The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [12 stories]

1892

classic literature
murder
mystery
conclusions
amorality
anglo-saxons
apaces
aristocracy
banks
barques

The story

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on 14 October 1892. It contains the earliest short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, which had been published in twelve monthly issues of The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The stories are collected in the same sequence, which is not supported by any fictional chronology. The only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson and all are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view. Contains: [Scandal in Bohemia](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14930611W/A_Scandal_in_Bohemia) [Red-headed League](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14930336W/The_Red-Headed_League) [Case of Identity](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14929939W/A_Case_of_Identity) [Boscombe Valley Mystery](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18495288W/The_Boscombe_Valley_Mystery) [Five Orange Pips](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1518120W/Five_Orange_Pips) [Man with the Twisted Lip](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14930258W/The_Man_With_the_Twisted_Lip) [Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1518317W/Adventure_of_the_Blue_Carbuncle) [Adventure of the Speckled Band](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL262561W/Adventure_of_the_Speckled_Band) [Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1518318W/Adventure_of_the_Engineer's_Thumb) [Adventure of the Noble Bachelor](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14929841W/Adventure_of_the_Noble_Bachelor) [Adventure of the Beryl Coronet](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14929825W/Adventure_of_the_Beryl_Coronet) [Adventure of the Copper Beeches](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1518116W/Adventure_of_the_Copper_Beeches) --- Also contained in: - [Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1518128W) - [Adventures of Sherlock Holmes](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20624138W) - [Celebrated Cases of Sherlock Ho

What it’s like

Brisk Victorian prose in a first-person voice that is warm, wry and faintly comic, carrying the reader through foggy London streets, gaslit lodgings, cluttered sitting rooms, and country houses set against heath and moor. The texture is domestic and concrete: clay pipes, violin scrapes, hansom cabs clattering over wet cobbles, the smell of chemicals in a flat at Baker Street, damp English weather pressing at the windows. Each story is self-contained and brisk, a short sitting of about half an hour, so it suits a rainy Sunday, a bedside dip before sleep, or a long train journey. Violence is present but offstage or brief and restrained, with dread more than gore; a few tales carry a menacing chill (a snake in a locked room, a hidden grief) without graphic description. Sexual content is absent beyond period romance and courtship. The emotional register is light and playful, with deduction as the pleasure, and the people who matter are the odd pairing of the brilliant, aloof detective and his loyal, bemused friend. It suits readers who want clever puzzles, cosy Victorian atmosphere, and a gentle, low-stakes companion across a shelf of short tales.

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