The Field Bazaar. The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Adventure of the Empty House. The Adventure of the Norwood Builder. The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist. The Adventure of the Priory School. The Adventure of Black Peter. The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. The Adventure of the Six Napoleons. The Adventure of the Three Students. The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. The Adventure of the Abbey Grange. The Adventure of the Second Stain. The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans. The Adventure of the Devil's Foot. The Adventure of the Red Circle.
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax. The Adventure of the Dying Detective. The Valley of Fear. The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone.
The Problem of Thor Bridge. The Adventure of the Creeping Man. The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. How Watson Learned the Trick.
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs. The Adventure of the Illustrious Client. The Adventure of the Three Gables. The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier. The Adventure of the Lion's Mane. The Adventure of the Retired Colourman. The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger. So Doyle turned to financial incentive in lieu of creative stasis, urging publishers to cough up for more Holmes stories.
Such was their hunger, Doyle ended up being very well-paid indeed - and Holmes and Watson defied the death he had sent them to, and ended up retiring instead.
But what's the best way to read them? Here's our take on the essential way to navigate the Sherlock Holmes stories. A Study in Scarlet This was the book that introduced the world to Sherlock and John. It's where we meet Watson and learn about his disastrous war record, how he was shot in battle and how he came to be in London in need of new digs.
The Sign of Four Even geniuses have their vices especially geniuses, perhaps , and Sherlock Holmes was no exception. The Sign of Four introduces us to the gentleman sleuth's cocaine years, and his preferred method of administration, injection:.
Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction. But soon a job comes in and they're back on London's smog-fogged streets on another adventure involving a one-legged ruffian, hidden treasure, deadly poison darts and a thrilling race along the River Thames.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Time to take a break from the novels and dive into Conan Doyle's first set of short stories for a deeper understanding of Holmes' complex personality, intriguing methodologies and his sideline as a master of disguise. The most famous story is the first, A Scandal in Bohemia , because it concerns the infamous opera singer Irene Adler, the closest Holmes ever comes to a love interest and the first character in the canon with the brainpower to outwit Holmes himself.
But actually, there are no duds in this collection, through which Holmes never fails to deliver. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes If you only read one story in this collection, it has to be the last one, The Final Problem , because introduces us, finally, to Professor Moriarty, Holmes' arch-nemesis. So he concocted Moriarty as a simple device: to kill Holmes off. Cue a nefarious plot for world domination, a hot-tail through Europe culminating in a fatal tussle at the infamous Reichenbach Falls.
It's also where — and this is important for Enola Holmes viewers — we first meet Holmes' cleverer brother Mycroft. The Return of Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle couldn't keep Holmes dead for long. There was an uproar from fans across Britain, so the author wearily reanimated his pipe-smoking cash cow.
And here's where we learn about Holmes' dab hand at the Japanese martial art of baritsu , which is how he dispatched Moriarty to his watery doom. By The Norwood Builder the second story in the collection the bromance is back on and the inquisitive pair are up to their old tricks again, cracking encoded messages, freeing kidnapped heirs, investigating harpooned sea captains and finding famous pearls inside Napoleonic statues.
The Hound of the Baskervilles There's a pretty strong argument for this as Holmes' finest escapade — the most famous story in the canon and maybe the one to start with. Holmes and Watson are dispatched to investigate the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville on the estate of his ancestral pile on the mist-shrouded moorland of Dartmoor.
What begins as a mysterious case of supernatural murder turns into a race against time to save Sir Charles' heir from the same fate. As the story unfolds, they must solve the riddle of an ancient curse, hunt down a phantom hound, and a side plot involving an escaped convict hiding out in the wilderness.
The Valley of Fear This is probably the least well-known of all the Holmes books, but it's still a doozy that takes us back to a time before Moriarty's death plunge. When a corpse is found with its head blown to pieces, Holmes and Watson must piece together a strange set of clues, involving a weird note, a bloody footprint and a missing dumb-bell. Of course, Holmes solves the case with nothing more than Watson's umbrella.
But there's more: was his old foe involved? Suddenly they're back on the cat-and-mouse, hot on the tail Moriarty and his goons. His Last Bow Holmes is getting a bit creaky in the old joints now arthritis , but his mind is no less supple. In The Cardboard Box , we finally learn about Holmes' passion for the violin a theme amped up far higher in the movies , Paganini in particular, and how he bought his Stradivarius. But it's not until the eponymous final tale that Conan Doyle takes us out of our comfort zones, away from Victorian London and into the murky world of British intelligence during the First World War.
Befitting of Conan Doyle's taste for shock endings, Holmes' great and actual finale, becomes more a spy story than a detective one. And there ends the duo's epic friendship.
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes By the time Conan Doyle got round to his final collection, he had clearly had it up to his moustache with Sherlock. The stories are pretty straightforward riddle-solving capers, mostly set back in Victorian London, though not really fixed to any particular chronological moment.
But for anyone in a hurry, the most interesting of the 12 are The Blanched Soldier and The Lion's Mane because they are the first time Conan Doyle breaks protocol and allows Holmes himself to narrate proceedings. The Lion's Mane is particularly worth a stab as it's set after Holmes' retirement, where we learn he has swapped his houndstooth cap for a beekeeper's bonnet, tending bees and flowers in a coastal Sussex cottage.
Still, if we've learned anything from Conan Doyle, it is that mystery is a stubborn mistress, and wherever Holmes goes, she's never far behind. With invention, imperialism and industrialisation all charging through the era, there was plenty to inspire the authors of the time.
Charlotte Runcie rounds up the definitive Victorian novels. From stolen paintings to shocking murder mysteries, these suspenseful stories are awash with terrible crimes.
You may have watched a dozen TV and film adaptations but have you read the books? We asked Austen super-fan, Anna James to share her guide to which novel to start with first.
For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more.
0コメント