Leslie S. Klinger

Sherlock Holmes stories are now a part of the public domain, according to a new ruling from a federal judge.

The decision comes out of a lawsuit brought about by author Leslie S. Klinger against the Conan Doyle estate. Klinger was working on an anthology called In the Company of Sherlock Holmes and the estate contacted the publisher  Pegasus Books explaining that they must get a license in order to publish a book. The estate said they would block the book from major book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Devotees of Sherlock Holmes are a famously obsessive bunch, and in the 126 years since Arthur Conan Doyle introduced his coolheaded detective they have certainly had plenty of real-world intrigues to ponder alongside fictional ones like “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.”

There have been fierce battles over control of Conan Doyle’s estate and the preservation of his former home in Surrey, England — to say nothing of the wild speculations surrounding the mysterious 2004 death of a prominent Holmes scholar who was found garroted with a shoelace shortly before a controversial auction of Conan Doyle papers.