Sir Arthur Conan Doyle references many everyday Victorian activities and aspects lost to the twenty-first-century reader. These short essays provide modern readers with a better understanding of Victorian England and greater insight into the world of Sherlock Holmes. His cases take on richer meaning when the reader grasps the subtleties of such details as the blue ribbon mentioned in “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box,” the doss houses Shinwell Johnson knew about, or how one contracted brain fever.