Reception to the collection itself was strong, but the public and critical response to The Final Problem overshadowed everything else. Contemporary accounts describe readers cancelling Strand Magazine subscriptions, wearing black armbands in mourning, and writing letters of protest to Doyle and the magazine. The scale of public reaction to a fictional character's death was unprecedented and has been cited repeatedly in literary history as evidence of Holmes's unique cultural penetration. Doyle's own account of the reception is well documented - he was largely unmoved by the protest, having grown weary of Holmes, though he acknowledged the commercial consequences. Modern critical assessment regards the Memoirs as slightly uneven relative to the Adventures but essential, with The Final Problem recognised as one of the most consequential single stories in popular fiction history regardless of its merits as a mystery.