Product Description: Sherlock Holmes The Complete Novels and Stories
Volume I
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!
Volume I includes the early novel A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the eccentric genius of Sherlock Holmes to the world. This baffling murder mystery, with the cryptic word Rache written in blood, first brought Holmes together with Dr. John Watson. Next, The Sign of Four presents Holmes’s famous “seven percent solution” and the strange puzzle of Mary Morstan in the quintessential locked-room mystery.
Also included are Holmes’s feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as the chilling “ The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the baffling riddle of “The Musgrave Ritual,” and the ingeniously plotted “The Five Orange Pips,” tales that bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.
Sherlock Holmes, The Greates Detective of all time What can I say? I re-read the entire collection of Sherlock's adventures. How fun it was. Sherlock's drug problem, which isn't a problem at all according to him is pretty funny. He said he only uses when he's bored. Poor Watson. He's left to look out for his friend. I like A Scandal in Bohemia a lot. Irene Adler's the only one to stump him. Wonderufl.
Unreadable Text. It's WAYYYY TOOO SMALL TO READ The text is so small a normal human being can't read it. I was so excited to get this book and the text was so small. I tried to read it but was getting headaches and serious eyestrain. Why are these publishers so cheap? Why not have legible text? Why do they print these classics too small to read? No wonder kids hate reading these classics. I search high and low for text that big enough to read comfortably. I'm a young guy and there is nothing more frustrating than small mouse sized text.
I'd pay a dollar or two more for legible text... but it's way too small to read... and the whole point of a book is to "READ" it. It's like making a car with no windows... or a tiny little one inch windshield. It's silly... BIGGER PRINT, BIGGER PRINT, BIGGER PRINT (CHANT) ON CLASSIC BOOKS!!!!
Care and competence equals quality construction and cozy familiarity My final installment of the Holmes' series, I can now lay claim to having read them all. Some of the stories toward the end slipped a bit, as it feels like Doyle, bored with the basic premise, characters, settings, and plot line, tried to tweak the variables to re-enliven the series for himself as the writer. But the life-long problem that Doyle had with Holmes is that people wanted their Holmes and Watson just as Doyle had always given it to them with no fancy flourishes.
Two of these stories are written first person by Holmes, with Watson not involved, and one was written in third-person with both Holmes and Watson as external actors. While I can imagine Doyle enjoying the challenge as a writer of the shifted perspective and the changed writing style of Holmes vs. Watson, the stories suffer as a result in comparison to the classic Holmes format and style.
Doyle would have to (and did) seek other avenues to stretch his artistic muscles. See for example Lost World & the Poison Belt where Doyle introduces his Professor Challenger character.
And in any case, compared to so much of the modern adventure or mystery fiction, these still deserve the rating of "What a Classic" for the care and competence involved in constructing them and the cozy familiarity of the Holmes magic.
Rediscovering a great classic I just recently got interested in reading the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. This is the second Sherlock Holmes book for me. I particularly love this story collection and would recommend it to anyone who likes to do some brain-gymnastics in order to follow the twisted cases. Some of the stories are short enough to read them over breakfast, which wakes up my brain and gets me ready for work.
The greatest Sherlock Holmes collection! Recently I finished reading E.W. Hornung's The Crime Doctor, the outstanding novel about Doctor John Dollar (both physician AND detective), and I decided to pick up a complete set of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works on Sherlock Holmes. Although this collection is a little dated, I consider it to be the best availible on the market.
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