once you reached Utah they were fairly isolated again. Since the only people going to Utah were Mormons there wouldn't really be anyone to kidnap. I'd say that's fiction.

Danites did exist. They operated extensively in Missouri, and also in Illinois. They had close ties to Joseph Smith. I'm unsure of their history following the migration and under the leadership of Brigham Young. However, Young was basically a theocratic ruler in Utah and through the church structure was able to command or order anything to happen. His reach encompassed politics, religion and the industry and settlement of the whole area. Mark Twain gives a first-hand account of his own visit and experiences with Mormonism in “Roughing It”. This part is largely historical.

As a follow on, apostates were not treated kindly in Utah under Brigham Young and were publicly threatened. There are reports of deaths. So that part is fairly historical. As a side note, there is a doctrine of ‘Blood Atonement’. Two sins can only be forgiven if the sinner’s blood is actually shed; murder and apostasy. This is the reason Utah alone executes by firing squad. Apostasy is not a thing in the modern church, but in Young’s time...

Schism causing 1/2 to leave: a schism like that occurred long before the Mormons migrated to Utah. There were a number of events that caused a large number of Mormons to leave. But none that I'm aware of once they got to Utah (until modern times). There simply wasn't anywhere else for them to go.

Hope this will help researchers get digging, and find those sources. You must have them before any change in the article, remember. 213.205.200.1 (talk) 19:32, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Section on the origin of the characters?

Since this is the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, should a section be added to this article that covers how these characters originated? Are there sources that cover how and why Doyle created the characters? ~EdGl talk 22:20, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Book story review of Sherlock Holmes

Book story review 2402:3A80:1E6A:C77B:9583:836:2732:21B0 (talk) 13:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)