The Extraordinary Cases of Sherlock Holmes (Puffin Classics)
by Arthur Conan Doyle 
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The great detective solves eight baffling cases involving a family curse, a secret code, a missing racehorse, an impossible murder, a stolen jewel, blackmail, six identical sculptures, and a missing soccer player.Tags
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A fantastic collection of short stories, representing the most interesting cases of Holmes. I was thrilled to read the superb writing of Doyle, the delicious turn of phrase, the vocabulary. I had forgotten how wonderful a writer he was and it makes me want to return to his longer works.
Eight selected tales of Sherlock Holmes to give the reader a taster of the brilliant sleuth and his cunning methods.
Having never read any Sherlock Holmes before, I spied this nice collection and decided it was a great way to get acquainted with what everyone else seems to know so well already. The stories included are as follows:
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
The Musgrave Ritual
The Reigate Puzzle
Silver Blaze
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
The Missing Three-Quarter
I didn't realise the Holmes stories were all short (30-40 pages) and originally published in the Strand Magazine. I also didn't know that the author was tired of Holmes after three years of writing his show more adventures and wrote a story that included his death but after public outrage at the killing of their favourite, he was persuaded to resurrect him. Interesting.
To the tales themselves, they are well written and also more surprisingly, not always about a crime as I had expected. Holmes is brilliant at deducing the clues from seemingly mundane and trivial facts and having the narrator as John Watson worked very well, I enjoyed his voice and the way he explained the idiosyncrasies of Holmes' odder behaviour.
I appreciated the length of these tales as they were perfect to sit and read one over lunch or when you just needed a short break, you could finish one complete tale at a time and not leave the mystery halfway through. Although, it is always harder to rate a selection of short stories as they chop and change from one to the next, but this volume has definitely whetted my appetite and I will be reading more of Holmes and Watson. show less
Having never read any Sherlock Holmes before, I spied this nice collection and decided it was a great way to get acquainted with what everyone else seems to know so well already. The stories included are as follows:
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
The Musgrave Ritual
The Reigate Puzzle
Silver Blaze
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
The Missing Three-Quarter
I didn't realise the Holmes stories were all short (30-40 pages) and originally published in the Strand Magazine. I also didn't know that the author was tired of Holmes after three years of writing his show more adventures and wrote a story that included his death but after public outrage at the killing of their favourite, he was persuaded to resurrect him. Interesting.
To the tales themselves, they are well written and also more surprisingly, not always about a crime as I had expected. Holmes is brilliant at deducing the clues from seemingly mundane and trivial facts and having the narrator as John Watson worked very well, I enjoyed his voice and the way he explained the idiosyncrasies of Holmes' odder behaviour.
I appreciated the length of these tales as they were perfect to sit and read one over lunch or when you just needed a short break, you could finish one complete tale at a time and not leave the mystery halfway through. Although, it is always harder to rate a selection of short stories as they chop and change from one to the next, but this volume has definitely whetted my appetite and I will be reading more of Holmes and Watson. show less
Through the foggy streets of Victoria London to the deepest countryside, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson embark on eight thrilling investigations. In some of his best known cases including 'The Speckled Band' and 'The Reigate Puzzle', Holmes brings his unique powers of deduction to bear on the most challenging mysteries.
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3,998+ Works 169,520 Members
The most famous fictional detective in the world is Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. However, Doyle was, at best, ambivalent about his immensely successful literary creation and, at worst, resentful that his more "serious" fiction was relatively ignored. Born in Edinburgh, Doyle studied medicine from 1876 to 1881 and received his M.D. in show more 1885. He worked as a military physician in South Africa during the Boer War and was knighted in 1902 for his exceptional service. Doyle was drawn to writing at an early age. Although he attempted to enter private practice in Southsea, Portsmouth, in 1882, he soon turned to writing in his spare time; it eventually became his profession. As a Liberal Unionist, Doyle ran, unsuccessfully, for Parliament in 1903. During his later years, Doyle became an avowed spiritualist. Doyle sold his first story, "The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley," to Chambers' Journal in 1879. When Doyle published the novel, A Study in Scarlet in 1887, Sherlock Holmes was introduced to an avid public. Doyle is reputed to have used one of his medical professors, Dr. Joseph Bell, as a model for Holmes's character. Eventually, Doyle wrote three additional Holmes novels and five collections of Holmes short stories. A brilliant, though somewhat eccentric, detective, Holmes employs scientific methods of observation and deduction to solve the mysteries that he investigates. Although an "amateur" private detective, he is frequently called upon by Scotland Yard for assistance. Holmes's assistant, the faithful Dr. Watson, provides a striking contrast to Holmes's brilliant intellect and, in Doyle's day at least, serves as a character with whom the reader can readily identify. Having tired of Holmes's popularity, Doyle even tried to kill the great detective in "The Final Problem" but was forced by an outraged public to resurrect him in 1903. Although Holmes remained Doyle's most popular literary creation, Doyle wrote prolifically in other genres, including historical adventure, science fiction, and supernatural fiction. Despite Doyle's sometimes careless writing, he was a superb storyteller. His great skill as a popular author lay in his technique of involving readers in his highly entertaining adventures. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Arthur Conan Doyle has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
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Contains
BBC Sherlock Holmes Short Stories: The Adventure of the Reigate Squire: Part 1 by Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect)
BBC Sherlock Holmes Short Stories: The Adventure of the Reigate Squire: Part 2 by Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect)
BBC Sherlock Holmes Short Stories: The Adventure of Silver Blaze: Part 1 by Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect)
BBC Sherlock Holmes Short Stories: The Adventure of Silver Blaze: Part 2 by Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect)
BBC Sherlock Holmes Short Stories: The Adventure of the Six Napoleons Part 1 by Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Extraordinary Cases of Sherlock Holmes (Puffin Classics) (Puffin Classics)
- Original publication date
- 1988
- People/Characters
- Sherlock Holmes; John H. Watson
- Important places
- London, England, UK; 221B Baker Street, London, England, UK
- First words
- On glancing over my notes of the seventy-odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonpl... (show all)ace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Come, Watson," said he, and we passed from that house of grief into the pale sunlight of the winter day.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 410
- Popularity
- 75,438
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.21)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 4
