Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Vol. 1 (Bantam Classics 1/2)

I had put off reading any of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries for years (well, decades), figuring that despite the detective’s fame he was bound to be dismal company. Then I picked up the Holmes volume I’ve had on my shelf for twenty-five years – and I’m thrilled I did. What a delight!

I thought all works featuring Holmes were novels, and some indeed are novellas, but particularly appealing are the dozens and dozens of short stories. None take more than an hour to read and many go even more quickly. Perfect for a train trip (the way many Victorians read them) or reading on a plane.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing at a time when the conventions of mystery stories hadn’t yet become codified. His resulting freedom produces not only show more unexpected plots, but unexpected types of mysteries. As his faithful sidekick Dr. Watson notes, many of Holmes’ exploits don’t involve crime at all. That might sound boring, but several of my favorite tales revolve around bizarre doings that don’t feature murder or theft. Not that murder is ignored, but each story doesn’t start with the predictable pattern of a dead body at the beginning and a solution at the end. Holmes even fails on a few occasions, which makes for a real twist.

It’s impossible not to have preconceptions of what Holmes and Watson are like – they have saturated popular culture even if you’ve never cracked the spine of any of Doyle’s works. But the stories will be filled with surprises for anyone who knows Holmes from the movies. If you haven’t yet dipped into the world of 221b Baker Street, I highly recommend it. For a great site that provides more information on Sherlock Holmes, and annotated versions of many of the stories, try: http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/history.html show less

So, after reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, I've come to a conclusion - that Sherlock Holmes is not my cup of tea. Its a cross between the stories being too clean, and that Sherlock Holmes is a bit of an ass. I actually like Watson considerable more. Watson brings in a humanizing factor that gives Sherlock a way to explain his stories.

I know that this is a book of its time, where classism exists, English Exceptionalism, etc etc. However, Doyle at times points out the hypocrisy - in "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", when Sherlock Holmes is hired to figure out what a secretive wife is doing, he finds she is hiding her much loved child from a previous marriage to a black man.

Most of these stories from both volumes have show more faded for me, but a few do stick out. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is one my favorites. show less

After watching (and loving) the last Sherlock Holmes movie, and the BBC TV show Sherlock, I just knew I had to read the novels and stories. I have had these books for years, so I finally started. This volume contains the novels A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and the story collections Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes. There is not much new I can say about these stories that hasn’t already been said before.
I really liked these stories, and the writing. I love Sherlock for his anti-social behavior, his character, his way of doing things. The cases described here (except for the novels) are pretty short and sweet, making them nice quick reads. Because the stories are so show more short it matters a lot less that there is a lot of repetition in the stories. A lot of hidden identities, murky histories in far away lands, and generally a lot of story-lines that are very familiar to me, a reader a 100 years after the stories have been published. But if you read them keeping in mind when they have been written, what people read then, they are great stories, and still very enjoyable. show less

Watson on Holmes:

"His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being on earth in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

'You appear to be astonished,' he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. 'Now that I do know it I shall do my best to show more forget it.'

'To forget it!'

'You see,' he explained, 'I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.'

'But the Solar System!' I protested.

'What the deuce is it to me?' he interrupted impatiently; 'you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.'" show less

Sherlock is lost on the plane! The culprits are identified (and harangued) but can our intrepid lost baggage service locate the missing collection!?!?! Watch this space.

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A very enjoyable romp through a bygone London. Lots of lovely ideas to plagiarise if I had any inkling (or aspiration) to be a crime writer. Really, Conan Doyle should be included in creative writers' courses.

Sherlock. What to say, what to say. Formulaic? Hell yes. Manipulative? Yep. Fun as all get out? You bet your patootie. Although sometimes I get a little irritated by the denseness of everyone who is not Mr. Holmes.

Still, am trudging along in Volume 2....

There isn't much left to say about this book that hasn't already been said, except that I wish I hadn't read it from cover to cover. I feel like these stories were meant to be picked up here and there, a fun night next to the fire, perhaps even read aloud with others. When you string them all together they do lose some of their charm and begin to feel repetitive. I love the Holmes and Watson and having read it realize the huge impact this book has had on today's super sleuths in novels and on television and movies.