Although I had purchased it some years earlier, I actually read this adaptation of Doyle’s famous detective in High School, at which time the Jeremy Brett series of Holmes stories was running on PBS. I greatly enjoyed reading the stories, but always sort of viewed the television version as my “primary” access to the stories. The main thing I recall about reading the stories is giggling when Doyle wrote that “Holmes ejaculated” when he exclaimed – one of my first encounters with the way usage changes over time. That, and how fascinated I was by all the Freemasons one encounters in the stories; they were certainly more common at the time. Anyway, after my youthful reading, I put the book aside and never read any more Doyle, until recently, though I have watched re-runs of the show as well as many filmed adaptations of Holmes in the intervening years.
Today I am coming to see reading Sherlock Holmes as a pleasure I had forgotten about for many years, like a friend one has been out of touch with for much too long. I still enjoy my various visual adaptations, but there is something particularly warm and comforting about transporting to Baker Street by the original means. It may be many years before I finish languidly reading each one, turning over the words slowly in my mind, but I do enjoy the ride, and especially when a scene or turn of phrase reminds me of reading it all those years ago.