# A Study in Scarlet — Character guide

> Key figures in A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle.

- [Sherlock Holmes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/mr_sherlock_holmes.md): A lean, hawk-nosed consulting detective whose chemical-stained hands and piercing eyes belong to a mind that turns the smallest clue into a verdict.
- [John Ferrier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/john_ferrier.md): A weathered Utah pioneer whose wealth and stubborn celibacy made him a legend — and whose defiance of the Elders made him a marked man.
- [Jefferson Hope](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/jefferson_hope.md): A young hunter with an untiring will and a vindictiveness learned among the Indians, devoted body and soul to one woman and one purpose.
- [Enoch J. Drebber](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/enoch_j_drebber.md): A smug Mormon elder's son who counts his father's mills and his seven wives as arguments for claiming a girl who wants nothing to do with him.
- [Joseph Stangerson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/joseph_stangerson.md): A nasal-voiced Mormon elder with four wives and better prospects, who treats a young woman's hand as a matter of church rank and inheritance.
- [Lucy Ferrier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/lucy_ferrier.md): A fair-haired child of the mountains, raised among pine and wheat, whose awakening heart sets in motion a chain of events no one can stop.
- [Brigham Young](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/brigham_young.md): Brigham Young rules the Chosen Valley with a patriarch's calm and a ruler's reach, the man who lifted Ferrier from starvation and now expects absolute obedience in return. His visit is courteous and merciless: he recites
- [Tobias Gregson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/tobias_gregson.md): Gregson is one of the Yard's two rival investigators on the Brixton murder, a fair-haired, self-satisfied man who traces a hat to a boarding house and calls it genius. He treats detection as a matter of legwork and luck,
- [Mr. Lestrade](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/lestrade.md): Lestrade shares the Lauriston Gardens investigation with Gregson, and the two men compete for credit while Holmes quietly outpaces them both. He is the professional whose instincts are sound but whose imagination stops s
- [Stamford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/stamford.md): Former colleague who introduces Watson to Holmes.
- [Dr. Watson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/watson.md): Watson is the narrator and the reader's eyes: a practical, wounded physician sharing rooms with a stranger whose habits are as baffling as his deductions are dazzling. He brings medical training, military steadiness, and
- [Mrs. Charpentier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/mrs_charpentier.md): Landlady of the boarding house where Drebber stayed.
- [Alice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters/alice.md): Jefferson Hope's deceased sister, mentioned in his backstory.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_study_in_scarlet_se/characters