# Stupid Nitpick Regarding Dex's Excellent Sherlock Holmes Column **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 30, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-nitpick-regarding-dexs-excellent-sherlock-holmes-column/185427 "2003-06-30T20:48:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-nitpick-regarding-dexs-excellent-sherlock-holmes-column/185427/1 "2003-06-30T20:48:00Z")
[Did Sherlock Holmes Really Exist?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msherlock.html) There seems to be a great deal of confusion concerning the exact title of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes mystery. Dex has it as _The Sign of Four_, which would agree with the title of [this paperback edition](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140439072/qid=1057006163/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-4985811-7516960), but my Sherlock Holmes anthology has it as _The Sign of **the** Four_, which is how the title appeared when it was first published in Lippencott’s. ([Picture](http://www.citsoft.com/lipp6.jpg)). In addition, during the course of that adventure, and in recollections occuring in several subsequent adventures, both Holmes and Watson refer to the case as The Sign of the Four. Ergo, I deduce that the proper title is, in fact, _The Sign of the Four_, and that all books bearing the erroneous title be immediately burned. Elementary, my dear **Dex**. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2003, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-nitpick-regarding-dexs-excellent-sherlock-holmes-column/185427/2 "2003-06-30T21:17:18Z")
Well… The first appearance of the story was as _The Sign of the Four_, in both the English and American _Lippincott_’s of February 1890. It was published in book form in the spring of 1890, as _The Sign of Four_, which Conan Doyle preferred to call it, according to Baring-Gould’s _The Annotated Sherlock Holmes_, p 14.