“Slop shops," "scissorizing," "agony aunts," and "foolscap" These and other Victorian allusions appear throughout the original Sherlock Holmes tales. Everyday words and phrases to the Victorian may have modern-day readers running to reference books. These twenty-four short essays explain and explore various aspects of life mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, providing modern-day insight into the nineteenth-century world. The collection also includes the essay "Evil Women: The Villainesses of the Canon," originally published in the Baker Street Journal.