Enter Holmes and Jack

Sherlock Holmes entered the Victorian scene first, but Jack the Ripper beat him to achieving fame or rather notoriety. Neither A Study in Scarlet nor The Sign of Four won great popularity—it was Arthur Conan Doyle’s cooperation with the Strand magazine that turned Holmes into a detective superstar. Reporting Jack the Ripper and his crimes is also reminiscent of serial publication (Warwick 2007), and the title that profited the most from disseminating them was the Star. Both the Star and the Strand were new on the market, and their circulation increased each time a new East End murder happened and a new Sherlock Holmes story was published. The following chapter provides an overview of the late-Victorian origins of both serial figures, starting with their names and closing with the impact serialisation and illustration had on their popularity. By tracing their parallel paths, it provides a background for Chap. 3 ’s discussion of their culture-texts and transmediality.