The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar W. Smith (Editor), Frederic Dorr Steele (Illustrator)

A Study in Scarlet
The Sign of the Four
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (12 stories)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Genres: Classics, Fiction

764 pages, Leather Bound

Published January 1, 1981

About the author

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.

Doyle was a prolific writer. In addition to the Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger, and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the brigantine Mary Celeste, found drifting at sea with no crew member aboard.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this beautiful volume of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for 50 cents at the Goodwill Outlet. After reading another book last year where Moriarty was the poor picked on by the grandstanding Holmes main character, I pulled this off my shelf to read the original stories and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's intentions for his character. To my surprise, Moriarty was only in 1 story - The Final Problem - and seems to have been created to give Holmes a worthy adversary. These stories, written for magazine publication, gave me a lot more insight to Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty as well as a lot of unflattering racial portrayals/descriptions (of Americans, Red Indians, Indians, etc.) as England was the First World power of the time. The stories primarily have a simple format of Holmes and Watson hanging out, someone comes and presents a mystery, Holmes works on his own, it's solved, and Holmes tells Watson how he did it. In contrast to how amazing it seems, Holmes does not like to disclose anything prior to being certain and he certainly shows the ability to change his thinking as new facts are learned. If I had to read this volume continuously, I would have been bored but this is a delightful volume to pick up and read a few stories at a time and then come back to it later. My rating is 4 stars because of the lack of depth even though an iconic detective, friendship, and detective format was created.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of compelling stories. A must-read for those that are looking in vain for the secret meanings of life.