The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were initially published in "The Strand" magazine as a series of 24 short stories. These stories saw publication between 1891 and 1893. When they were published in book form, the first twelve were published as "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and the last twelve were called "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes." Today, when we speak of the original "Adventures," we usually refer to the first twelve Holmes short stories. These twelve stories include some of the best of Holmes: "The Speckled Band," "The Red Headed League," "A Scandal in Bohemia." Doyle continued his Holmes saga with other collections of short stories: "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," "Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes," "His Last Bow," and finally "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes." Almost every Holmes short story bears the title "The Adventure of . . ." One of my favorite Holmes stories is "The Problem of Thor Bridge." Not only is it a very good yarn, it is a "Problem" and not an "Adventure!" Although Conan Doyle ran out of Holmes stories, the public did not run out of its appetite for new Holmes stories, and production of pastiches continues to this day.

To me, the most satisfying way to relive the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, both original and pastiche adventures, is through the medium of audiotaped radio plays. There are at least four collections of adventures currently available. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," a publication of BBC shows starring Clive Merrison, reprises the original twelve adventures. This is probably the best radio collection of adventures. National Public Radio has published four "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" consisting of four one hour productions starring various actors as Holmes. The quality is uneven. "Smithsonian Historical Performances: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" has twelve stories, four of which are original. Edith Meiser wrote the pastiches, and John Stanley starred as a rather disagreeable Holmes. Some stories are very good; others are woeful. Simon and Schuster publishes a series of six "New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Each collection has eight Holmes stories. Of the pastiches, these are the best. Nigel Bruce stars as a loveable, bumbling Watson, and Basil Rathbone portrays the archetypical Holmes. Anthony Boucher and Dennis Green wrote the scripts and did a very good job. Holmesaholics will also want to listen to "More New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," published by the Brilliance Corporation, and starring Tom Conway as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. These stories are on the whole better than the Smithsonian Historical Performances, but not as good as the Rathbone/Bruce "New Adventures." They also have the drawback of being published as individual cassettes. The avid collector can run to some expense getting all of these.

Holmes survived Conan Doyle's attempt on his life at the Reichenbach Falls; he has survived his creator 80 years without showing any signs of loss of vitality. The latest (and quite enjoyable) addition to the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the BBC Television series starring Jeremy Brett.


Holmes stuns mystery lovers and sci fi fans alike!   November 19, 2000
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

Are you ready to accompany the greatest detective in history on some of his most memorable adventures? Then this book is for you! Each of these stories are wonderfully put together, each with a more exciting and unexpected outcome. I have read them time and again, and am always newly surprised at Holmes's genius and reasoning abilities.

Are you still hesitant on whether or not to read "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?" Well, I personally am not much of a mystery fan. In fact, some of my favorite books are "Watership Down," "The Hobbit," "A Wrinkle in Time" series, and "The Lost Years of Merlin" books. I also know that mystery books are either awful, by. But Sherlock Holmes and his cases have set the highest of standards for mysteries, which very few others have even come close to surpassing.

Through this great collection, I have come to greatly admire both Holmes's and Doyle's brilliance over and over again. No matter what genre you enjoy reading, this is a book for you!


The best of the Sherlock Holmes short story collections!   August 16, 2004
Godly Gadfly (Canada)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Although he also wrote several novels featuring the world's greatest fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, it was especially in his short stories that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle perfected the Holmes formula. And of the five collections of Holmes short stories (about a dozen in each collection), "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (published in 1892) was the first and is easily the most popular and best of the five. It contains all except one of the five all-time most popular short stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon (A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-headed League, The Blue Carbuncle, and The Speckled Band), as well as some other gems like The Five Orange Pips. For newcomers to Holmes, this there is no better place to start than with the dozen stories that comprise "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". And for long-time fans, these are old favorites worth reading again and again.

Here's a list of the stories in this collection (with the better stories marked with stars):
***A Scandal in Bohemia, 1891 - The very first and one of the top five Sherlock Holmes short stories. After some brilliant detective work involving disguises and acting, Holmes is outwitted by the woman Irene Adler in his quest to help the hereditary king of Bohemia regain a scandalous photograph from her.
***The Red-headed League, 1891 - Generally regarded as all-time second best Sherlock Holmes story, this bizarre tale features a pawnbroker who is paid money to join the mysterious Red-Headed League and copy out Encyclopedia Britannica, as part of an ingenious scheme to rob a bank.
A Case of Identity, 1891 - Holmes solves the mystery of Mary Sutherland's fiance who disappears on the morning of his wedding, unmasking it as scheme hatched by her greedy step-father.
The Boscombe Valley Mystery, 1891 - Charles McCarthy's son seems the obvious murderer of his father after a violent quarrel, so it is up to Holmes to show that the murder has its real roots in the Australian past of the dead man and his landlord.
**The Five Orange Pips, 1891 - One of Doyle's personal favorites, this tale recounts the death of two men, both preceded by the arrival of five mysterious orange pips. In one of his few failures, Holmes connects the events to the Ku Klux Klan, but not soon enough to prevent another death.
*The Man with the Twisted Lip, 1891 - A baffling mystery about Mr. Neville St. Clair who disappears from a room into thin air, and a professional beggar who is the suspected murderer.
***The Blue Carbuncle, 1892 - Another favorite all-time top 5 Holmes story, as Holmes unravels how a blue diamond ended up inside the goose intended for Mr. Henry Baker's Christmas dinner.
***The Speckled Band, 1892 - Universally regarded as the most popular short story in the Sherlock Holmes canon, and easily one of the more suspenseful and chilling. The engaged Helen Stoner is terrified when she hears the same strange whistling that preceded the death of her twin sister in a locked bedroom shortly before her wedding. Her step-father Dr. Grimesby Roylott, a evil and greedy man with a passion for exotic pets like his cheetah and baboon, is the suspected villain - but how could he do it? The only clue are the mysterious words of Helen's dying sister about "speckled band"...
The Engineer's Thumb, 1892 - Victor Hatherley, a hydraulic engineer, is offered a lucrative contract to go to a secret location at night to fix a fuller's earth press, but why does he lose his thumb and nearly his life in the process? As Holmes says to the engineer about the missing thumb: "Indirectly it may be of value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence."
The Noble Bachelor, 1892 - When Lord St. Simon's new American wife goes missing shortly after their wedding, it is up to Holmes to find both her and the reason for her disappearance,
The Beryl Coronet - Expensive jewels are mysteriously damaged in the home of a wealthy banker, his ill-reputed son the prime suspect.
The Copper Beeches, 1892 - Violet Hunter is paid an exorbitant sum to be a governness at a house called The Copper Beeches. Her employment includes some strange stipulations, such as cutting her hair short and wearing a particular blue dress - but why?
- GODLY GADFLY



... whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth   October 20, 2005
Henry Cate III (CA. United States)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful


In college I went through a phase where I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories. Once I got started reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, I didn't want to stop. It was sad when I read the last story.

Now years later it was fun to read them again. I enjoy the Sherlock Holmes short stories more than one of the novels. For me one of the most enjoyable parts of a Sherlock Holmes story is reading about what happened, and then reading how Sherlock Holmes solved the problem. A collection of short stories provides this experience many times.

This collection has many classics. It has the famous line "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." (The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.)

It is also interesting to see what life was like in England 100 years ago. They had the underground, but use carriages, there was lots of travel by train, and life in general was a bit rougher than today.

If you haven't read any Sherlock Holmes stories, this is a good place to start.