Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes : The Complete Novels and Stories Volume I (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Table of Contents

FROM THE PAGES OF THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME I

Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems. ( A Study in Scarlet , page 17)

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment. ( A Study in Scarlet , page 22)

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth. ( The Sign of Four , page 126)

It is the unofficial forcethe Baker Street irregulars.

( The Sign of Four , page 145)

Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.

(The Boscombe Valley Mystery, page 240)

He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us. Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought. (The Man with the Twisted Lip, page 270)

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people dont know. (The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, page 302)

Crime is common. Logic is rare.

(The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, page 377)

Like all Holmess reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. (The Stock-Brokers Clerk, page 433)

Elementary, said he. (The Crooked Man, page 492)

Through the haze I had a vague vision of Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black clay pipe between his lips.

( The Hound of the Baskervilles , page 592)

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A Study in Scarlet was first published in 1887, The Sign of Four in 1890, and The
Hound of the Baskervilles in 1902. The stories in Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes were first collected and published in 1891, and those in The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in 1892.

Published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,
Notes, Biography, Chronology, A Note on Conveyances, Comments & Questions,
and For Further Reading.

General Introduction, Introduction to Volume I, A Note on
Conveyances, Notes, and For Further Reading

Copyright 2003 by Kyle Freeman.

Note on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The World of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
and Sherlock Holmes , and Comments & Questions
Copyright 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics
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The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-034-1 ISBN-10: 1-59308-034-4

eISBN : 978-1-411-43197-3

LC Control Number 2003102759

Produced and published in conjunction with:
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10001

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

Printed in the United States of America

QM

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SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Arthur Conan Doyle had many careersphysician, writer of popular fiction and nonfiction, war correspondent, historian, and spiritualistbut it was the creation of his immensely popular Sherlock Holmes that was to be his enduring legacy. The author was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859. His mother raised ten children on her husbands small income; his fathers poor health and heavy drinking made that a daunting task. Despite this adversity, his mothers willfulness and her exhaustive genealogical research instilled in Arthur a decided sense of purpose.

After early education in Jesuit schools, Conan Doyle enrolled in Edinburgh University, where he earned a medical degree while working part-time to support his family. At the university one of his instructors was Dr. Joseph Bell, who had an uncanny ability to deduce the histories of his patients and who later became a template for Sherlock Holmes. Another teacher, an eccentric Professor Rutherford, inspired the character of Professor George Edward Challenger in The Lost World and other novels and short stories.

Having had a taste of adventure when he served as ships physician on a Greenland Sea whaler while still a student, Conan Doyle longed to travel after graduation and so took a position as doctor on a ship en route to West Africa. Returning to England, he set up as a physician in 1882. His practice was small at first, so he had time to do some writing. In 1887 the first Sherlock Holmes story appeared, titled A Study in Scarlet . Over the next few years, Conan Doyle would write a historical novel, open a new ocular practice, explore spiritualism, and send Holmes on further thrilling exploits. A second novel, The Sign of Four , came out in 1890, and starting in 1891 the Holmes stories regularly appeared in the Strand Magazine . Two collections, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892 and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in 1893, collected a total of twenty-four of the mysteries. However, Conan Doyle felt that work on the Holmes stories was keeping him from writing on more serious historical topics. To the shock of his readers, in the 1893 story called The Final Problem he described the death of his famous sleuth.

In 1894 Conan Doyle published Round the Red Lamp , a collection of short stories with a medical theme; in 1895 The Stark Munro Letters , an autobiographical novel; and in 1896 The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard , set in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1900 he traveled to South Africa in the capacity of war-time physician in Cape Town; his treatise on the Boer War earned him a knighthood in 1902. That same year Conan Doyle published The Hound of the Baskervilles , set before the story that had finished Holmes off in 1893. In 1903 new Holmes stories started to appear in the Strand .

In the coming years, Conan Doyle produced more popular books on a variety of subjects, including three new collections of stories The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905), His Last Bow (1917), and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)plus a final Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear (1915). Among many other non-Holmes projects were the three Challenger novels, historical fiction and nonfiction, and several books on spiritualism. He also championed the rights of the wrongly accused, in two separate cases exonerating innocent men.

With the onset of World War I, Conan Doyle served as a war correspondent on several major European battlefields. Following the war, he became a passionate advocate of spiritualism, which he embraced in part to communicate with his eldest son, Kingsley, who had died from influenza aggravated by war wounds. From 1920 until his death, the author wrote, traveled, and lectured to promote his belief in a spiritual life after the death of the body. After a long, demanding journey through Scandinavia, Arthur Conan Doyle suffered a heart attack; he died a few months later, on July 7, 1930, in Sussex.