Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories. Together with four Holmes novels, these stories form the traditional Sherlock Holmes canon, or “Canon,” a term fans use to distinguish Doyle’s original works from later adaptations and pastiches.
The stories were published across five major collections: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894), The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905), His Last Bow (1917), and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927). Many first appeared in The Strand Magazine, often with illustrations by Sidney Paget.
A common mix-up is the number 60. That is the total number of canonical Holmes adventures when the 56 short stories are combined with the four novels: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Valley of Fear. The figure can become disputed only when apocryphal or newly discovered material is included.