Description
His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes is the fourth collection of Sherlock Holmes stories published by Arthur Conan Doyles. It begins with a preface by Dr. John Watson, supposedly written in 1917, assuring the reader that Holmes is still alive but living in quiet retirement in Sussex.
This collection contains the well-known stories “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,” in which Holmes has to track down stolen plans for a new kind of submarine; and “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot” in which a Cornish family is found one morning driven mad or dead, with expressions of horror on their faces. The titular story “His Last Bow” is set on the very eve of the outbreak of the First World War, and involves Holmes and Watson coming out of retirement to defeat a German spy.
Description
Even though Doyle is most famous for his Sherlock stories, he was also a prolific novelist, and The Lost World is one of his more famous non-Sherlock novels. Like many novels of the day, it was first published serially.
In it we meet a group of adventurers who head to a deep South American jungle to explore rumors of long-lost dinosaurs. The plot is driven by their journey, discoveries, and subsequent narrow escape. Notably, The Lost World is the novel in which Doyle’s popular recurring character, Professor Challenger, is introduced.
Doyle based many of the characters and locations on people and places he was familiar with: the journalist Ed Malone was modeled on E. D. Morel, and Lord John Roxton on Roger Casement; the Lost World itself was based on descriptions of Bolivia in letters sent to Doyle by his friend Percy Harrison Fawcett.
The novel remains hugely influential and widely adapted today. The title might even remind modern readers of a certain very famous movie franchise about dinosaur theme parks!
Test your own powers of deduction alongside those of the most celebrated detective ever to walk the streets of London or grace the pages of a book. Sherlock Holmes brings his extraordinary insight and intriguing quirks to every case he is called upon to solve—sometimes without even leaving the comfort of his Baker Street apartment. In this collection of 23 ingeniously plotted stories, no case is too big, too small, or too bizarre for Holmes. Whether he is foiling the grand schemes of a would-be bank robber or uncovering family secrets kept hidden away for years, Sherlock Holmes at all times proves himself a formidable adversary. With his trusted and always-admiring friend, Dr. Watson, at his side, “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine the world has ever seen” uses his unique analytical gifts to confound every criminal and unravel every mystery.
The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
The Adventure of the Three Gables
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
The Problem of Thor Bridge
The Adventure of the Creeping Man
The Adventure of the Lion's Mane
The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place
The Adventure of the Retired Colorman
Silver Blaze
The Yellow Face
The Stockbroker's Clerk
The "Gloria Scott"
The Musgrave Ritual
The Reigate Puzzle
The Crooked Man
The Resident Patient
The Greek Interpreter
The Naval Treaty
The Final Problem
Description
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the first collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories Conan Doyle published in book form, following the popular success of the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, which introduced the characters of Dr. John Watson and the austere analytical detective Sherlock Holmes.
The collection contains twelve stories, all originally published in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. Narrated by the first-person voice of Dr. Watson, they involve him and Holmes solving a series of mysterious cases.
Some of the more well-known stories in this collection are “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Holmes comes up against a worthy opponent in the form of Irene Adler, whom Holmes forever after admiringly refers to as the woman; “The Redheaded League,” involving a bizarre scheme offering a well-paid sinecure to redheaded men; and “The Speckled Band,” in which Holmes and Watson save a young woman from a terrible death.
Description
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is the third collection of Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1905. It includes stories published in The Strand Magazine in 1903 and 1904, bringing Holmes for the first time into the twentieth century.
Doyle had memorably “killed off” Holmes in a struggle with his nemesis Professor Moriarty in the story “The Final Problem,” which had appeared in 1893 (and which is included in the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes). Intense public demand for more Holmes material after that had led to Doyle writing the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, and then finally to return to writing Holmes short stories once more. The first story in this collection, “The Adventure of the Empty House” finds Dr. Watson united once again with his old friend Sherlock Holmes, who explains how and why he faked his death at Reichenbach Falls.
Apart from the leading story which “resurrects” Holmes, this collection contains a number of the best-known Holmes stories. “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” has Holmes deciphering a cryptogram to solve a mystery; encountering a callous blackmailer in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton;” working out why cheap busts of Napoleon are being shattered all over London; and possibly averting a major European war in “The Adventure of the Second Stain.”
Description
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894, is the second collection of Sherlock Holmes stories published in book form. All of the stories included in the collection previously appeared in The Strand Magazine between 1892 and 1893. They purport to be the accounts given by Dr. John Watson of the more remarkable cases in which his friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes becomes involved in his role as a consulting detective.
This collection has several memorable features. The first British edition omitted the story “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” which appeared in The Strand in 1893. This story did appear in the very first American edition of the collection, immediately following “Silver Blaze,” but it was quickly replaced by a revised edition which omitted it. Apparently these omissions were at the specific request of the author, who was concerned that its inclusion of the theme of adultery would make it unsuitable for younger readers. The story was, however, eventually included in the later collection His Last Bow, but it is out of chronological position there. In this Standard Ebooks edition (as in most modern British editions), we have included this story to restore it to its correct chronological place in the Holmes canon.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is also notable because by this time Doyle had tired of the Holmes character and decided to kill him off, so that this was intended to be the last Holmes collection ever to be published. It contains several of the best-known Holmes stories, including “Silver Blaze,” “The Musgrave Ritual,” and “The Greek Interpreter,” which introduces Sherlock’s brother Mycroft; and of course “The Final Problem” in which Holmes struggles with his nemesis Professor Moriarty.