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Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Book Review - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Series: Sherlock Holmes: Book 3

Publisher: George Newnes

Genre: Crime, Mystery, Detective Fiction

First Publication: 1892

Language: English

Major Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler

Setting Place: late 19th century London

Narration: First person

Preceded by: The Sign of the Four

Followed by: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including ‘The Red-Headed League’, ‘The Blue Carbuncle’, and ‘The Speckled Band’. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed his own realism and feminism by having the great detective defeated by Irene Adler – the woman – in the very first story, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collects the first twelve Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in The Strand magazine throughout 1891-1892. The first story in the collection, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” is the story that made Holmes and his creator a household name.

What this collection offers is a great look into the character of Holmes as a master of solving what seems to be the unsolvable: puzzling crimes, murders, mistaken identities and generally mysterious circumstances. Doyle really sets the bar and precedent for the detective genre with Holmes as his lead. Many mysteries in contemporary film and book have been influenced in some manner by Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

“As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.”

Some of the highlights in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle:

In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Sherlock Holmes employs disguises in attempts to find a photograph that could ruin the potential marriage of the King of Bohemia. This story has a light mood and it is enjoyable to see Holmes battle wits with Irene Adler.

“The Boscombe Valley Mystery” has Holmes trying to prove the innocence of James McCarthy, whose father was found dead under odd circumstances. Holmes goes to Hatherly Farm, the scene of the murder, to investigate.

“The Man with the Twisted Lip”—Holmes and Watson try to discover the whereabouts of Neville St. Clair, who has disappeared without a trace after last being seen in, of all places, an opium den. Many signs point to a mysterious and deformed beggar as the lead culprit. Holmes’ investigation takes them into the dangerous East End opium den.

“It’s a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.”

I enjoyed “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” the most. It is a closed-room mystery at hand for Holmes to solve, as one woman’s sister dies under the most unusual and remarkable circumstances. With seemingly no explanation for the murder and no real clue as to a suspect, Holmes and Watson go to the room where the murder happened. The suspense and tension in the dark room towards the conclusion was top notch.

Also included: “The Red-Headed League”, “A Case of Identity”, “The Five Orange Pips”, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”, “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”, “The Adventure of Beryl Coronet”, and “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.”

Holmes’ methods of deducing are almost always fascinating and entertaining. He is an astute and keen observer of human behavior, and pays attention to every detail in his surroundings. Watson makes for a great sidekick and ally to Sherlock Holmes, and his narration really makes these stories tick and work in a way that would be much less effective with an outside narrator.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle is a wonderful collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, some of the most popular out there. A collection like this is the best way to start reading Holmes. Sherlock Holmes’ fans will want to also check out A Study in Scarlet as well as The Hound of the Baskervilles, full length novels.

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The Best Fiction Books » Mystery

The best sherlock holmes books, recommended by michael dirda.

On Conan Doyle by Michael Dirda

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories and four novels starring his fictional sleuth. Michael Dirda – Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, writer and lifelong Sherlockian – gives us his personal choice of the best Sherlock Holmes books and tells us more about their creator.

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters by D Stashower & C Foley & J Lellenberg

The Best Sherlock Holmes Books - A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

1 A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

2 the complete sherlock holmes by arthur conan doyle, 3 the hound of the baskervilles by arthur conan doyle, 4 the lost world by arthur conan doyle, 5 arthur conan doyle: a life in letters by d stashower & c foley & j lellenberg.

B efore we talk about the books you’ve chosen, I am intrigued about what goes on in the Baker Street Irregulars group, which you were inducted into in 2002.

The Morley kids had grown up reading the Sherlock Holmes books and used to tease each other with questions about the most minor details in them. They decided to run a contest in the Saturday Review of Literature for people who had the same kind of passionate interest in 221b Baker Street, and from this contest there emerged a kind of literary society and dining club, which has being going strong for more than 75 years now. In it people play what is called “the Game”, which is founded on the premise that Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are actual historical figures and the stories historical records of their exploits. There are discrepancies in “the canon”, there are gaps, there are problems with chronology but Irregular scholarship will find a way to reconcile or make sense of them all.

Let’s have a look at some of the books you are all such fans of. Your first choice is A Study in Scarlet, which describes how the famous detective pair, Holmes and Watson, met.

If you’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes books you really need to start with that one because it introduces this rather mysterious and romantic character. At the beginning, Doctor Watson tries to puzzle out the profession of his strange roommate at 221b Baker Street. He makes lists of what Holmes seems to know a lot about and what he doesn’t seem to know about at all – including the Copernican theory. In short, this is an introduction to a partnership and friendship that will be chronicled over 56 short stories and four novels. I think everyone needs to know the foundation of that relationship.

There have been so many different Sherlock Holmes films, which all depict Watson and Holmes differently. From your readings of the books how would you describe them?

Most of us grew up on Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in those old B movies of the 1930s and 40s. Nigel Bruce deliberately portrayed Watson as this bumbling dolt, which is very different from the Watson of the books, who is a soldier, doctor, battle veteran and an authority on “the fair sex”. Happily, the 21st century Sherlock produced by the BBC, with Benedict Cumberbatch as this very Aspergian Holmes and Martin Freeman as this vulnerable and engaging Watson, gives us a more accurate portrait of their relationship.

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Watson, we know from the books, marries at least a couple of times and is a much more admirable and humane figure than Holmes. Over time, the stories show how Watson gradually humanises this thinking machine. Agatha Christie – through the mouth of her own detective Hercule Poirot – asserted that Conan Doyle’s greatest creation wasn’t Sherlock Holmes but Doctor Watson.

Do you agree?

Good point. Next up on your list of the best Sherlock Holmes books is the short story, The Adventure of the Speckled Band. You can buy it on its own or read it for free online , but if you’re committed, you could also buy it as part of the Complete Sherlock Holmes . It’s described as a locked room mystery – what is that?

It is essentially an impossible crime. A victim is found murdered in a locked room and there are no obvious entrances or exits from it. How was the crime committed? How did the murderer escape? Seemingly only supernatural means can explain this impossible situation. But a detective like Sherlock Holmes will figure out how it all really happened.

The Speckled Band is also a kind of gothic story. You have a wonderful villain in Dr Roylott, and you have the isolated home, the mysterious sounds and habits of the household. Most Sherlockians, if they had to pick just one story to represent the canon, would choose this one. For many years, it and The Red-Headed League were the two adventures most often reprinted in school textbooks.

We can’t discuss Conan Doyle without mentioning his most famous Sherlock Holmes book, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was the first grown-up book I ever read. I can remember buying the novel as part of a school book club and waiting until just the right November evening to read it, one when my sisters and parents would be away. It was literally a dark and stormy night and I pulled all the covers down from my bed and turned off all the lights in the house except one and read the pages absolutely wide-eyed.

When you come to the end of that second chapter, there is this particularly brilliant exchange when Doctor Mortimer describes the death of the latest Baskerville and mentions that there were footprints seen near the body. Holmes turns to Mortimer and says, “A man’s or a woman’s?” and Mortimer delivers the greatest reply in 20th century literature, “Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!” I shivered with pleasure and realised that life didn’t get much better than that. After I finished the book, I went to the library and found the complete Sherlock Holmes stories and devoured those.

Eventually I went on to learn that Conan Doyle wasn’t just the creator of Sherlock Holmes but that he was really a multi-talented writer. He also wrote wonderfully evocative ghost stories and historical fiction . He has these rather swashbuckling tall tales told by a Napoleonic cavalryman, Brigadier Gerard. I recommend them.

Still, The Hound of the Baskervilles was the book that persuaded Conan Doyle to bring back Holmes in a serious way. You know that he killed off the detective at the end of the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and people thought for several years that their beloved Sherlock was dead after the tumble with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. But eventually Conan Doyle bowed to audience pressure and came out with The Hound of the Baskervilles, though he insisted that this was a pre-Reichenbach adventure. But the book was so fabulously popular – it was the Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter of the day – that ultimately Conan Doyle was offered so much money he couldn’t refuse to produce more Sherlock Holmes stories.

Despite its popularity, is there anything that you don’t like about it?

As you mentioned, Conan Doyle wrote other novels that don’t feature Sherlock Holmes. One of them is The Lost World .

One of the aims of my little book On Conan Doyle is to urge people to explore Conan Doyle’s many wonderful non-Sherlockian works. Certainly the one that most people should start with is The Lost World . It introduces Professor George Edward Challenger, a self-important but wonderfully funny and committed scientist who discovers a plateau in a South American jungle where dinosaurs still roam the earth. This is based on some actual historical explorations that were going on at the time. The novel obviously inspired Jurassic Park . It is one of the great classic versions of a lost civilisation.

Challenger is a larger than life, humorous character, and I stress repeatedly that Conan Doyle is often very funny. He himself, unlike many writers, was something of a man of action – a great sportsman who skied, climbed and hiked, and a man who served on a whaler as a ship’s doctor and attended the wounded during the Boer War.

So why do you think that Sherlock Holmes books are so much better known?

Finally you have chosen Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters , edited by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley.

Particularly after he became famous, Conan Doyle thought of himself as a public intellectual and he wrote many letters to The Times protesting about atrocities in the Belgian Congo, arguing for divorce law reform, and trying to right the wrongs of people unjustly incarcerated. Arthur and George , Julian Barnes ’s novel previous to his Booker Prize winner, was about Arthur Conan Doyle in one of these cases.

Some of that public intellectual side of Conan Doyle comes across in these letters, but they are also highly personal and reveal a really endearingly winning personality. Conan Doyle is funny, witty, concerned with his family life, and he writes very entertainingly about all sorts of subjects. Above all, with its abundant annotation, the book offers a good survey of Conan Doyle’s career and some of his many interests.

How did it help you with your research for your book?

To write my own book I read almost all of Arthur Conan Doyle . There were a few of his books I didn’t get to – some of the spiritualist tracts, for instance, that he wrote in his later years. I drew on the letters, of course, but also his essays and memoirs, the Sherlockian scholarship of the Baker Street Irregulars, various biographies. I naturally touch on the many films and stage plays and pastiches that employ the great detective.

In short, I aimed to distil a lot of information about Conan Doyle’s writings and the full range of Sherlockian activities into an easy-going, highly personal short book. If I have any talent at all as a writer, it lies in conveying real enthusiasm about the authors I love. I certainly hope people enjoy my book for itself but also use it as a means to better appreciate the Sherlock Holmes stories and as a gateway to Conan Doyle’s other work.

December 7, 2012

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Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and longtime book columnist for The Washington Post . He is the author of several collections of essays as well as the memoir An Open Book . A lifelong Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle fan, he was inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars group in 2002.

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Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson have captivated audiences for generations. This collection of twelve short stories is fantastic. From stolen jewels to mysterious circumstances and brilliant crimes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has it all. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is full of mesmerizing deductions and wonderful short adventures. I highly recommend this collection of short stories for every Sherlock Holmes fan and anyone searching for great mystery novels or short stories.

Petrina Binney - Author

"quirky, fun, and pleasantly disturbing," amazon reviewer.

Book Reviews

Book Review – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Book Review – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

First published, 1892 This edition published, 2020

An excellent introduction to the world of Sherlock Holmes. This collection of short stories, written from Dr Watson’s perspective, show the logical, excitable, slightly-manic but always incisive Holmes as he uncovers various plots and baddies.

The writing is exceptional. Rich and highly textured, there’s so much to enjoy here. Also, although Watson is a clearly devoted sidekick, he lacks the haphazard, judgemental edge of early Hastings in Christie’s Poirot stories. For example:

“ ‘You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible to me,’ I remarked. ’Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumbnails, or the great issues that may hang from a bootlace…’ ” page 77, A Case Of Identity, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Some stunning imagery: “As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney.” page 123, The Five Orange Pips, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Highly enjoyable. Definitely recommended.

The stories in this collection are: A Scandal In Bohemia, The Red-headed League, A Case of Identity, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Five Orange Pips, The Man With The Twisted Lip, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, and The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. They were first serialised in The Strand magazine.

https://amzn.to/34COBOT

The Sherlock Holmes Series by Arthur Conan Doyle - review

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is the world's only consulting detective. Money and prestige don't interest him, simply the chance to flex his intellectual muscles and practise his unique method of deduction are enough. Following him through a series of problems, you are able to watch a great mind at work and delve into the criminal world of London.

I loved the Sherlock Holmes books and really enjoyed following the various mysteries that Watson and Holmes dealt with through the years. I fancy myself better at reaching the correct conclusion than Dr Watson is, although I am nowhere near as observant as Holmes.

I liked the range of problems: from the oddly eccentric, with a society for men with bright red hair to the boringly mundane that turned out to be something much more malicious. And with others like a lost hat leading to the case of a stolen jewel, every story of both Holmes' triumphs and failures was highly entertaining.

However, I would have liked to know more about what went on between Holmes and Moriarty. Doyle writes that they were sparring and the problems faced had been numerous and difficult, but doesn't go into details.

I would recommend his books to anyone who enjoys mystery and adventure and any budding sleuths.

Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop .

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Book Review

The adventures of sherlock holmes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Historical , Mystery

Readability Age Range

Originally these stories were serialized in The Strand Magazine (between July 1891 and June1892), then published in 1892 by George Newness. The reprint reviewed was by Dover Publications in 2009.

Year Published

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine .

Plot Summary

Sherlock Holmes is a quirky British detective with an unusually keen eye for detail. With the help of his friend and biographer, Dr. John Watson, Holmes takes on strange and challenging cases. He often solves crimes Scotland Yard cannot. The following are the cases included in this book:

A Scandal in Bohemia The Bohemian king, preparing to marry, asks Holmes to retrieve an incriminating photograph of him with a former mistress, Irene Adler. Holmes dons several disguises and enlists Watson’s help to find the photo in Adler’s home. Holmes accidentally ends up serving as a witness in Adler’s elopement with another man. Adler bests Holmes when she discovers his investigation. She tells him she is happy with her new husband and has no intention of blackmailing the king. She is only keeping the photo in case the king should try to ruin her reputation. The king is satisfied to let the matter drop.

The Red-Headed League A pawnbroker named Jabez Wilson approaches Holmes about the strange and sudden loss of his side job. He applied for a position with the Red-Headed League, which his assistant insisted was an elite organization that paid well. Once able to prove his hair was legitimately red, Wilson was hired and asked to copy pages from the encyclopedia for several hours a day. One day, a note on the office door said the society was disbanded. Holmes discovers a pair of criminals concocted the Red-Headed League to keep Wilson out of his shop so they could dig a tunnel beneath it and access a bank vault.

A Case of Identity A woman named Mary Sutherland asks Holmes for help finding her missing fiancé, Hosmer Angel. Just before Angel’s disappearance, he made her promise to wait for him, no matter what. Holmes deduces that Angel was Sutherland’s stepfather, Windebank, in disguise. As long as Sutherland lived in his home, waiting for her beloved (but phony) fiancé, Windebank had access to her money.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery Holmes investigates the murder of an Australian named Charles McCarthy. He and his son, James, lived on land owned by a wealthy old acquaintance, John Turner. Witnesses say McCarthy and James argued just before McCarthy’s body was discovered. Holmes learns McCarthy was trying to arrange a marriage between James and Turner’s daughter. McCarthy and Turner had worked together with a band of thieves in Australia, and McCarthy was blackmailing Turner. Turner, who was dying anyway, murdered McCarthy so he wouldn’t gain control over his daughter.

The Five Orange Pips A young man named John Openshaw approaches Holmes when his uncle and father die in the same strange manner. Each received a letter containing five orange pips and demanding the recipient leave some papers on the sundial. Openshaw is concerned, as he has just received the same cryptic message himself. Holmes ties the orange pips back to the Ku Klux Klan in America and conjectures someone is after papers incriminating specific Klansmen. Openshaw is killed before Holmes can solve the case, but Holmes finally tracks the antagonist to an American ship that sinks at sea.

The Man with the Twisted Lip Watson visits an opium den to retrieve a neighbor and finds Holmes there in disguise. Holmes is helping Mrs. St. Claire find her missing husband, whom she recently saw in a window nearby. She says when her husband made eye contact with her, he looked frightened. Holmes learns Mr. St. Claire, a former actor, discovered by accident that begging was more lucrative than his normal job. He had been disguising himself as a homeless man and begging. When he saw his wife, he fled in fear that his family would learn his secret and be ashamed of him.

The Blue Carbuncle Holmes’ cohort discovers a priceless blue carbuncle gemstone inside a goose his wife just killed. Holmes deduces a hotel employee named Ryder stole the jewel from a wealthy guest. Ryder admits he tried to hide the stone by forcing it down a goose’s throat while visiting his sister’s farm. He ended up retrieving the wrong bird by mistake. Holmes lets Ryder go free so he won’t rot in the prison system.

The Speckled Band A woman named Helen Stoner, who lives with her stepfather, Dr. Grimsby Roylott, asks for Holmes’ help. Her twin sister was murdered in her bedroom under suspicious circumstances two years earlier and mentioned a speckled band just before dying. Now that Miss Stoner is engaged, Roylott is making her sleep in her dead sister’s room. Holmes examines the house and discovers Roylott has set up an elaborate system to get a poisonous reptile in and out of the room. Holmes uses Roylott’s own trick to provoke the snake to attack its trainer.

The Engineer’s Thumb An engineer named Hatherley, with a recently severed thumb, comes to Holmes’ house. He says a secretive man hired him to fix a hydraulic press he claimed was used to filter a type of clay. Hatherley discovered the press was actually full of metal. The men at the site tried to crush Haverley in the press, and they severed his thumb as he was escaping. Holmes investigates and deduces the men were silver counterfeiters.

The Noble Bachelor Holmes meets with Lord St. Simon, one of England’s highest-ranking noblemen. St. Simon had just married an American woman of means, Hatty Doran, and she promptly vanished. Holmes learns the woman was already married to a miner she met years earlier. He had gone off to seek his fortune to earn her family’s favor. Hatty thought her husband was dead, but he reappeared right before the wedding. Holmes convinces Hatty and her husband to tell St. Simon the truth.

The Beryl Coronet A man named Holder was tasked with looking after a priceless tiara containing gemstones called beryls. He went crazy when he caught his son holding the crown one night. Several of the gems were gone. Holder’s niece, Mary, defended her cousin as the police investigated. After Holmes joins the investigation, Mary runs off with a scoundrel named Burnwell. Holmes deduces the two robbed Holder. Holder’s son had seen them, but he loved Mary too much to tell her secret. Holmes recovers the missing jewels and tells Holder that Mary will receive ample punishment by being stuck with someone like Burnwell.

The Copper Beeches Miss Violet Hunter consults with Holmes about whether to take an unusual governess position. The Rucastles wants her to cut her hair, wear certain clothes and sit in certain places at certain times. Violet takes the job because the money is great. She reconnects with Holmes when things become stranger. Holmes discovers Rucastle is using Violet as a decoy for his daughter, whom he has locked in another wing of the house to hide her from a suitor. Rucastle has tried to keep his daughter under his roof so he can control her money.

Christian Beliefs

Other belief systems, authority roles.

Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard admires Holmes’ investigative skills and calls on him for help solving cases. Parents in several stories go to desperate lengths of control to retain their children’s money.

Profanity & Violence

The Lord’s name is used in vain. Fingerprints and bruises on Miss Stoner’s wrists indicate her stepfather has been abusing her. The stepfather is later mangled and nearly killed by a hungry dog, which Holmes shoots to death (“The Speckled Band”). A man’s thumb is severed and bloody (“The Engineer’s Thumb”). Blood and murder are mentioned in other stories as well.

Sexual Content

A man doesn’t want his daughter to be looked upon as a slut .

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books .

Additional Comments

Drugs/Alcohol: Sherlock Holmes uses cocaine and alcohol to combat his boredom in life. As a doctor, Watson expresses his concern about Holmes’ cocaine use. Other characters, such as Whitney in “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” use and abuse opium in opium dens.

Prejudice: Ku Klux Klan members kill those who could expose their crimes (“The Five Orange Pips”).

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10 of the Best Sherlock Holmes Stories Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 60 Sherlock Holmes cases in all: 56 short stories and four full-length novels. But where is the best place for the reader who is new to Sherlock Holmes to begin exploring these classic works of detective fiction? We offer our selection of the ten best Sherlock Holmes cases below.

1. The Hound of the Baskervilles .

Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

Of the four novel-length adventures Conan Doyle penned about Sherlock Holmes, this is the most satisfying (and the best-known), and the one novel that we’ve included on this list of Sherlock Holmes’s best cases.

Inspired by a story Doyle heard from his friend, the sportsman and journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson, about the legends surrounding a seventeenth-century squire, The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the best-known Sherlock Holmes cases, featuring supposedly demonic hounds on atmospheric Dartmoor.

In 2012, a portion of Doyle’s original manuscript sold at auction for $158,500.

2. ‘ A Scandal in Bohemia ’.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind …

This is the short story that launched Sherlock Holmes’s successful ‘career’ in the pages of The Strand in 1891. Until this story, he was the star of two short novels, A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of the Four (1890), and known to a small group of readers. After the short stories began to appear in The Strand , he became one of the most famous fictional characters in the history of literature.

This debut short-story outing for the sleuth sees him trying to recover an incriminating photograph owed by one Irene Adler, who once had a ‘friendship’ (of sorts … if you catch our drift) with the King of Bohemia. The story owes an obvious debt to Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter’ , but Holmes transforms the raw ingredients that he borrows from Poe into something magical.

3. ‘ The Red-Headed League ’.

Sherlock Holmes’s quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”

A red-headed man, Jabez Wilson, lands an unusual job: he has been hired to copy out the Encyclopedia Britannica in a room for a number of hours a day, but one of the oddest things about the job is that it had to be done by someone with red hair .

Sherlock Holmes has his interest piqued by this unusual early case, and agrees to investigate …

4. ‘ The Speckled Band ’.

“He seems a very amiable person,” said Holmes, laughing. “I am not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him that my grip was not much more feeble than his own.” As he spoke he picked up the steel poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again.

Conan Doyle included this classic tale among his list of his favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, and observed that it would probably make it only most diehard Holmes fans’ lists of the best Sherlock Holmes adventures.

The story is a classic ‘locked room’ mystery in which a woman fears for her life. The case will require Holmes not only to save his client’s life but to solve the mystery of how her sister died two years ago.

Like many of the Sherlock Holmes stories, the British empire lurks in the background (Dr Roylott had met the girls’ mother out in India, and has a menagerie of exotic animals from that country), and in this connection, the story also reveals a debt to one of the first detective novels, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone .

5. ‘ Silver Blaze ’.

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

Perhaps best-known for Holmes’s famous line about ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ (used by Mark Haddon as the title for his bestselling novel), ‘Silver Blaze’ is the first story in the second collection of classic Sherlock Holmes stories, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893). The story concerns a missing racehorse and sees Holmes donning his famous deerstalker to investigate.

6. ‘ The Greek Interpreter ’.

This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with such singular powers in England, how was it that neither police nor public had heard of him? I put the question, with a hint that it was my companion’s modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his superior. Holmes laughed at my suggestion.

It’s in this story that we meet Sherlock Holmes’s brother Mycroft, so that’s partly why we’ve included it here – Doyle himself placed it number 17 th on his list of the greatest Sherlock Holmes cases.

The mystery itself revolves around a Greek interpreter named Mr Melas, who is engaged in a rather cloak-and-dagger way to translate for someone who is being held captive by some sinister criminals.

7. ‘ The Dancing Men ’.

Its code-themed story probably inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Gold-Bug’, ‘The Dancing Men’ is one of Holmes’s greatest code-breaking triumphs. Doyle himself considered it the third best Sherlock Holmes story of the lot.

Mr. Hilton Cubitt of Ridling Thorpe Manor in Norfolk, and husband to a nervous wife, tells Holmes a series of stick figures have started to appear chalked up on the window-sill of the house. What do they mean, and who is responsible for them?

8. ‘ The Gloria Scott ’.

This story makes it into this list of the best Sherlock Holmes stories partly because it sees the great sleuth recounting his very first case, while still a student at university.

Holmes goes to stay with a university friend during the holidays, and becomes involved in a mystery surrounding the murky past of his friend’s father. Rather pleasingly, the story also appears to be the origin of the term ‘smoking gun’ to refer to an incontrovertibly incriminating piece of evidence.

9. ‘ The Reigate Squires ’.

This story made it into Conan Doyle’s own list of his favourite Sherlock Holmes stories because he thought it was the story in which, ‘on the whole, Holmes himself shows perhaps the most ingenuity’.

While recovering from a taxing case in France, Holmes travels to Surrey where he ends up investigating a series of mysterious burglaries involving a note written by two different people…

10. ‘ The Final Problem ’.

He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.

This is one of the best-known Sherlock Holmes cases, because it’s the one when the great sleuth was killed off – only to return a decade later. It’s also noteworthy for being the one Sherlock Holmes story penned by Doyle to feature the evil criminal mastermind, Dr James Moriarty, ‘the Napoleon of crime’.

Doyle was not actually the first writer to kill off Sherlock Holmes – his friend J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan , had pre-empted him when he wrote a Holmes parody – and owing to popular demand, Holmes’s ‘final problem’ would not, in fact, prove to be so final after all.

Continue to explore classic fiction with our pick of the best detective novels , these classic ghost stories , this selection of the best Poe stories , and our review of Max Carrados, the blind detective .

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17 thoughts on “10 of the Best Sherlock Holmes Stories Everyone Should Read”

Wonderful post! I also love “Bruce Partington Plans”, “Three Students”, “Three Garridebs,” and “Dying Detective”. It’s so difficult to pick a favorite, really ;) they’re all so good!!!

Oh they’re great additions to the list! There really are so many classics – ‘Bruce Partington Plans’ is great for featuring the London Underground :)

Yes yes yes! “The silver blaze” is my absolute favorite Sherlock story. Took a class in college where we read just about all the stories and this list just made me a bit nostalgic. Great post :)

Thank you! Glad you liked the list. And I agree: everything about ‘Silver Blaze’ is perfect! Doyle had got a real feel for the character by then, but was still brimming with superb plot ideas.

Sherlock Holmes is every smart girls’ crush! LOL 🔫🔪🔬🔍🎩

Reblogged this on Sharon E. Cathcart and commented: I’ve read the entire Holmes canon (and a few of the non-canon tales as well). “Silver Blaze” is my absolute favorite, and every one of the tales listed here is brilliant.

I think I’ve read all 60 (56 + 4) a couple of times. Wonderful stuff. Delighted to see ‘The Red-Headed League’ and ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ on your list. Maybe I have strange taste, but I have a special liking for ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’, ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’ and ‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’.

They’re all classics too – I have a soft spot for ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’ in particular. The first three volumes of short stories don’t really contain anything that isn’t terrific!

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Reblogged this on MorgEn Bailey – Creative Writing Guru and commented: Another great instalment in this series…

Irene Adler “the woman”–has become many things in many spinoffs, hasn’t she. What is the story where the step-father locks away his daughter and there is a blue dress involved? Now that should make some kind of list. Secrets, an heiress, snarling dogs, corrupt morals–the best elements of a Sherlockian. Out of curiosity, any comments on the Mary Russell series? Just finished a review on my encounter with King’s patische.

Reblogged this on The Gettysburg Writers Brigade and commented: I love the series “Sherlock,” but as writers and readers, I thought that you all would appreciate some good recommendations.

Do you know which one features the gretna munitions factory in it?

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this has realy helped me with my homework

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Blog – Posted on Tuesday, Jun 30

The essential guide to reading the sherlock holmes books.

Everyone’s heard of the famous British detective, many have seen one of the thrilling TV/movie adaptations, but not everyone’s read the original Sherlock Holmes books. Trust us — it’s worth it.

The fact that there’s so many Sherlock Holmes books (novels as well as short story collections) can be confusing, with newcomers wondering which order they should read them in. The books were also not written in chronological order in terms of plot, and reading them in the order of publication doesn’t help much either. So if you’re new to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, we’re here to suggest a reasonable order to read them in that should keep things from getting too confusing!

We’ll explain our reasoning below, but without further ado, here’s the order of Sherlock Holmes books we recommend:

1. A Study in Scarlet

2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

3. The Sign of Four

4. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

5. The Valley of Fear

6. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

7. The Return of Sherlock Holmes

8. His Last Bow

9. The Hound of the Baskervilles

1. A Study in Scarlet (1887, novel)

The first one’s a no-brainer. A Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes book to be published, in 1887! So if you’re here because of BBC’s Sherlock , take a second to mentally lose the smartphones, cars, GPS systems ... and, well, we hate to say it, but Benedict Cumberbatch will have to go too. This novel introduces readers to the original, late-Victorian Sherlock and Watson; it’s the first time the two characters meet, and the book cleverly establishes the dynamic between the duo (partly through masterful dialogue ), with Watson, as narrator, standing in for the reader as he tries to understand Sherlock’s superior mind. The two settle in together at the now-famous fictional apartment at 221B Baker Street in London, and work on a demanding and complicated murder case involving a wedding ring, some pills, a pipe, several telegrams, and a mysterious inscription reading “RACHE”...but you’ll have to read the novel if you want to connect the dots — or, as Sherlock says, unravel the “scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life.” The second half of this novel follows a flashback tale that may seem somewhat off-putting, and is the reason some readers recommend starting with a short story collection, but we still think it’s important for the reader to be introduced to the duo in a chronologically accurate way. So hang on in there for the second half — it’s definitely worth persevering, so you can move on to the next book.

🕵️ Fun fact: A Study in Scarlet is the book that first established the magnifying glass as a tool used by detectives to solve crimes! 🔎

2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892, short story collection)

The stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are a fantastic way to deepen your understanding of Sherlock’s fascinating personality. The first story in this collection, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’ featuring a certain someone called Irene Adler. It was also the story that began the Sherlock fandom, despite not being the first published tale about the detective. For that reason, we think it’s important to deviate slightly from the chronology of publication, in order to get a strong sense of the detective’s intriguing methodologies and attitude. With stories averaging around twenty pages, this is a volume you can dip in and out of whenever you need that satisfying spark of intelligence that Sherlock Holmes never fails to deliver.

3. The Sign of Four (1890, novel)

To return to the order of publication, the second novel in the Sherlock Holmes books canon, The Sign of Four , is where Sherlock’s drug use is first depicted and where readers finally begin to see the man behind the detective. This is also the novel where (130-year spoiler alert) Dr. Watson’s future wife, Mary Marston, appears. In this darkly atmospheric book of strange London alleys, a mysterious annual package of pearls, and a vanished father, readers are in for a thicker, more complex plot than short stories can supply!

🕵️ Fun fact : This novel was first published in Lippincott’s Monthly magazine, a literary magazine that also published Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in the same year. Other authors featured in Lippincott’s include Willa Cather and Rudyard Kipling — quite the magazine!

4. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1927, short story collection)

Okay, we’re really breaking with the order of publication here, but we think this book is best read before the complicated interconnectedness of The Memoirs and The Return (details below), even though it was the last to be published. In The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes , the reader can enjoy a selection of straightforward detective adventures pursued by Holmes and Watson, which can stand autonomously. Two of these stories are actually narrated by Sherlock himself, which makes for an exciting reading experience!

A final note, if you’re trying to be selective and aren’t able to read the entire Sherlock canon: this is often considered the weakest Sherlock Holmes book, with the author seeming tired of the detective by this point in his career. If you leave something out, this should probably be it. This weakness is another reason we recommend not reading this book last even if you’re reading things in order of publication, as it sadly tends to be pretty anticlimactic!

5. The Valley of Fear (1915, novel)

Within the chronology of the Sherlock Holmes books, The Valley of Fear takes place before The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes , despite its later publication, since Sherlock states he has never met James Moriarty before. A book cipher message is followed by a mysterious murder at a manor house and a set of strange but promising clues. This novel is one of the most satisfying Sherlock books, and its detailed and well-planned plot is able to convey Holmes and Watson’s detective procedure with a sustained suspense that Conan Doyle doesn’t have the room for in some of his shorter works. Add to that the intrigue of secret societies, and The Valley of Fear is rightly shown to be a simply irresistible tale.

🕵️ Fun fact : The novel is loosely based on the real James McParland and his success against the Molly Maguires secret Irish society — though we would advise you not to Google this stuff before reading the book!

6. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894, short story collection)

Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle was so tired of writing Sherlock Holmes books that he killed the beloved detective off in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes , but then had to find a way to bring him back to life due to fan outrage? Yep, that’s right; Conan Doyle had written to his mother that Sherlock “[took his] mind from better things.” Though she was horrified and urged him not to do it, he went ahead with it anyway in the last story of this collection, ‘The Final Problem.’ But that’s not the only reason to read this collection — the Memoirs is also where Sherlock’s archenemy Professor James Moriarty and brother Mycroft are introduced to the readers, in ‘The Final Problem’ and ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’ respectively.

🕵️ Fun fact : Later, Conan Doyle stated the following: “I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards paté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.” The 20,000+ people who cancelled their subscriptions to The Strand magazine (where these stories were published) as a result of Sherlock’s death were not happy. It is safe to assume the magazine staff was not happy either.

7. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905, short story collection)

With The Return of Sherlock Holmes , Conan Doyle “revived” the popular detective — no zombie stuff, don’t worry. He found a way to explain the ending of Memoirs to his readers’ satisfaction, and so the legend continued, set three years after Sherlock’s apparent death. As usual, Dr. Watson is on the reader’s side: just as baffled by Sherlock’s reappearance, he facilitates the clarification of events. The duo finds itself returning to the area near their old Baker Street apartment, though things are not as they were before… Their humorous dialogue, however, is back and as strong as ever!

8. His Last Bow (1917, short story collection)

His Last Bow is the last book in the chronology of Sherlock’s life, but not the last to be published, despite an assurance by Watson that Holmes had retired and would not permit him to write any further books (remember, The Casebook is set in the past). Reaching the public while the First World War was still unfolding, His Last Bow features a final story by the same title where Sherlock and Watson are part of the British intelligence efforts. Their war service includes catching foreign spies and feeding Germany confusing and unreliable intelligence; gone are the days of the duo’s iconic detective work. For this reason, we suggest that you do not end with this book, despite the chronological closure it provides.

9. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902, novel)

The Hound of the Baskervilles was the first book Conan Doyle published after he initially killed Sherlock, and it’s set before the events of that story. This novel is widely considered the best of the Sherlock Holmes books — so we’ve saved the best for last. In Devon’s moors, Charles Baskerville is found dead with a horrified expression, prompting speculation that an old folk story about a demonic hound haunting the area might be true. Sherlock is called to investigate, and so begins this darkly Gothic novel, complete with marshes, suspense, candle signals from nightly windows, and impenetrable fog. Chilling, immersive, and incredibly satisfying, this truly frightening novel will not disappoint. Expertly blending suspense, mystery, and supernatural horror , The Hound of the Baskervilles is an extraordinary literary achievement.

🕵️ Fun fact : The inspiration for this novel came in part from the real legend of Squire Richard Cabell in Devon. The squire was famously immoral and considered evil by the community, and his tomb was said to be visited at night by the ghosts of a pack of hounds that would howl near his grave. Not exactly tourist attraction material!

If the nine original books in the Sherlock Holmes canon still aren’t enough, worry not. Sherlock’s afterlife is still going strong, and now that the character has entered public domain, many Sherlock Holmes books continue to be written even now. So if you’re still thirsty for more, here’s a few recommendations:

10. Shadows Over Baker Street , eds. Michael Reaves and John Pelan

Shadows Over Baker Street is a short story anthology edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan. Here, twenty contemporary writers (including Neil Gaiman!) contribute a story where Sherlock must solve a mystery in the world of H. P. Lovecraft . These creepy and atmospheric tales are the perfect fusion of the mathematical world of logical deduction and the supernatural world of horror.

11. The House of Silk and Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz, author of the popular Alex Rider series, was authorized by the Conan Doyle estate to write some new Sherlock Holmes pastiche. This has taken the form of two novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty . In the former, which is set in 1890, Sherlock is hired by an art dealer, whose art business has been in trouble with an Irish gang — but as the story progresses, it becomes apparent that the detective has chanced upon a loose thread of a formidable global conspiracy. The latter novel, set after the events of ‘The Final Problem,’ sees detective Frederick Chase team up with Inspector Jones to pursue an emerging criminal mastermind hoping to take Moriarty’s place. Fast-paced, suspenseful, and immensely satisfying, these novels are a wonderful opportunity to re-enter the world of Sherlock Holmes.

12. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

The first in a long and very popular series, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice sees a retired Sherlock meet teenage detective talent Mary Russell. The young American’s life is changed when she becomes the detective’s pupil. The book follows the pair from the Sussex Downs to Oxford, Wales, Palestine and back, as they realize they’re facing an opponent more formidable than either of them had anticipated.

13. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution sees a retired Sherlock Holmes, referred to only as the “old man,” decipher the meaning of a parrot’s listing of seemingly random German numbers. The parrot belongs to a young German-Jewish refugee boy (the novel is set in 1944), and the bird abruptly disappears as soon as interest in his mumbling begins to grow. Add to that the classic murder ingredient, and Sherlock Holmes has another mystery cut out for him. This suspenseful novella is guaranteed to please Sherlock fans with the clever, funny mystery it poses.

And that’s it! With so much to choose from, we hope your Sherlock needs will be met, and that you’re ready for the incredible journey that lies ahead of you. Put on your deerstalker hat (a detail, by the way, that never appeared in the original text, only the illustrations ), grab your pipe, and let’s go!

Hungry for more? Check out this list of the 30 best mystery books of all time !

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BOOK REVIEW: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #6)

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Book Review: “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes had already appeared in two novels, but his popularity did not really take off until the brief “adventures” collected in this book began to appear in monthly issues of The Strand Magazine , from 1891 to 1892. And though there are two novels and three volumes of short stories still to come, these 12 mysteries include some of Holmes’s most memorable and celebrated cases. Few of them are concerned with actual murder or even actionable crimes, and Holmes doesn’t always get his man (or woman). But they are Holmes all over, the Sherlock you sure love, fascinating us (even when his cases don’t) by his keen observation, quick deduction, and encyclopedic recall of the history of crime—so that he can often solve in moments a case that keeps Scotland Yard guessing for days.

In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the King of Bohemia (which Conan Doyle seems to confuse with Scandinavia) hires Holmes to help him neutralize a threat to his marriage plans. It seems His Majesty has been foolish enough to allow another woman to possess a photograph of the two of them. In the Holmes canon, this is actually the only appearance of “ the woman,” as Holmes describes her: Irene Adler, celebrated as the only woman who ever outwitted him.

“The Red-Headed League” is a comic tale about a stingy pawnbroker who suspects he has been had. It turns out that the harmless scam of which he is the victim is only part of a plot to play much dirtier trick. In “A Case of Identity,” Holmes is hired by a near-sighted spinster to solve the disappearance of her fiancé. In “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” Holmes helps Inspector Lestrade prove the innocence of a young man who has been arrested for the murder of his father. “The Five Orange Pips” is the rare case in which Holmes fails to save the life of his client, who comes to him with a creepy story about three successive members of his family receiving a cryptic message before they died. Among the spooky secrets Holmes uncovers in this dark installment is a connection to that American institution, the Ku Klux Klan.

“The Man with the Twisted Lip” is a missing persons case in which a well-off businessman vanishes, almost before his wife’s eyes, from a room in which a lame beggar is found, along with some blood and the victim’s clothes. Is it murder? Or could there be something even stranger going on? “The Blue Carbuncle” is a case of a stolen jewel, which comes Sherlock’s way in the gizzard of a Christmas goose found lying in the street. His powers of detection are never shown more vividly than in “The Speckled Band,” in which a villain hatches a diabolical plot to murder his twin stepdaughters.

In “The Engineer’s Thumb,” Holmes helps a confused young man track down the gang of forgers who tried to use him as an unwitting accomplice, and then tried to kill him. “The Noble Bachelor” concerns a bride who, ten minutes after the start of her wedding breakfast, steps out of the room for a moment and is never seen again. In “The Beryl Coronet,” a banker fears his son has plundered a national treasure, and hires Holmes in the hope of recovering the lost gems. And finally, “The Copper Beeches” has to do with a governess who suspects that her employers are involving her in something sinister and dangerous.

These mysteries are very straightforward, simple, easy to enjoy. They follow a clear formula that has worked for millions of readers these 120-odd years. Sometimes Holmes solves them by spotting a clue that no one else noticed. Sometimes it is his knowledge of human nature, and of similar cases in the past, that does the trick. Again and again, the truth is revealed when Holmes asks someone the right question, or puts the right advertisement in the newspapers, or sets a trap into which his quarry cannot resist falling. Of course, Holmes isn’t always right. His deduction, for example, that the whole world would someday become one nation under the combined flag of the US and the UK, now rings somewhere between “spooky” and “unintentionally funny.”

But hey, Conan Doyle was a spooky customer. He believed in Spiritualism, which is why this book was briefly banned in the USSR. Spookiness works sometimes. It doesn’t hurt when you are an author of detective thrillers and science fiction novels. Eerieness and suspense were his friends. His best work, both generally and in the Holmes canon, was yet to come in the haunted pages of The Hound of the Baskervilles . But in this book, he already makes an excellent start. This is classic Sherlock. It’s attention-grabbing fun. And it is followed immediately by a second year’s worth of monthly Holmes tales, collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes .

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Review – The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Introduction to the memoirs of sherlock holmes, sir arthur conan doyle studied medicine at edinburg university. but had far more success as a writer than he did as a physician. doyle modeled his character sherlock holmes after his professor joseph bell who emphasized to his students the importance of careful observation. and drawing conclusions based on very little evidence..

memoirs of sherlock holmes, memoirs sherlock holmes, sherlock holmes memoirs

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a collection of 11 short stories, each about 20 pages in length, which were first published monthly in the Strand magazine from 1891 to 1893.

Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. Watson is his biographer, who captures the detective’s life story through the cases that he has worked on. And the best way Watson does that is by accompanying Holmes while he solves his cases. So the stories are told through the eyes of Watson.

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The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Book Review

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The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: 11 Stories

Silver Blaze
The Yellow Face
The Stockbroker’s Clerk
The Gloria Scott
The Musgrave Ritual
The Reigate Squires
The Crooked Man
The Resident Patient
The Greek Interpreter
The Naval Treaty
The Final Problem

I found that I enjoyed the short stories where Sherlock Holmes was assigned a case and worked on it in the here-and-now far more than the cases that Watson reflected on – that’s my bias, because I have never liked flashbacks as a literary device, I prefer when stories are told in chronological order.

I got caught up in a few of the stories and found myself very upset with the characters in the story as it unfolded. For instance, in The Naval Treaty , Percy Phelps ’ uncle, Lord Holdhurst asks him to copy and keep secure a confidential naval treaty because it would be problematic if it gets into the wrong hands prematurely.

Holdhurst tells him that he should not begin copying the document until everyone has already left for the day. Phelps complies, but the copying of the document is taking a lot longer that he anticipated and he is now feeling very tired and sleepy so he decides to get some tea to stay awake.

Because he is alone in the building, he leaves the documents unattended on the desk to go in search of tea in another part of the building. When he returns, the naval treaty document is missing. I am so much into the story that I was asking,

“How stupid could you be? It doesn’t matter if you think you are alone, if you have to leave, secure the document first since it’s so important.”

I may have been a bit harsh with the character, but I had little tolerance for his stupidity. But it was quite clever how Holmes solved the mystery to show who stole the naval treaty and why.

In The Final Problem , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kills off the Sherlock Holmes character , and I thought it was quite odd the way in which he did it. I know that each short story stands alone, but the author introduces the character Professor Moriarty . Moriarty is very evil, a criminal mastermind, and Holmes thinks that if he gathers enough evidence to get him arrested for life he could retire a happy and accomplished man.

The issue is that Moriarty is just as intelligent as Holmes and their deductive reasoning abilities are on par. The question I had is if this character was so evil, and just as smart as Holmes, why wasn’t he in some of the other stories included in the book?

I have read many Sherlock Holmes stories but that was years ago and I cannot remember if Professor Moriarty was in any of them. Perhaps I am going too deep into the book, but I think, at the very least, there should have been at least one other story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes where both characters went head-to-head.

In most murder mysteries and detective stories, the authors provide clues in the story and readers discover the evidence the same time the detective discovers them so you have a great chance at foreshadowing, but in this instance, Holmes tells you what he sees as he uncovers the mystery, but Doyle doesn’t necessarily provide clues for you to make your own deductions.

However, even though you will not learn about problem solving from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes , you will learn about the art of reasoning. Holmes recognizes, and rightly so, that he will never have all the information he needs to solve a case. There will always be information gaps. The way he gets around that is to think things through carefully, and he often gains clarity about a situation by explaining it to another person.

That’s an important way for anyone to learn. And because Holmes is an astute observer, he sees many things that others don’t, and there are many instances in the book where his power of observation makes good teaching points for the reader.

Another good teaching point from the book is that Holmes is an active listener, and he knows the right questions to ask because of that. If something is not clear to him, he asks for clarification. These are good skills for any professional to possess.

And one of the things I really liked about the book was that, not all the stories were resolved in a complete manner where all the loose ends were tied up, because in real life, not all cases are solved completely. You have cold cases that are never solved, and you have partially solved cases.

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Final thoughts on the memoirs of sherlock holmes.

The picture is of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty fighting to the bitter end via Wikipedia.

The Final Problem: A Review (smlaarg.wordpress.com)

Review – The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

About the Author Avil Beckford

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Paperback – November 24, 2020

Part of series Sherlock Holmes
Print length 288 pages
Language English
Publication date November 24, 2020
Dimensions 5.5 x 0.72 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10 1774260751
ISBN-13 978-1774260753
See all details

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ East India Publishing Company (November 24, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1774260751
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1774260753
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.72 x 8.5 inches
#8,982 in Serial Killer Thrillers
#10,864 in Private Investigator Mysteries (Books)
#14,656 in Supernatural Mysteries

About the authors

Arthur conan doyle.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and died in 1930. Within those years was crowded a variety of activity and creative work that made him an international figure and inspired the French to give him the epithet 'the good giant'. He was the nephew of 'Dickie Doyle' the artist, and was educated at Stonyhurst, and later studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where the methods of diagnosis of one of the professors provided the idea for the methods of deduction used by Sherlock Holmes.

He set up as a doctor at Southsea and it was while waiting for patients that he began to write. His growing success as an author enabled him to give up his practice and turn his attention to other subjects. He was a passionate advocate of many causes, ranging from divorce law reform and the Channel Tunnel to the issuing of inflatable life-jackets to sailors. He also campaigned to prove the innocence of individuals, and his work on the Edjalji case was instrumental in the introduction of the Court of Criminal Appeal. He was a volunteer physician in the Boer War and later in life became a convert to spiritualism.

His greatest achievement was, of course, his creation of Sherlock Holmes, who soon attained international status and constantly distracted him from his other work; at one time Conan Doyle killed him but was obliged by public protest to restore him to life. And in his creation of Dr Watson, Holmes's companion in adventure and chronicler, Conan Doyle produced not only a perfect foil for Holmes but also one of the most famous narrators in fiction. Penguin publish all the books about the great detective, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes and The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes.

Photo by Walter Benington (RR Auction) [US Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Paper Mill Press

Paper Mill Press is proud to present a timeless collection of unabridged literary classics to a twenty-first century audience. Each original master work is reimagined into a sophisticated yet modern format with custom suede-like metallic foiled covers.

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

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Benjamin J Struck

Benjamin Struck is a reader, a writer, and an avid outdoorsman. As a husband, and father of two, Benjamin finds great joy in family outings and get-togethers. He enjoys spending time alone in the cool, early morning hours before the sun has risen. Furthermore, as a lifelong, outdoor enthusiast, there is a special place in his heart for the deep woods of the Midwest United States.

Benjamin’s stories all revolve around his lived experiences out in the wild, his vivid imagination, and the daydreams of his childhood. When he was a young boy, Benjamin’s father would read stories to the whole family. This sparked a love and appreciation for fantasy in him from a young age. Benjamin’s stories will appeal to readers of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA as well as other series such as REDWALL, THE SWORD OF TRUTH, and THE WHEEL OF TIME.

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T. K. Folstad

T. K. Folstad, a remarkable individual whose journey through life has been as diverse and vibrant as the experiences she's embraced. A dedicated mother of two beautiful children, T. K. has found profound joy and fulfillment in the role of motherhood, cherishing every moment spent nurturing and guiding her cherished family.

With an entrepreneurial spirit that knows no bounds, T. K. Folstad has not only worn the hat of a business owner but has also managed a successful portfolio of rental properties and restaurant owner. She graduated from and Ivy League college with a bachelor's degree that reflects her commitment to academic excellence.

Customer reviews

5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 67% 21% 8% 2% 3% 67%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 67% 21% 8% 2% 3% 21%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 67% 21% 8% 2% 3% 8%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 67% 21% 8% 2% 3% 2%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 67% 21% 8% 2% 3% 3%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the book to be a delight at each reading. They appreciate the short stories and illustrations. Readers describe the book as witty, charming, and enticing. They also say the deductive reasoning of Holmes is fascinating. In addition, they appreciate the value for money.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the book to be a delight at each reading. They say the short stories make for quick but highly enjoyable reads. Readers mention the book is a good continuation and introduction of the world-famous sleuth. They also say it's great to read at work when they are on call for 15-20 minutes. Reader mention the adventures remain an exciting good read after more than a century.

"...If you haven't read any of Conan Doyle's stories, they are worth perusing . I only read a dozen of Holmes' adventures...." Read more

"Each short story presents a unique and interesting puzzle , Full of surprises and plot twists that keep you guessing. Most enjoyable reading." Read more

"...BBC or the movie series starring Morton Downey Jr.. Their plots are far more intricate and portray Holmes as being less of a stodgy character and..." Read more

"...will enjoy reading this book, and will think it money well spent for its entertainment value ." Read more

Customers find the story content good, well-described, and well-written. They say the adventures are short enough to pick up and put down whenever they want. Readers also describe the book as an engaging classic read with an epic smoothness.

"...truly has a commendable ability to tell an easily understood and very fluid tale ...." Read more

"...Given the quality of the stories , I think the beginner or the veteran Holmes enthusiast will enjoy reading this book, and will think it money well..." Read more

"...The short stories are perfect for grabbing up and reading one or two while you are between appointments, although I found myself devouring the..." Read more

"This is a fairly engaging classic read , and would be worth your while to download, especially as it is free...." Read more

Customers find the illustrations exquisite, eye-catching, and amusing. They also appreciate the pictures of daily life and the character illustrations accompanying the storylines. Overall, readers say the book is a beautiful presentation of a literary classic.

"...It reproduces the original illustrations by Sidney Paget, which is a big plus...." Read more

"...It's great reading and it's great to look at , plain and simple." Read more

"...I enjoyed all the stories in this book, and the illustrations were wonderful ...." Read more

"...Sherlock Homes is a classic, and the pictures are impressive ...." Read more

Customers find the book spellbinding, enjoyable, and filled with interesting characterization and quippery. They also describe the verbiage as charming, enticing, and thought-provoking. Readers mention the book makes them think while they read.

"...I came to admire Holmes' heroic stoicism, encyclopedic memory, and sharp wit ...." Read more

"...is a great way to enjoy the stories another way - it makes it new and exciting again !" Read more

"...The stories are incredible. Captivating and interesting, I could barely put the book down, unfortunately enough for my grades!..." Read more

"...' spiel in the beginning of the book is very much 'Gatiss'; amusing but poignant in such a few words at the same time...." Read more

Customers find the deductive reasoning of Holmes fascinating. They say the adventures are awesome and relevant to understanding the great detective. Readers also mention the relationship between Holmes and Watson is interesting.

"...Sherlock Holmes to both the big and little screen, relevant to understanding the great detective . I highly recommend this book." Read more

"...They always had an interesting problem to solve and Sherlock did it brilliantly ...." Read more

"...Yes, his intellect is superhuman , but his faithful sidekick Watson is my favorite...." Read more

"I once owned this in Hardcover. It is a great read for lovers of Sherlock Holmes . The illustrations are exquisite...." Read more

Customers appreciate the value for money of the book. They mention it's a classic and a digital book.

"...Considering this is a free digital book , I definitely recommend it to all Kindle users!" Read more

"...Also, with the stories being in public domain - they're free , so you have nothing to complain about." Read more

"...Great that this is one of the classics available for free site to copyright expiration long ago just makes it that much easier and better to get/..." Read more

"...At least it's free . I have this collection I bought from Barnes and Noble but never got around to reading it...." Read more

Customers find the characters interesting and strong. They say the book rejuvenates their minds and makes the stories come alive.

"...a very powerful medicine, one that rejuvenates the mind and strengthens the character ...." Read more

"...I enjoyed reading this book, it is well written and the characters are interesting and interact well together...." Read more

"... I love the characters . Doyle whips up such fantastically real people out of no where with the most outrageous situations and stories...." Read more

"...have never read Sherlock Holmes stories before and found them fun with good characters ...." Read more

Customers find the book excellent and a good introduction to deductive reasoning. They say it's a fascinating window into life in the late 1800s. Readers also mention the book is deep and engrossing.

"...But his is a very powerful medicine, one that rejuvenates the mind and strengthens the character...." Read more

"... Sherlocks deductions are believable (much more so than often portrayed in other works), though this is partly because a lot of the details Sherlock..." Read more

"...This collection is excellent for anyone who is curious to know who this Sherlock Holmes person is...." Read more

"...You won't find all the stories here. The ones included are still full of observation , logical reasoning and the joy of having an interesting case." Read more

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Publishers Weekly Reviews - The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories

Posted by Steve Emecz on July 10, 2023

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories has reached thirty-nine volumes and just keeps breaking records - the most new stories (over 800), the most participating authors (over 200), etc - but its the quality of the reviews that is the most rewarding.

There are a staggering 23 positive reviews from Publishers Weekly - a record - here are links to them all (nineteen are starred reviews).

We've launched the Sherlock Holmes Book Club where fans can three paperbacks every quarter.

Contributors include Lee Child, Jonathan Kellerman, Lyndsay Faye, Les Klinger, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and many more.

"Mind-bending puzzles are the highlight of Marcum’s fully satisfying 34th anthology, which again demonstrates that multiple authors are capable of giving Sherlock Holmes and Watson innovative mysteries to tackle while staying in character. In Will Murray’s “The Mystery of the Spectral Shelter,” the sleuths’ cabdriver asks for help with a bizarre encounter: on visiting a shelter built to give drivers some respite he found a man who seemed frozen in place. When he tried to return on another day, there was no trace of the structure he previously visited. In Marcia Wilson’s “The Monster’s Mop and Pail,” Holmes finds a vital clue in what’s missing: the locked room containing a man murdered by an unknown method has a mop bucket filled with water, but no mop. In Arthur Hall’s “The Adventure of the False Confessions,” Holmes explores why men who could not have committed the crimes they admitted to confessed, using identical language. Marcum’s inventory of canonical pastiches shows no signs of being exhausted any time soon."

Volume XXXIV Review

"Might one of the major tragic accidents of Victorian England actually have been a crime? Why has the owner of a small furniture van disappeared? Those are just two of the puzzles Sherlock Holmes tackles in yet another stellar anthology of 21 short pastiches that effectively mimic the originals. Terry Golledge (1920–1996), whose stories were unpublished during his lifetime, stands out with two entries, “The Grosvenor Square Furniture Van” and “The Case of the Woman at Margate,” both based on Dr. Watson’s references to unpublished investigations. The latter is an exemplar of cleverly building on the slimmest of narrative reeds—a single sentence about the absence of powder on a woman’s face. John Lawrence’s “The Princess Alice Tragedy” delves into a real-life 1878 collision on the Thames, which caused the sinking of a paddle steamboat. Hundreds of its mostly lower-class passengers, out for a day’s excursion, perished; a man whose wife and five daughters drowned asks a young Holmes to look into what happened. As the recent discovery of Golledge’s work shows, Marcum’s diligent searches for high-quality stories has again paid off for Sherlockians.

Volume XXXI review

"A locked-room mystery without bloodshed and a seemingly motiveless serial killer tale highlight Marcum’s impressive 28th anthology, featuring 18 pastiches from early in Sherlock Holmes’s sleuthing career....All entries adhere to the spirit, language, and characterizations of Conan Doyle’s originals, evincing the deep pool of talent Marcum has access to. Against the odds, this series remains strong, hundreds of stories in."

Volume XXVIII review

"The gifted authors of the 19 pastiches in this superior MX Sherlock Holmes anthology eschew murder in favor of lesser but still baffling crimes such as blackmail and kidnapping. In one of the standouts, Marcum’s “The Sunderland Tragedies,” a desperate mother fears her young daughter has been abducted by the girl’s birth father; a horrific tragedy that claimed many children’s lives gives the tale the kind of emotional depth Conan Doyle’s emulators often lack....

Volume XXV review

"How can a piece of parsley supply a vital clue to a detective? The answer is supplied in one of the 21 short stories in MX’s excellent 24th anthology of tales emulating Conan Doyle’s originals, all inspired by Dr. Watson’s teasing mentions of investigations he never published. In Jayantika Ganguly’s “The Adventure of Parsley and Butter,” Holmes is consulted by a prominent attorney who has survived five attempts on his life, but is unable to forestall another attack... Marcum’s expertise at selecting high-quality pastiches remains impressive.

Volume XXIV review

"Marcum’s outstanding 23rd anthology features 11 sets of paired stories that each interprets a cryptic canonical reference differently. The highlight is a superior integration of the fictional worlds of Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, “The Adventure of the Tired Captain,” by Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker and Leverett Butts, in which Holmes is consulted by the father of one of the characters who didn’t survive the plot of Dracula, who’s desperate to know the fate of his child...Marcum’s well of talented authors able to mimic the feel of the canon seems bottomless.

Volume XXIII review

"Marcum’s superlative 22nd Sherlock Holmes pastiche anthology features 21 short stories that successfully emulate the spirit of Conan Doyle’s originals while expanding on the canon’s tantalizing references to mysteries Dr. Watson never got around to chronicling...again demonstrating the creativity of the writers Marcum has recruited. This will whet the appetite of many Sherlockians."

Volume XXII review

"One of Conan Doyle’s most tragic creations, the eponymous “Veiled Lodger,” gets a believable and intriguing after-story in Mark Mower’s “The Unveiled Lodger”; Eugenia Ronder, the original veiled lodger, has rebuilt her life, but is troubled by a coded message she found on her property. In a clever twist, Michael Mallory makes Watson’s decision to reveal in print the location of his sensitive cache of untold tales essential to the plot of “The Adventure of the Doctor’s Hand.” This is another must-have for Sherlockians."

Volume XXI review

"Other authors offer intriguing takes on some of Watson’s tantalizing references in the canon to untold tales, including a baffling vanishing of a man who went missing after going to retrieve his umbrella and a gory death linked to a bizarre worm. Marcum’s reserve of high-quality new Holmes exploits seems endless."

Volume XX review

"Matthew White demonstrates how a gripping and moving mystery not centered on violence can be crafted in “A Case of Paternity.” Other tales examine Watson’s relationship to religion, his opinion of the British Empire, and his experiences during the Afghan War. Marcum continues to burnish his reputation as a superior selector of quality new Holmes stories."

Volume XIX review

"The 16 pastiches in Marcum’s splendid 18th Sherlock Holmes anthology prove that creative authors can recapture the essence of Conan Doyle’s characters with an impossible crime or seemingly supernatural angle without relying on vampires or werewolves."

Volume XVIII review

"This is yet another impressive array of new but traditional Holmes stories."

Volume XVII review

"The 16 stories in Marcum’s excellent 16th pastiche anthology pit Sherlock Holmes against ghosts, werewolves, and various other monsters, offering clever, rational solutions to seemingly paranormal mysteries".

Volume XVI review

"This series shows no sign of flagging, welcome news for the many eager for more Holmes."

Volume XV review

“More than 300 pastiches later, this MX series shows no sign of running out of steam”

Volume XIV review

“Amazingly, Marcum has found 22 superb pastiches, almost all from unknown authors. This is more catnip for fans of stories faithful to Conan Doyle’s originals.

Volume XIII review

“Marcum continues to amaze with the number of high-quality pastiches that he has selected”

Volume XII review

“This is an essential volume for Sherlock Holmes fans”

Volume XI review

"Marcum continues to find new Sherlock Holmes adventures of consistently high quality”

Volume X review

“Sherlockians will rejoice that more volumes are on the way”

Volume IX review

“The imagination of the contributors in coming up with variations on the volume’s theme is matched by their ingenious resolutions”

Volume VIII review

“Sherlockians eager for faithful-to-the-canon plots and characters will be delighted”

Volume VII review

“This is a must-have for all Sherlockians”

Volume VI review

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A Book Review: Sherlock Holmes

Detective’s Work Comes to Life in Short Stories

Christina Cherniske , Staff Writer February 21, 2022

Book being reviewed: Sherlock Holmes: Classic Stories (Barnes and Noble edition)

By: Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre: Mystery

Pages (Paperback): 368

A few months ago I received this thick rubbery book for my birthday. Being a lover of the classics, I readily dove into the wonderful world of mystery Doyle had laid out for me. I have not entirely finished yet (I am very close!), but, because it is a collection of short stories and I know they were all exquisitely written, I believe I can review them.

The stories center around the famous detective Sherlock Holmes operating in London, England. With his extraordinary talents he solves a baffling range of mysteries and explains his reasoning with such simplicity it is rather hard to not be amazed at both Holmes and Doyle. His trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson, is the narrator giving detailed insights to the renowned detective’s habits making the stories even more enjoyable.

What I like about the book is how it is clean, intriguing, witty, unpredictable and all together an unforgettable experience. I like how Sherlock (or Doyle really) takes the time to lay out step by step how the case was solved, and that there was plenty to puzzle through before he does that. You do have to try and decode Holmes’s refined English, but quickly the pieces click into place and it’s a smooth read.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 22, 1859. For seven years he attended the Jesuit boarding school in England where he rebelled against brutal punishment regularly. There he discovered he had a talent for storytelling and was often found with a group of students enraptured around him. Doyle did a variety of things throughout his life, he went back to school and became a successful doctor, wrote many novels, narratives and plays, toured more than 30 cities making speeches, took care of his sick wife Louise, and served in the Boer War as a doctor. His levels of success were different for each profession but he definitely made a lasting impact on literature and society.

Most everyone I know has heard the delightfully curious name of Sherlock Holmes, but not everyone has read the written mysteries to grow more intimate with the psychological schemes that go on inside Sherlock’s racing mind. He is a mystery himself, but this book is a great introduction to mystery and the classics.

Nowadays with the influx of digital and audio books, the increase in fantasy and fiction, the classics seem to be covered in more and more dust. Everyone’s taste is different of course, yet I believe everyone should at least pick up one thick Charles Dickens book, reach into a Jules Vern adventure, laugh with Jane Austen and dance with the Little Women of Louisa May Alcott. The classics are rich and are made up of so many ideas, fantastic writings, well told tales and lessons that if you really read them they shine like jewels on library shelves . They are all different ranging from Comedy’s to Historical Fiction, Thrillers to Romances. There is an author for everyone.

The next time you spy a weather-worn book, pick it up. Be like Sherlock Holmes and grab every detail the author writes; you might like it.

Christina is a senior E.O Smith. She is into reading, playing piano, dancing, and writing for E.O's Newspaper. This is her fourth year a part of Panther...

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Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

publisher’s synopsis

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , a collection of twelve short stories by Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle, is considered a milestone in the genre of detective fiction. With Sherlock Holmes’s clever disguises and ability to solve even the most elusive mysteries, as well as Holmes’s loyal friend and biographer, Dr. Watson, who narrates most of the stories, Doyle’s suspenseful stories and well-developed characters keep readers on the edges of their seats.

The nice thing about this short story collection is that each of the stories can be read in a sitting. Considering that most Sherlock novels can take a while to read, it’s fun to get short snippets of Holmes and Watson’s adventures.

Most of the stories follow similar formatting: a client arrives and recounts the details of the case to Holmes and Watson. Holmes then goes out and does some investigating. Then Watson joins him for the climax. The stories lend themselves more to “telling” than “showing,” but it works since they’re short stories, and that was one of the writing styles in the past.

I would recommend that readers first read a full novel about Sherlock Holmes, so as to get an understanding of the characters that will allow them to better understand and appreciate the short stories.

Cautions: several blasphemies; brief, non-graphic mentions of moderate/heavy violence; mentions of drug and opium use; one of the stories revolves around someone trying to recover a photo that would presumably reveal a scandal from his past *

*I didn’t keep exact track of cautions and may have missed some.

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Manga Classics: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Great Literature Brought to Life

Arthur conan doyle, noh yi-jeong.

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Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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COMMENTS

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collects the first twelve Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in The Strand magazine throughout 1891-1892. The first story in the collection, "A Scandal in Bohemia," is the story that made Holmes and his creator a household ...
Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan
This is a book with 12 investigations of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Watson, his trusted companion, is the narrator of each of these stories. He documents each one through his eyes and his experience. When Holmes exits the picture or when certain characters involved in the case leave his field of vision, we jump forward to when he ...
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
12.1k books23k followers. Follow. A series of stories, including The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), of known British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chiefly features Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant detective. Mary Foley, an Irish mother, bore Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, the third of ten siblings, to Charles Altamont Doyle, a talented ...
The Best Sherlock Holmes Books
The Best Sherlock Holmes Books
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Book Review
A blog post that summarizes and reviews the 12 short stories in the classic detective novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The author shares some lessons learned from the book, but also criticizes the role of Dr. Watson and the portrayal of the KKK.
Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Review. Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson have captivated audiences for generations. This collection of twelve short stories is fantastic. From stolen jewels to mysterious circumstances and brilliant crimes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has it all. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is full of mesmerizing deductions and wonderful ...
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
This is the review of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This book tells 12 stories selected by readers and writers in the Sherlock Holmes series. Almost every story is about a murder. I think the most interesting story is "THE SPECKLED BAND". This is about finding out the main character's sister's death.
A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)
The first Sherlock Holmes mystery novel, published in 1887, introduces the famous detective and his companion Dr. Watson. They investigate the murder of two Americans and uncover a sinister plot involving a secret society.
Book Review
An excellent introduction to the world of Sherlock Holmes. This collection of short stories, written from Dr Watson's perspective, show the logical, excitable, slightly-manic but always incisive Holmes as he uncovers various plots and baddies. The writing is exceptional. Rich and highly textured, there's so much to enjoy here.
News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's US edition
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A Christian perspective on Arthur Conan Doyle's classic collection of short stories featuring the famous detective and his friend Dr. Watson. The review summarizes each case, praises Holmes' deductive skills, and warns of some moral issues in the stories.
Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Classic mystery. This is the first Sherlock Holmes I've ever read, though like many, I've seen various adaptations. I started with this book of short stories mostly because it was the one I owned. I've never been a huge fan of short stories, though, and while I wish now that I'd started by checking A Study in ...
10 of the Best Sherlock Holmes Stories Everyone Should Read
A selection of the most memorable and enjoyable cases of the famous detective, from The Hound of the Baskervilles to The Dancing Men. Learn about the origins, influences, and features of each story, and discover some of the most iconic quotes and characters from the Sherlock Holmes canon.
The Essential Guide to Reading the Sherlock Holmes Books
A guide to the original Sherlock Holmes books by Arthur Conan Doyle, with suggestions on which order to read them in. Learn about the characters, plots, themes, and fun facts of each book, from A Study in Scarlet to The Hound of the Baskervilles.
BOOK REVIEW: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle My rating: 5 of 5 stars Amazon.in Page This short story collection is the sixth book in the Sherlock Holmes canon, and - as the title suggests - it marks the return of the famous fictional detective after a hiatus. Doyle had tried to kill off…
Book Review: "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by ...
A fan of Sherlock Holmes reviews the first collection of his short stories, published in The Strand Magazine from 1891 to 1892. The review praises Holmes's deduction, observation, and wit, and mentions some memorable cases and characters.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Book Review
A collection of 11 short stories featuring the famous detective and his sidekick Dr. Watson. The reviewer praises Holmes' skills of observation, reasoning and listening, but criticizes some plot devices and the final story.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Paperback - November 24, 2020. by Arthur Conan Doyle (Author) 4.5 7,676 ratings. Part of: Sherlock Holmes (4 books) See all formats and editions. Step into the enigmatic world of 221B Baker Street, where the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend, Dr. John Watson, engage in a series of ...
Book Review: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume I
Rating: 5 stars. Since his first appearance in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam presents all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyle's classic hero - a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmes's adventures in crime!
Book Review: Sherlock Holmes
Book Review: Sherlock Holmes. Josh Murray Book Reviews, Genre Classic March 19, 2024 February 12, 2024 4 Minutes. ... Famously, Sherlock Holmes stories are narrated by his friend and assistant, Dr. Jon Watson. This is a solid creative decision, for it keeps the mystery of Holmes himself going. What drives him?
Publishers Weekly Reviews
A series of anthologies featuring over 200 authors who write pastiches of Sherlock Holmes stories based on canonical references. See the links to 23 positive reviews from Publishers Weekly, including starred reviews and highlights of the stories.
A Book Review: Sherlock Holmes
Book being reviewed: Sherlock Holmes: Classic Stories (Barnes and Noble edition) By: Arthur Conan Doyle. Genre: Mystery. Pages (Paperback): 368. A few months ago I received this thick rubbery book for my birthday. Being a lover of the classics, I readily dove into the wonderful world of mystery Doyle had laid out for me.
Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of twelve short stories by Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle, is considered a milestone in the genre of detective fiction.With Sherlock Holmes's clever disguises and ability to solve even the most elusive mysteries, as well as Holmes's loyal friend and biographer, Dr. Watson, who narrates most of the stories, Doyle's suspenseful stories ...
Manga Classics: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Great Literature
Manga Classics: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes brings tales of the world's most famous detective to life as a comic book. Join the brilliant Holmes and his loyal friend Dr Watson as they unravel five seemingly impossible mysteries using Holmes's legendary powers of deduction.
Sherlock Holmes, the Chronologists, and the Cocaine
A distinctive school of "Sherlockian scholarship" has grown up around the Sherlock Holmes series, one corollary of which is that a consistent chronology of Holmes's life can be assembled by cross-referencing the datable events in the stories.


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Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Blog – Posted on Tuesday, Jun 30

1. A Study in Scarlet (1887, novel)

2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892, short story collection)

3. The Sign of Four (1890, novel)

4. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1927, short story collection)

5. The Valley of Fear (1915, novel)

6. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894, short story collection)

7. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905, short story collection)

8. His Last Bow (1917, short story collection)

9. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902, novel)

10. Shadows Over Baker Street , eds. Michael Reaves and John Pelan

11. The House of Silk and Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

12. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

13. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

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BOOK REVIEW: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Review – The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Continuous learning is a part of life. If you’re not a reader, you can find a synopsis of many books from Readitforme that you can listen to. Click the link to join. This is a great way to learn the latest thinking on many topics. And it is a great way to learn which books to buy and devour.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: 11 Stories

“How stupid could you be? It doesn’t matter if you think you are alone, if you have to leave, secure the document first since it’s so important.”

That’s an important way for anyone to learn. And because Holmes is an astute observer, he sees many things that others don’t, and there are many instances in the book where his power of observation makes good teaching points for the reader.