The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by Malvina G. Vogel (Adapter)

The Greatest Detective Ever! Sherlock Holmes is the mastermind detective of the ages. So loyal are his fans that even today, thousands of people all over the world belong to clubs and societies devoted to him. Here, in one volume, are three of Sherlock's most celebrated cases-THE RED HEADED LEAGUE, THE COPPER BEECHES, and THE SPECKLED BAND. Here is your chance to match wits with the great detective as the clues pile up. . . the suspense builds. . . and the danger and excitement reach incredible peaks of mystery and peril.

Genres: Mystery, Classics, Fiction, Childrens, Adventure, Crime, Historical Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Readaholic Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing detective

[Michael Philliber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sat my youngest grandson down with this book in hand and asked him, "Have you ever heard of Sherlock Holmes?" He thought for a bit and then shook his head no. I knew, then, that I had failed as a grandfather! So this handy, fully illustrated volume was the perfect gateway into the legacy of Sherlock Holmes for a grandfather to read with his grandson.

The book only includes three of Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of the great detective: "The Red-Headed League" "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches". Illustrations are on every other page and help young readers to stay with the story line. And Malvina G. Vogel has edited these stories in such a way that it is almost impossible to tell where she has made adaptions and edits. It is large print that old eyes and young readers alike can take in comfortably.

Now my grandson has had a taste of Holmes and Watson, and it has been my pleasure to introduce him to these stories. This version of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in the Great Illustrated Classics series was just the right book to use for this task of love. I propose all grandparents snatch up a copy and make it a happy priority to read to their grandchildren, and especially about the deeds and deductions of this great detective. I highly recommend this book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I had purchased it some years earlier, I actually read this adaptation of Doyle’s famous detective in High School, at which time the Jeremy Brett series of Holmes stories was running on PBS. I greatly enjoyed reading the stories, but always sort of viewed the television version as my “primary” access to the stories. The main thing I recall about reading the stories is giggling when Doyle wrote that “Holmes ejaculated” when he exclaimed – one of my first encounters with the way usage changes over time. That, and how fascinated I was by all the Freemasons one encounters in the stories; they were certainly more common at the time. Anyway, after my youthful reading, I put the book aside and never read any more Doyle, until recently, though I have watched re-runs of the show as well as many filmed adaptations of Holmes in the intervening years.

Today I am coming to see reading Sherlock Holmes as a pleasure I had forgotten about for many years, like a friend one has been out of touch with for much too long. I still enjoy my various visual adaptations, but there is something particularly warm and comforting about transporting to Baker Street by the original means. It may be many years before I finish languidly reading each one, turning over the words slowly in my mind, but I do enjoy the ride, and especially when a scene or turn of phrase reminds me of reading it all those years ago.

[Kevin Findley · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are only three stories in this edition, but they are among the best. What knocked it down from 4 to 3 stars are the illustrations. They are serviceable, but they, in my opinion, did not match up with the line of dialogue below. A bit disconcerting and pulled me out of the story on a couple of occasions.

Still, it is a great book for parents or grandparents that want to introduce the World's Greatest Detective (Sorry Batman) to the younger members of their family.

Find it. Buy it. Read it!

[Brent Ecenbarger · Rating 2 out of 5]

These illustrated Classics books are a lot better when they do a long novel instead of short stories. My guess is that they can choose the exciting or important material from a larger pool and condense it into a narrative that's exciting for kids. Also, leading off with a thrilling story about a club for red-headed men didn't really hook our kids

[Eliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Overall Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ .5 (3.5/5) or 7.42/10 overall

Characters - 8

Atmosphere - 8

Writing - 7

Plot - 8

Intrigue - 7

Logic - 7

Enjoyment - 7

[Janessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 2..5 It was an enjoyable read but with this abridged version, it felt more condensed than the others like the plot was happening too fast.

[Dev Ojha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The language is the book is superb although in some parts there was soem complex language. It's feels pretty good to read the book after watching the series.Pretty mind-chilling in some parts. The narative point of view is 3rd person omniscient and in some parts it is 3rd person limited. The narrator in the book is Dr. Watson who is Sherlock's partner. After reading the book for a while, i realised that the reason Dr. Watson is the narator rather than Sherlock because in some parts Watson praises Sherlock and what he does. I guess you couldn't write about yourself and praise yourself. First person narrative would have destroyed the suspense, because Holmes would have been explaining his thought process as he went along, thus solving the case in the middle of the story for himself, rather than solving it for the reader at the end.

The hint of something evil will take place in the book comes at the start of the book which is the main reason the reader stays stuck to the book. However, the evil is not introduced almost halfway through the book. The author uses Watson's point of view to introduce the evil character so that the tension does not get killed. The character is introduced in a very subtle way and the reader does not comprehend him to be evil when he is introduced. However, all of a sudden the eveil in the character comes alive. Therefore, it makes this interesting. The autjor is very clever and uses this to settle evrything in.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a simplified adaptation of three of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, rewritten by Malvina G. Vogel and intended for younger children who may not understand the stories as well in their original context. This book was purchased for me when I was young, and while I enjoyed it very much then, I find myself disliking it quite a bit as an adult.

My main issue with this adaptation is that the perspective of the stories has been changed completely to third-person. There is no reason to have changed them from Watson's first-person perspective, in my opinion, as I don't believe that such a perspective would actually confuse children. I believe that it takes away a lot of the feeling of the original stories, in which Watson's thoughts about certain situations or deductions that Holmes would make added a more personal touch.

There is also the fact that the simplified writing is just not very good. On the other hand, I understand the reasoning behind changing certain phrases to more modern counterparts - in modern society, if you apologized for "knocking someone up" rather than "waking them up" there -may- be a bit of confusion.

All in all, I don't think this is a very good adaptation. However, it would make a fine enough choice for a child who is interested in mysteries (just make sure you introduce that child to the REAL stories later in life)!

[Arystha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hal pertama yang membuat saya suka buku ini karena ada ilustrasinya. Ilustrasi klasik hitam putih penuh satu halaman, berdampingan dengan teks di halaman sebelahnya. Selang-seling begitu. Teks-ilustrasi-teks-ilustrasi, begitu terus dari awal sampai akhir.
Ada tiga cerita dalam buku ini, kalau menurut sampul belakang-nya ‘three of Sherlock’s most celebrated cases’. Cerita pertama menceritakan tentang kasus penipuan sekaligus hampir menjadi kasus pencurian sebelum akhirnya dibongkar oleh Holmes. Cerita kedua tentang misteri bunyi-bunyian di kamar yang bisa membunuh, dan cerita ketiga agak-agak tentang percintaan. Seru benar, tidak terduga pemecahannya. Membaca Sherlock Holmes jadi ingat sama Shinichi Kudo alias Conan Edogawa. Cara mereka membaca orang dengan aktivitas terakhir mereka adalah yang paling saya sukai.
Teks dalam buku ini menggunakan bahasa Inggris, tetapi kosakatanya bisa saya pahami secara keseluruhan. Kadang-kadang lihat kamus juga hehehe, kalau ketemu kosakata baru yang belum pernah saya tahu. Ukuran hurufnya juga besar-besar, sehingga membaca tidak jenuh. Secara keseluruhan, saya sangat menikmati buku ini. Teks mantap, ilustrasi ciamik. ‘Nothing will be well until there is another mystery to challenge the talents of the great Sherlock Holmes!’ :D

[Gabriela Berron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice set of stories, as someone who loves observing and deducting this kept me quite entertained while reading. Very easy to read through although it took me longer than I expected, merely because of commitment issues at the beginning, but I would recommend it, after all, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are classics and there will always be more crimes for the Great Sherlock Holmes to solve.
🔎

[Brettx1143hotdog · Rating 4 out of 5]

The crime has come back in the book, the adventures of sherlock holmes
Crime investigation, Sherlock the detective who is also my favorite character…

Sherlock Holmes is an awesome detective. It was pretty hard to read some parts but otherwise, I thought it was good. Waston I feel like does so little compared to Sherlock in the story a person I forgot the name dies in there chair when a snake kills them.
I wouldn't change any part if I were the author because they wrapped up all they could at the end.

[Kelsey Grissom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this with my ten year old son. I don’t particularly enjoy the genre of old school mysteries, where the hero figures out the solution without any clues whatsoever, and then has a big reveal full of all sorts of clues the reader was never told about. However, my son really enjoyed that aspect. And really the stories were short and entertaining enough, plus there were pictures!

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my son’s book and he did not like it, but I have always loved Sherlock Holmes and thought I would give it a try. This version makes Sherlock Holmes accessible to all ages. It consists of three creepy stories that are original and thoughtful. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eli liked it well enough.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I intend on reading the full length novel sometime in the future. I feel like a bunch of details were paraphrased to make it easier for young readers and I’m curious.

[Robbinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a good book. I'm so glad I was finally able to read mysteries featuring the original Sherlock Holmes. This book is a great classic to add to your book collection.

[Caspar Vega · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this series as a kid.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Reading with the grandkids)

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big text + lightweight book + illustrations on every other page = 👍👍👍

Also, the stories were fun and the mysteries not obvious

[Taunya Rosenquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cooper and my out loud read.

[asiya | アセヤ (free palestine) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not really a Sherlock Holmes fan to begin with, however, this book did have a good collection of his most famous mystery stories. Perfect for when I was a kid to read these things.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this mini book as a child!

[Meandmy Tea · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was my first Sherlock Holmes book :)

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

it had 3 stories in it and I did not know it had 3 stories.

[Minnesota Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice 3 Stories

[Dane Hartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book, even though it was short it was fun to read

[Emilie D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very classy.

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admitted, the edition I read was MUCH older than this one... one of those books that you find on a back shelf that predates putting the ISBN on the back cover. Nevertheless, the table of contents match - though mine had no pictures, as I believe this one does.

These were fun little stories, but I'm still stumped on how the reader is supposed to solve any of these mysteries. Each of the chapters is a quick telling of a single case - and in each one, you know that Holmes has picked up some clues or has some deeper understanding of the situation that will not been disclosed to you until after the case is solved.

I wanted to read this after watching the movie - to see how outlandishly wrong they were in their interpretation. Though there was definitely more explosions and brawls in the Guy Ritchie interpretation, I could definitely see a basis for how he established the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

Of course, I could see the hints at a more frenetic Holmes after having seen the film - I don't know that I'd personally invent the Ritchie characters without that prompt. But that's the great thing about books from this era/genre... they're very open to wild variances in interpretation and retelling.

[Priyadarshni Palanikumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my possessions from childhood, which popped up as we were moving.

The book was amazing as expected, Sherlock always is. This edition had three cases, the Red-Headed League, the Adventure of the Copper Beeches and the Case of the Speckled Band. I could find similarities between the latter two cases in the motives of the criminals, and in both cases, Holmes prevents the final act from happening with a finesse that drives Doctor Watson to his wit's end. The former case however differs in motive from the others radically, but gains the same incredulous look from the audience at Holmes' methods. However, there was a clever under plot of Holmes already familiar with the criminal's patterns. I wish that back story had been described in the story.

And another point I should probably talk about with this illustrated edition is, of course, the illustrations themselves. They were excellent, with narrative images indicated clearly, and portrayed the world as seen in 1880's excellently. One exasperating point was the referral to Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson and all of the characters pertaining to each of the cases with their full name including salutations every time. It was tiring after a while.

But, great read in general!