Uncollected Stories: The Unknown Conan Doyle

by Arthur Conan Doyle

This volume contains all the known short stories by Conan Doyle which were not collected into volumes for publication during his life.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction

456 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

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

[C.O. Bonham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A large and varied collection of short stories from an author who was truly a master of the art.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had 32 stories attributed to Conan Doyle through various magazines from both the U.S. and Britain. The vast majority of them had never shown up in any of the numerous short story collections of his I have read. Overall they were interesting, but weren't his strongest. Many had very sad endings - these took place around the time that he found out his wife Touie had tuberculosis. There was also one - called "A Sordid Affair" which featured an alcoholic husband that a wife is supporting through dressmaking. The husband, angry that she will not give him money pawns her big commission on the day it is due in order to go to a pub. Given that aside from the dressmaking career, this appears to be an accurate portrait of what Conan Doyle's mother dealt with, it was well written and gut wrenching how the woman handles it so well and gives an added depth to his life. The others tended to feature either Australia, America or Africa as Conan Doyle seemed fond of writing of other countries - especially rugged, western feeling stories. One was an interesting "what if" change of history and the choice of the Kaiser to flee the country featuring him instead launching a huge naval battle. It was so accurately detailed, I thought it had happened until I researched it. An interesting read for anyone looking to see lesser known stories of his.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uncollected Stories: The Unknown Conan Doyle by Arthur Conan Doyle (edited and compiled by John Michael Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green) (Doubleday Books 1982) (Fiction – Mystery). All of the short stories written by the author but never compiled into a previous volume are collected and printed herein. My rating: 7/10, finished 2010.