Few fictional characters have proved as popular as Sherlock Holmes. By retelling Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved stories in film adaptations, each generation re-creates Baker Street's most famous detective in its own image. To date, Holmes has been played on screen by Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey, Jr., and many others. This book contains the twelve stories identified by Conan Doyle himself as being the quintessential Holmes adventures.
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.