sherlock holmes book review essay pdf

• Environment
• Information Science
• Social Issues
• Argumentative
• Cause and Effect
• Classification
• Compare and Contrast
• Descriptive
• Exemplification
• Informative
• Controversial
• Exploratory
• What Is an Essay
• Length of an Essay
• Generate Ideas
• Types of Essays
• Structuring an Essay
• Outline For Essay
• Essay Introduction
• Thesis Statement
• Body of an Essay
• Writing a Conclusion
• Essay Writing Tips
• Drafting an Essay
• Revision Process
• Fix a Broken Essay
• Format of an Essay
• Essay Examples
• Essay Checklist
• Essay Writing Service
• Pay for Research Paper
• Write My Research Paper
• Write My Essay
• Custom Essay Writing Service
• Admission Essay Writing Service
• Pay for Essay
• Academic Ghostwriting
• Write My Book Report
• Case Study Writing Service
• Dissertation Writing Service
• Coursework Writing Service
• Lab Report Writing Service
• Do My Assignment
• Buy College Papers
• Capstone Project Writing Service
• Buy Research Paper
• Custom Essays for Sale

Can’t find a perfect paper?

• Free Essay Samples

Sherlock Holmes Book Review

Updated 05 October 2022

Subject Books

Downloads 62

Category Literature

Topic Sherlock Holmes

Books about Sherlock Holmes

There are numerous books devoted to the great detective Sherlock Holmes. Whether you prefer the classics or are new to the series, you can find the right book for you. This review is going to discuss some of the best books about the great detective. In particular, we'll cover The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and The Nine-Dragon Sigil.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle about the great detective. Unlike previous collections, the stories in this collection are darker, exploring treachery, mutilation, and the devastating effects of infidelity. The stories are also infused with gothic elements such as crypts and blood-sucking vampires. Author David Stuart Davies, a scholar and author of many books on Sherlock Holmes, wrote the Afterword for the Macmillan Collector's Library Sherlock Holmes volumes.

This collection contains twelve stories written by Sherlock Holmes. The stories are set in the gloomy world of the 1920s. Conan Doyle took advantage of the new conventions in fiction at the time to tell these stories, and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is an excellent example of his work.

Because of the copyright situation, the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes isn't yet available for download in the United States. Copyright protection will be lifted in stages. By 2023, two stories from The Case-Book will be released in the public domain. A similar situation occurs in the United Kingdom and Canada.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1922 by John Murray in the UK and the George H. Doran Company in the US. The book's preface was written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It contains the stories of Sherlock Holmes and his friends.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

The Adventure of the Speckled Band is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was published in February 1892 as the eighth story in his collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story is a detective adventure set in Victorian London and is an entertaining read.

Many critics have praised the story, which has high drama and a believable solution. Watson declares that the mystery is dark and sinister. The story also features the famous swamp adder. The conclusion is satisfying and makes it one of the best Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band is a classic entry in the Sherlock Holmes series. The story begins with the death of a twin sister, Julia. Helen Stoner seeks help from Sherlock Holmes and Watson to solve the mystery. Her dead twin sister, Julia, was murdered in a mysterious fashion. Her family believes that Dr. Roylott may be the killer.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Thomas Hardy reflects the moral philosophy of the Sherlock Holmes stories. It highlights the triumph of good over evil. While the characters aren't a nuanced mix, they ultimately triumph over the evil Dr. Roylott. Doyle's philosophy suggests that justice is the natural condition of human life and that good will prevail in the end.

The Nine-Dragon Sigil

A deadly Peking plot has Sherlock Holmes on a mission to foil. In order to stop the evil plan, he must use his skills and expertise to uncover the truth about an ancient Chinese relic. But before Holmes can save the day, he must stop a ruthless peking spy first.

Sherlock Holmes and the Nine-Dragon Sigil is available in a variety of formats, including print and ebook formats. You can pick up a copy of this classic at any good bookstore. If you're more technologically savvy, you can read this book on your tablet or phone by downloading it in Kindle, Kobo, or Nook format. Apple iBooks also has a digital version of the book.

As a fan of the Sherlock Holmes series, you'll want to pick up this book if you enjoy the adventures of the eponymous detective. There are three books in the series so far, and you'll probably want to read them all! The book also features an interview with Sherlock Holmes himself. The interview is part of a larger project that aims to highlight Holmes' skills.

The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes traces the adventures of the famous detective, including his adventures in India and Tibet. It also details his time as the famous Norwegian explorer Sigerson, as well as his adventures in Japan. A big challenge in hiatus novels is the absence of Watson, so the obvious solution is to find a local substitute - a local doctor or detective. The Japanese physician in The Curious Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan, meanwhile, provides the narrator, a local man who helps him solve the mystery.

Deadline is approaching?

Wait no more. Let us write you an essay from scratch

Related Essays

Related topics.

Find Out the Cost of Your Paper

Type your email

By clicking “Submit”, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy policy. Sometimes you will receive account related emails.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Review of Porter, ed. Sherlock Holmes for the 21st Century: Essays on New Adaptations

Related Papers

Conversations a Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities Social Sciences and Theology

Krystal Fogle

Peer Reviewed Proceedings of the 5th Annual Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ) Conference: 65-75. ISBN: 978-0-473-41892-2

Rachel Franks

Sherlock Holmes is arguably the world's most famous fictional detective. Similarly, the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to share the pages with his consulting detective are some of the most recognized names within the crime fiction canon. This article explores the most important men in the life of Sherlock Holmes with particular focus on his loyal friend Dr John Watson and his archenemy Professor James Moriaty. These novels and short stories are regularly adapted with numerous stage, radio, film and television versions made since the mid-1890s. Some adaptations have been faithful to the original texts while others have pushed various creative boundaries. Of special interest for this article is the CBS television production Elementary (2012-present) which re-imagines the most important men in the life of Sherlock Holmes as women with the central narratives of the original works reconstructed to facilitate Dr Joan Watson and Ms Jamie Moriaty.

The BBC’s Sherlock has undoubtedly had a powerful impact on its fans, who transform what is already an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s literature into fanart and fanfiction. Although this high level of fan involvement is unprecedented in the age of the Internet, it is far from new. Since as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, scholars have written about the “Sherlockian game,” describing fans’ attempts to resolve the missing pieces of Conan Doyle’s literature by pretending that the Sherlock Holmes characters were actually real individuals. This paper will draw upon early essays on the “Sherlockian game,” ranging from the more obscure Arthur Bartlett Maurice and Frank Sidgwick, who introduced the concept in 1902, to the theorist who popularized the concept in the UK in 1911, Ronald Knox, and the one who brought it to America, Christopher Morley. However, since most of the scholarship on the Sherlock canon and the BBC’s Sherlock concentrates on the audience’s reception and artistic contributions to the series, my paper will shift the focus to how the show itself participates in promoting its fan culture. Sherlock’s writers, Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss, are hyper-aware of the fan culture that surrounds their show. In a 2013 BAFTA interview, Moffatt comments on the “Johnlock ship,” suggesting that it is mostly an object of the fans’ projection and imagination. However, Moffatt and Gatiss are long-term fans of the Sherlock Holmes franchise themselves, referring to their adaptation as a work of “fan-fiction” in its own right. Their show both explicitly refers to and playfully denies any romantic relationship between Sherlock and Watson. The writers even insert a character into the series that represents a contemporary fangirl. Furthermore, the series displays metafictional qualities as Watson constantly blurs the boundaries between the show and its audience with his refrain, “people might talk.” These not-so-subtle hints have led Sherlock fans to compile video evidence for the show’s perpetuation of homoerotic relationships, or as Tumblr users call it, “ships.” This paper will use Wimsatt Jr. and Beardsley’s theory of “intentional fallacy” to suggest a critical approach towards the denial that Moffatt and Gatiss display about the show’s participation in feeding its fandom’s desires for homoeroticism. Conversely, I will argue that the BBC’s Sherlock may be read as a text that encourages its fans to see the characters in romantic relationships with its explicit references to fan culture and the fans’ interests in homoeroticism. Following Walter Benjamin’s notion of an artwork’s “aura,” I will argue that the BBC’s Sherlock is aware of itself as an inauthentic adaptation and uses this self-awareness to market itself towards its particular fan culture. Thus, my paper will ultimately focus on the BBC’s Sherlock’s metafictional awareness of itself as situated within a larger context of the Sherlock canon, including Conan Doyle’s original literary texts, their numerous adaptations, and the vibrant fan culture that begun as early as the Sherlock publications and has flourished with the advent of the internet.

Transformative Works and Cultures

Kate M. Donley

Sherlockian scholarship is a display of intellect, wit, and canonical expertise that requires a cunning manipulation of a story world and of nonfiction. This playful style of writing defies easy classification in the terminology of fan and literary studies. Emerging in the early 20th century, Sherlockian scholarship had a tremendous surge in popularity in the late 1920s and early '30s in articles by renowned British and American authors, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Christopher Morley, Sir Desmond MacCarthy, Sir Sydney Castle Roberts, and Ronald A. Knox. The sustained popularity of Sherlockian scholarship owes much to these initial players, whose sparkling prose conjures a bygone era of repartee. In this study, I present a chronological survey of two early periods in Sherlockian scholarship to understand its poetics, popularity, generic identity, and contemporary relevance.

Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews

Alexey Melikhov

Tom Ue, FRHistS

Victorian Studies 63.2 (2021): 303-05. Print.

Adaptations

Stephen Greer

This essay considers the representation of sexuality and male intimacy in Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ BBC series Sherlock. Noting an emphasis on visibility as a paradigm for the televisual depiction of non-heterosexual identities, I read Moffat and Gatiss’ adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in respect of a late Victorian epistemology of knowledge centred on what can be ‘seen’ alongside Eve Sedgwick’s account of the homosocial as a space in which relations between men remain heavily freighted. In doing so, I argue that the broadly post-homophobic cultural space imagined within Sherlock presents new questions for the depiction and reception of same-sex desire and relationships between men.

Re-examining Arthur Conan Doyle

Benoit Guilielmo

A discussion of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ history of reception. This paper gives a general overview of a collection of articles, published by literary journalists in intellectual weeklies, which gave birth to the Sherlockian movement at the end of the 1920s and early 1930s. That historical sequence can be considered as its Golden Age (1927-34). Amusement, acumen, and the joy to explore literary puzzles were the main components of the early studies on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The higher criticism of the Sherlock Holmes stories, scrutinizing every detail of the text with methods borrowed from literary and textual criticism gave birth to a unique and vivid scholarship. Sources: http://earlysherlockiana.blogspot.com Printed version in Clausson, N. (ed.), Re-examining Arthur Conan Doyle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tye, 2021, pp. 141-161.

Arthur Conan Doyle

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920

The Oxford Sherlock Holmes: A Review Essay

• Edward S. Lauterbach
• Volume 37, Number 4, 1994
• pp. 502-508
• View Citation

Additional Information

• Buy Article for $10.00 (USD)

• Buy Digital Article for $10.00 (USD)

Project MUSE Mission

Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves.

2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

+1 (410) 516-6989 [email protected]

©2024 Project MUSE. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries.

Now and Always, The Trusted Content Your Research Requires

Built on the Johns Hopkins University Campus

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The Sherlock Holmes Handbook - review

My name is Sherlock Homes. It is my business to know what other people don't know." -- Sherlock Homes in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (1892)

Are you Sherlocked? Do you wish to hone your thinking and observational skills to meet the high standard set by Sherlock Holmes? Maybe you want to learn how to better deal with friends and relations? Or, having tried that, maybe you now wish to learn how to disguise yourself or to fake your own death? Or perhaps you just want to learn how to crack your employer's safe? If so, you'll like Ransom Riggs' book, The Sherlock Holmes Handbook: Methods and Mysteries of the World's Greatest Detective [Quirk Books: 2009; Amazon UK ; Amazon US / kindle US ].

Divided into three parts -- detective skills, survival skills and life skills -- this small hardcover is comprised of a series of short articles about very specifically-defined topics that were described in one or more of the stories about the mythical consulting detective. It's actually written much like a published collection of blog essays -- which should not be a surprise, considering that the author was a "blogger" and regular contributor to mental_floss magazine at the time this book was written and published.

Described by the author as an "irreference" -- an "irreverent reference" or a collection of "real information that also entertains or amuses" -- this amusing book is actually educational, too. For example, I never knew the difference between Webley and pepperbox revolvers, although now I could easily identify them both. Also explained are valuable skills, such as how to outwit a criminal mastermind, how to locate a secret chamber and how to survive a plunge over a waterfall.

As you gain a more complete Holmesian education, you will also learn details of minuteæ‎ associated with the world's favourite detective, such as; did Holmes ever smile, chuckle or laugh? What was Holmes' philosophy for managing children? Why did Holmes never marry? Did Holmes often exclaim, "Elementary, my dear Watson!" Even more important, you will even learn how to raise honeybees! Well, you'll gain a passing familiarity with how Holmes raised his "little winged gangs" ...

The book includes some artwork by Eugene Smith, such as drawings of the aforementioned revolvers as well as a number of other useful black-and-white sketches. (The drawings of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were less inspired.) There are several appendices; one briefly presents the life and times of Sherlock Holmes creator and author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; another is a short a collection of the wit and wisdom of Sherlock Holmes, and of course, there's a complete Sherlock Holmes Canon.

This book will be enjoyed by Holmes fans of all ages -- although libraries may wish to avoid it since the subject makes it irresistible to fans and its small size may sorely tempt otherwise law-abiding patrons. This book fits nicely into a coat pocket, purse or into one hand and the short essays make it ideal for reading on public transit or whilst perched atop the porcelain throne.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

Ransom Riggs grew up in Florida, where he spent his formative years making silly movies with his friends in their various backyards, snorkeling, and complaining about the heat. He studied English at Kenyon College and film at the University of Southern California . A lifelong Holmes aficionado, Ransom Riggs is also a regular contributor to mental_floss magazine and collegehumor.com . He makes films you can watch on his YouTube page . (Although it's not at all connected to this book, I recommend watching this moving video .) He has a twitter account @ RansomRiggs . He is married. He has a cat. He lives in Los Angeles. He enjoys traveling to exotic lands and complaining about the heat.

GrrlScientist can also be found here: Maniraptora . She's very active on twitter @ GrrlScientist and sometimes lurks on social media: facebook , G+ , LinkedIn , and Pinterest .

• GrrlScientist
• Children and teenagers

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

• Non-Fiction
• Author’s Corner
• Reader’s Corner
• Writing Guide
• Book Marketing Services
• Write for us

Book Review

Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Author:  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Series:   Sherlock Holmes: Book 3

Publisher: George Newnes

Genre:  Crime, Mystery, Detective Fiction

First Publication: 1892

Language:  English

Major Characters:  Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler

Setting Place:  late 19th century London

Narration:  First person

Preceded by: The Sign of the Four

Followed by: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including ‘The Red-Headed League’, ‘The Blue Carbuncle’, and ‘The Speckled Band’. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed his own realism and feminism by having the great detective defeated by Irene Adler – the woman – in the very first story, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collects the first twelve Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in The Strand magazine throughout 1891-1892. The first story in the collection, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” is the story that made Holmes and his creator a household name.

What this collection offers is a great look into the character of Holmes as a master of solving what seems to be the unsolvable: puzzling crimes, murders, mistaken identities and generally mysterious circumstances. Doyle really sets the bar and precedent for the detective genre with Holmes as his lead. Many mysteries in contemporary film and book have been influenced in some manner by Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

“As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.”

Some of the highlights in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle:

In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Sherlock Holmes employs disguises in attempts to find a photograph that could ruin the potential marriage of the King of Bohemia. This story has a light mood and it is enjoyable to see Holmes battle wits with Irene Adler.

“The Boscombe Valley Mystery” has Holmes trying to prove the innocence of James McCarthy, whose father was found dead under odd circumstances. Holmes goes to Hatherly Farm, the scene of the murder, to investigate.

“The Man with the Twisted Lip”—Holmes and Watson try to discover the whereabouts of Neville St. Clair, who has disappeared without a trace after last being seen in, of all places, an opium den. Many signs point to a mysterious and deformed beggar as the lead culprit. Holmes’ investigation takes them into the dangerous East End opium den.

“It’s a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.”

I enjoyed “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” the most. It is a closed-room mystery at hand for Holmes to solve, as one woman’s sister dies under the most unusual and remarkable circumstances. With seemingly no explanation for the murder and no real clue as to a suspect, Holmes and Watson go to the room where the murder happened. The suspense and tension in the dark room towards the conclusion was top notch.

Also included: “The Red-Headed League”, “A Case of Identity”, “The Five Orange Pips”, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”, “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”, “The Adventure of Beryl Coronet”, and “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.”

Holmes’ methods of deducing are almost always fascinating and entertaining. He is an astute and keen observer of human behavior, and pays attention to every detail in his surroundings. Watson makes for a great sidekick and ally to Sherlock Holmes, and his narration really makes these stories tick and work in a way that would be much less effective with an outside narrator.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle is a wonderful collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, some of the most popular out there. A collection like this is the best way to start reading Holmes. Sherlock Holmes’ fans will want to also check out A Study in Scarlet as well as The Hound of the Baskervilles, full length novels.

Recent Articles

The three-body problem by liu cixin, why books are better than movies, how to transform your commute into “reading” time, knowing who i am by a g allen, fred calvert, related posts:, leave a reply cancel reply, stay on top - get the daily news in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.

To be updated with all the latest news, offers and special announcements.

Recent Posts

Dissonance, volume i: reality by aaron ryan, maestro maestro by fred calvert, the ideal entrepreneur by rahul agarwal, popular category.

• Book Review 629
• Reader's Corner 410
• Author's Corner 182
• Author Interview 176
• Book List 111
• Mystery Thriller 96
• Historical Fiction 80

The Bookish Elf is your single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of literary life. The Bookish Elf is a site you can rely on for book reviews, author interviews, book recommendations, and all things books.

Contact us: [email protected]

Sherlock Holmes Essays

The well-known Sherlock Holmes was a detective character in a series of stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. All the stories go into great detail about life during the Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The specific stories I have been studying are titled ‘The Speckled Band’, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, and ‘The Copper Beeches’.

All of these stories have common themes and ideas which I will be discussing in my essay. One theme which is explored in all three stories is the idea of class. Sherlock Holmes often takes on cases which involve members of the upper class, such as in ‘The Speckled Band’, where an upper class woman approaches him for help.

The stories also often feature crime, and the various motivations for why people commit crimes. In ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, the criminal is driven by poverty, whereas in ‘The Speckled Band’, the criminal is driven by greed.

All three stories also feature detectives, both professional and amateur. Sherlock Holmes is the professional detective in all three stories, and uses his skills of deduction to solve the cases. In ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, Neville St Clair is the amateur detective, who uses his knowledge of human nature to help solve the case.

In all of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Sherlock and Watson have play different roles. Usually, Sherlock is more intelligent and able to put together clues faster than we mere mortals can; he’s also quite mysterious and you never know what he’s going to do next. However, even though Watson is less intuitive than Sherlock, his role in the story is still important because he represents us normal folk who wouldn’t be able to connect all the dots like our great detective friend.

Another big difference between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson is that Doctor Watson is always getting himself into trouble and Sherlock Holmes always has to save him.

For example in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, Doctor Watson nearly gets himself killed a few times if it wasn’t for Sherlock Holmes he would have been dead.

This story is also a good example of how Sherlock Holmes is more intelligent than Doctor Watson he works out what is going on a lot quicker than Doctor Watson does.

Even though Doctor Watson doesn’t always understand what is going on he still helps Sherlock Holmes solve the mystery.

I think that Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to make Doctor Watson more like us so we could understand the stories better.

Another difference between these two characters is that Sherlock Holmes never really shows his feelings but Doctor Watson does, for example in “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” when Miss Hatty Doran got married and ran off with another man, Doctor Watson showed his feelings by saying “I never saw a woman so completely carried away by love” but Sherlock Holmes didn’t really say anything he just kept on talking about the case.

I think that Arthur Conan Doyle wanted us to see that even though Sherlock Holmes is more intelligent than Doctor Watson, Doctor Watson is still a very important character in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Arthur Conan Doyle is splendid at characterization, as he painted personalities of his characters with words in great detail. For instance, “Carriage driver: ‘he is a man of immense strength and absolute uncontrolled anger…” This quote was taken from ‘The Speckled Band’ describing Dr. Roylott. I think the author gave us a general sense of what kind personification the character has without delving too much into it so we can have a better understanding before going more in-depth about them later on.

Sherlock Holmes is the main character in the book and he is a very interesting character, he is what you would call a ‘high functioning sociopath’. He doesn’t seem to feel emotions like other people do and this makes him very good at his job, which is solving crimes. He is also extremely intelligent and can deduce things that other people wouldn’t be able to.

One of the things that I really like about Sherlock Holmes is that even though he isn’t a very emotional person, he does have a sense of justice and he will always try to help people who are in need.

For example, each story starts with an introduction that gets to the core of the plot. This is followed by development, where the story progresses and Sherlock narrows down his list of suspects. Finally, there is the denouement in which the crime is solved and everyone gets their just desserts. I think that how a story is structured can make or break it because some people might like knowing how it will end while others may not want to know that crimes always get solved in these stories.

The stories of Sherlock Holmes are all very similar in structure. They all start with an introduction, followed by the development of the story, and then the denouement where the crime is solved. This makes them very predictable, but some people may enjoy knowing that the crime will always be solved in the end.

What really makes or breaks these stories is the characters. Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant detective, and his sidekick Watson is always there to help him solve the case. The two of them have a great rapport, and their adventures are always interesting to read about.

If you’re looking for a good mystery story, then you can’t go wrong with Sherlock Holmes. With intriguing characters and exciting plots, these stories are sure to keep you entertained.

Descriptive writing allows the reader to see what the place, people, or object is like. For example, in “The Speckled Band,” one quote describing the house they are approaching says it was of gray stone with curling wings looking like claws of a crab. This particular description is great because not only can readers visualize what the house looks like, but also feel trapped–giving them a sense of how aggressive it may be.

Another example of description from the same story is “the window was closed and barred by heavy wooden shutters,” This again is another way of showing that the house looks aggressive because it has bars on the windows.

More Essays

• Sherlock Holmes Research Paper
• Sherlock Holme Analysis Essay
• Essay about The Adventure Of The Speckled Band Character Analysis
• The Adventure Of The Speckled Band Essay
• Holmes Vs Burnham Analysis Essay
• Detective Fiction Conventions Essay
• Dr Faustus Essays
• Jean Watson Letter Home To Keep Away Analysis Essay
• Nat Turner Essays
• Essays On The Necklace By Guy De Maupassant

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Bookreader item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

2 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

In collections.

Uploaded by RobertBedrosian on December 11, 2023

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

Review – The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Introduction to the memoirs of sherlock holmes, sir arthur conan doyle studied medicine at edinburg university. but had far more success as a writer than he did as a physician. doyle modeled his character sherlock holmes after his professor joseph bell who emphasized to his students the importance of careful observation. and drawing conclusions based on very little evidence..

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a collection of 11 short stories, each about 20 pages in length, which were first published monthly in the Strand magazine from 1891 to 1893.

Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. Watson is his biographer, who captures the detective’s life story through the cases that he has worked on. And the best way Watson does that is by accompanying Holmes while he solves his cases. So the stories are told through the eyes of Watson.

Continuous learning is a part of life. If you’re not a reader, you can find a synopsis of many books from Readitforme that you can listen to. Click the link to join. This is a great way to learn the latest thinking on many topics. And it is a great way to learn which books to buy and devour.

Have you read?

The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Book Review

Looking for Creative Problem Solving Scenarios? Read More Mysteries

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: 11 Stories

• Silver Blaze
• The Yellow Face
• The Stockbroker’s Clerk
• The Gloria Scott
• The Musgrave Ritual
• The Reigate Squires
• The Crooked Man
• The Resident Patient
• The Greek Interpreter
• The Naval Treaty
• The Final Problem

I found that I enjoyed the short stories where Sherlock Holmes was assigned a case and worked on it in the here-and-now far more than the cases that Watson reflected on – that’s my bias, because I have never liked flashbacks as a literary device, I prefer when stories are told in chronological order.

I got caught up in a few of the stories and found myself very upset with the characters in the story as it unfolded. For instance, in The Naval Treaty , Percy Phelps ’ uncle, Lord Holdhurst asks him to copy and keep secure a confidential naval treaty because it would be problematic if it gets into the wrong hands prematurely.

Holdhurst tells him that he should not begin copying the document until everyone has already left for the day. Phelps complies, but the copying of the document is taking a lot longer that he anticipated and he is now feeling very tired and sleepy so he decides to get some tea to stay awake.

Because he is alone in the building, he leaves the documents unattended on the desk to go in search of tea in another part of the building. When he returns, the naval treaty document is missing. I am so much into the story that I was asking,

“How stupid could you be? It doesn’t matter if you think you are alone, if you have to leave, secure the document first since it’s so important.”

I may have been a bit harsh with the character, but I had little tolerance for his stupidity. But it was quite clever how Holmes solved the mystery to show who stole the naval treaty and why.

In The Final Problem , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kills off the Sherlock Holmes character , and I thought it was quite odd the way in which he did it. I know that each short story stands alone, but the author introduces the character Professor Moriarty . Moriarty is very evil, a criminal mastermind, and Holmes thinks that if he gathers enough evidence to get him arrested for life he could retire a happy and accomplished man.

The issue is that Moriarty is just as intelligent as Holmes and their deductive reasoning abilities are on par. The question I had is if this character was so evil, and just as smart as Holmes, why wasn’t he in some of the other stories included in the book?

I have read many Sherlock Holmes stories but that was years ago and I cannot remember if Professor Moriarty was in any of them. Perhaps I am going too deep into the book, but I think, at the very least, there should have been at least one other story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes where both characters went head-to-head.

In most murder mysteries and detective stories, the authors provide clues in the story and readers discover the evidence the same time the detective discovers them so you have a great chance at foreshadowing, but in this instance, Holmes tells you what he sees as he uncovers the mystery, but Doyle doesn’t necessarily provide clues for you to make your own deductions.

However, even though you will not learn about problem solving from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes , you will learn about the art of reasoning. Holmes recognizes, and rightly so, that he will never have all the information he needs to solve a case. There will always be information gaps. The way he gets around that is to think things through carefully, and he often gains clarity about a situation by explaining it to another person.

That’s an important way for anyone to learn. And because Holmes is an astute observer, he sees many things that others don’t, and there are many instances in the book where his power of observation makes good teaching points for the reader.

Another good teaching point from the book is that Holmes is an active listener, and he knows the right questions to ask because of that. If something is not clear to him, he asks for clarification. These are good skills for any professional to possess.

And one of the things I really liked about the book was that, not all the stories were resolved in a complete manner where all the loose ends were tied up, because in real life, not all cases are solved completely. You have cold cases that are never solved, and you have partially solved cases.

If you need help and would like a program that’s already set-up to help you read more books, Join MoreReads: Blueprint to Change the World, click the link to buy .

Final thoughts on the memoirs of sherlock holmes.

The picture is of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty fighting to the bitter end via Wikipedia.

Related articles

• The Final Problem: A Review (smlaarg.wordpress.com)

About the Author  Avil Beckford

Hello there! I am Avil Beckford, the founder of The Invisible Mentor. I am also a published author, writer, expert interviewer host of The One Problem Podcast and MoreReads Success Blueprint, a movement to help participants learn in-demand skills for future jobs. Sign-up for MoreReads: Blueprint to Change the World today! In the meantime, Please support me by buying my e-books Visit My Shop , and thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter and Pinterest !

Enjoyed this article?

Find more great content here:

Teach Yourself How to Learn By Saundra Yancy McGuire, Summary

The hobbit by jrr tolkien, book summary, our iceberg is melting by john p. kotter and holger rathgeber, summary.

A Case Of Identity

28 pages • 56 minutes read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

Summary: “a case of identity”.

“A Case of Identity,” published in September 1891, is the fifth episode in the series of four novels and 56 short stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It follows the first two novel-length Holmes tales, A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of Four (1890), as well as the shorter stories “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Red-Headed League,” both of which appeared earlier that same year in The Strand magazine. This study guide cites the first volume of the 2003 Barnes & Noble edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes .

The story begins inside Sherlock Holmes’s apartment on Baker Street, as Holmes converses with his longtime friend and (until recently) roommate, Dr. John Watson . It is the heyday of Holmes’s career as a consulting detective, and the two are discussing some of Holmes’s favorite subjects: criminal psychology and inductive analysis (though Holmes calls it deduction ). As Holmes explains to Watson, the more complicated and interesting crimes are usually the smaller-scale, seemingly insignificant, everyday incidents that escape the public’s notice: “The bigger the crime,” Holmes says, “the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive” (226). Watson, not fully convinced, listens as his friend expounds upon the central importance of tending to unimportant or otherwise overlooked details for the key to a mystery since, as Holmes understands it, “there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace” (225).

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

• 7,400+ In-Depth Study Guides
• 4,900+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
• Downloadable PDFs

In the middle of their conversation, the two friends are visited by a fidgety young woman named Mary Sutherland , who approaches Holmes with a request for his help in a missing person case. Holmes quickly puts his intelligence on display by voicing observations about Miss Sutherland’s eyesight, occupation, and haste in coming to Baker Street; from observation alone, he knows she is a typist, and he knows she has shortsightedness. Miss Sutherland is perturbed by his uncanny insight, but he brushes it off, and the two launch into a lengthy conversation about the case at hand.

Miss Sutherland explains to Holmes that her stepfather, Mr. James Windibank, disapproved of her seeking out help, but as she is so desperate to find the missing person—Mr. Hosmer Angel—she came alone to Baker Street anyway. Holmes questions Miss Sutherland about her family and income, learning that Windibank, shortly after marrying Mary’s mother, insisted the family business be sold and took to managing both mother’s and daughter’s finances. To avoid being a burden to the family, Miss Sutherland works as a typist.

The SuperSummary difference

• 8x more resources than SparkNotes and CliffsNotes combined
• Study Guides you won ' t find anywhere else
• 100+ new titles every month

The conversation shifts to information about Hosmer Angel, whom Miss Sutherland met at a ball she attended against the wishes of her stepfather, who was supposed to be on a business trip to France. She and Angel formed a romantic relationship, and, even after Windibank’s return, they maintained a correspondence (handwritten on Miss Sutherland’s part, mailed to an obscure address, and typed documents from Angel). Angel, Miss Sutherland explains, was a soft-spoken, shy gentleman whose ophthalmic sensitivity inclined him to wearing sunglasses and coming out only at night.

Once Windibank had again left for France, Angel approached Miss Sutherland with a marriage proposal, which she accepted. However, on the day of the wedding and before the ceremony—and after a troubling conversation with Miss Sutherland in which he made her swear unconditional fidelity to their union—Angel vanished. Now, with no news from her fiancé and no means of finding him, the heartbroken Miss Sutherland concludes her account, able to provide only a few answers to Holmes’s questions. Before departing Baker Street, she leaves some items with Holmes: samples of Angel’s typed letters and the newspaper advertisement she wrote for the missing man.

Holmes and Watson, once more alone in the apartment, comment on the woman and her situation, and Holmes encourages Watson to attempt his own inductive observations. When Watson’s observations are inferior to Holmes’s, Holmes reveals how he discerned information from Miss Sutherland’s appearance: He knew she was a typist because her sleeves had a crease in them, caused by the edge of a table while she typed; and he knew she was nearsighted because she had small marks on her nose where eyeglasses must have pressed. He remarks that “all this is amusing, though rather elementary” (233). After inspecting the newspaper advertisement and Angel’s typed letters, Watson leaves Baker Street for the night, confident from their past experiences that Holmes will solve the mystery.

The following evening, Watson returns to find Holmes half asleep and distracted with a chemistry experiment. As Watson mentions the Sutherland case, another visitor appears at the apartment—this time James Windibank, Miss Sutherland’s stepfather.

Windibank, petitioned by Holmes to visit for a chat, apologizes to the consulting detective for his stepdaughter’s impulsiveness in asking for help in an impossible case. However, Holmes counters this by telling Windibank that in fact Angel will soon be found; and after a brief speech about the peculiarities of individual typewriter print, Holmes reaches for the door and locks the three of them inside, declaring he has caught the culprit.

Holmes then announces that Angel was in fact Windibank in disguise all along, an alter ego contrived to prevent Miss Sutherland from marrying and thus to keep her money in the family. Holmes points out the tell-tale clues: the similar irregularities in typed letter characters between Angel’s and Windibank’s letters, the two men’s matching descriptions (devoid of the disguise elements), the fact that neither was present at the same time as the other, and so on. Although there’s no legal recourse in such circumstances, Holmes expresses bitter disdain for Windibank and even reaches for a whip to lash out with, which sends the offender dashing from the apartment.

Holmes laughs and fills in for Watson the rest of the details. When Watson inquires after what will become of Miss Sutherland, Holmes declares it is best not to tell her—as he supposes she would never believe the truth anyway—and leave the situation to unravel on its own.

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Related Titles

By Arthur Conan Doyle

A Scandal in Bohemia

Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study in Scarlet

His Last Bow

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Lost World

The Sign of the Four

The Valley of Fear

Featured Collections

Books on Justice & Injustice

View Collection

Good & Evil

Popular Study Guides

Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson have captivated audiences for generations. This collection of twelve short stories is fantastic. From stolen jewels to mysterious circumstances and brilliant crimes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has it all. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is full of mesmerizing deductions and wonderful short adventures. I highly recommend this collection of short stories for every Sherlock Holmes fan and anyone searching for great mystery novels or short stories.

Stray Thoughts

A home for the stray thoughts of an ordinary christian woman.

Book Review: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

This book is a series of short stories that appeared first in a magazine called The Strand over 1903-1904. Holmes’s clients vary from a governess to the prime minister, and the cases include a missing heir, a stalker, a blackmailer, and crust ship’s captain, busted busts of Napoleon, a student cheating on an exam, a missing rugby player, a false testimony, and a stolen document which could lead to war if not found. Quite a variety! Watson says “As I have preserved very full notes of all these cases, and was myself personally engaged in many of them, it may be imagined that it is no easy task to know which I should select to lay before the public. I shall, however, preserve my former rule, and give the preference to those cases which derive their interest not so much from the brutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic quality of the solution.” Holmes accuses Watson once of sensationalism: “Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy, in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.”  When asked why Holmes doesn’t write them himself, he replies that one day he will in textbook form.

Holmes’s personality continues to unfold in these stories. Here are a few of Watson’s comments:

“My friend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet, without a harshness which was foreign to his nature, it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who presented herself at Baker Street late in the evening, and implored his assistance and advice.”

“Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his art’s sake, and, save in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I have seldom known him claim any large reward for his inestimable services. So unworldly was he—or so capricious—that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity.”

“Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous impulse, we both broke at clapping, as at the well-wrought crisis of a play. A flush of colour sprang to Holmes’s pale cheeks, and he bowed to us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his audience. It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depths by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.”

“My friend’s temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrapbooks, his chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man.”

“I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked, a peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily established terms of confidence with them. In half the time which he had named, he had captured the housekeeper’s goodwill and was chatting with her as if he had known her for years.”

“Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble witness at his ease.”

Some of what I have read concerning modern depictions of Holmes seem to cast him as socially awkward, even rude, and perhaps having Asberger’s. I think these samples show that he was not socially awkward at all – he was described as being quite genial when he wanted to be, and he could carry on a conversation with anyone. But he preferred working alone or with Watson and one or two others – a classic introvert, in my opinion.

There were a few cases before now and a couple of cases here where Holmes decided justice was served, and he did not see a reason to report his findings to the police even when he was working with them. In one case he said, “No, I couldn’t do it, Watson…Once that warrant was made out, nothing on earth would save him. Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. Let us know a little more before we act.” I wouldn’t advocate that in real life, but it did make sense in the context of the story.

At the end of this book Holmes was said to have retired, and only allowed Watson to tell a few of the stories long after they occurred. Since there are three more books about him, however, either he didn’t retire, or those stories are more past cases.

Once again I listened to the audiobook version superbly narrated by Derek Jacob i. In my journey through the Holmes books, I look for versions read by Jacobi now. I also looked at some portions in closer detail in the online version of the book provided by Project Gutenberg .

(This will also be linked to  Semicolon ‘s Saturday Review of Books. )

Share this:

4 thoughts on “ book review: the return of sherlock holmes ”.

My boys loved Serlock Holmes! We watched all the shows and they reread the books multiple times.

Someday I need to read all the Sherlock Holmes tales. I read a few as a teen but don’t really remember them. Daniel and I have been watching the BBC show and it’d be fun to go back and see how the cases parallel one another (or don’t).

Pingback: Books Read in 2014 | Stray Thoughts

Pingback: Book Review: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes | Stray Thoughts

I love hearing from you. Leave comments here, and they will appear after I see and approve them. If you have trouble commenting, please let me know at my email address in the sidebar. Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar