The Yellow Face

The Yellow Face has been deemed to take place in the Spring between the years 1885 and 1887. It is one of 11 Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1893. Holmes and Watson are approached by Grant Munro a reasonably well-off hop merchant in the City, married and renting a villa at Norbury. He comes to beg Holmes’ help as he is concerned about his wife’s strange behaviour which he attributes to the new residents of a cottage close to his villa, one of whom has a livid yellow face. The story is significant for two reasons. Firstly it is an example of Holmes’ deduction proving incorrect and secondly Doyle’s treatment of the issue of interracial marriage is very sympathetic – very unusual for 1890s Britain.