As Lester shows, Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, had reason to know the Birmingham area well. The period Conan Doyle worked for a popular doctor in Aston was important in his emergence as a writer. Lester here, in discussing the principle scenes and personalities associated with Conan Doyle in his time as a medical assistant with Dr Hoare (and subsequent contacts the author had with the city)explores connections between Conan Doyle's writings and Birmingham, including setting the Sherlock Holmes' tale 'The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk' there in 1889, the year Birmingham became a city.