The Horror of the Heights: & Other Tales of Suspense

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Best known as the creator of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle also wrote thrilling tales of the supernatural and the corruption of technology. His sharp wit and chillingly detailed writing are at their peak in this diverse collection of adventures, ranging from the cunning escapades of a wartime strategist extraordinaire in "Danger!" to the gripping story of one explorer's fatal journey into the skies in "The Horror of the Heights."

Every reader who accepts Conan Doyle's invitation to "come through the magic door" discovers a world in which the senses are a thin veneer over an unsettling psychological and spiritual realm, a realm in which possibilities have no limits. This volume presents fourteen forgotten masterpieces by one of last century's most popular writers.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Mystery, Classics, Adventure

26 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 1992

About the author

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.

Doyle was a prolific writer. In addition to the Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger, and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the brigantine Mary Celeste, found drifting at sea with no crew member aboard.

Reviews

[Paul Weiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

The joys of discovering Arthur Conan Doyle's varied and talented offerings beyond Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've enjoyed the variety of Arthur Conan Doyle's work, his classic Sherlock Holmes stories, his historical adventures (Sir Nigel and the White Company) and his Sci-Fi (Professor Challenger). The Horror of the Heights and Other Tales of Suspense is another opportunity to see what Doyle could do, a collection of short stories featuring supernatural themes.

The one constant about Doyle's writing is his ability to present a story, his clearness of writing, his interesting characters and his story-telling. Short stories especially require a different quality in a writer (in my opinion anyway), the ability to grab your attention quickly, to get into the gist of a story and finish it off satisfactorily. Doyle definitely can do that.

The book contains 14 short stories, all excellent and entertaining. Some are creepy, starting with the first, The horror of the Heights (what sort of beings / creatures live above the clouds?), transference of spirits between bodies, spell casting like in The Winning Shot. There are some very suspenseful stories like Our Midnight Visitor, as a visitor travels to a small Scottish island with creepy results. Doyle explored the supernatural a great deal in his life and these explorations do feature in these stories; the seeing of spirits of loved ones, the hunting for a ghost to haunt a mansion, etc.

All in all, the stories were all entertaining and most enjoyable. Nothing really terrifying but a creepiness pervades in many of the stories. Well worth exploring this genre of Doyle's writing. (4.0 stars)

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doyle was very good at setting the scene with concise, descriptive writing. The stories in this collection did not startle or surprise, but there were moments when I really felt like I was inside of them. For example, the description (in a story whose title escapes me at the moment) of a supernatural creature manifesting inside of a small, darkened room is magnificent.

I re-read the introduction, written by a third party academic, who concludes by saying that if these stories seem typical, it is because they are the original archetypes that others have since drawn from. Probably, he is correct; still, Doyle creates an atmosphere that is more clinical than exciting, more reportage than story-telling, keeping the fantastic things that he describes at a remove that is just far enough to leave you room to take a breath and look elsewhere.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

All-in-all, a good read. Some stories grew tiresome and never really paid off, but there were a couple in there that gave me the willies! So if you looking for a mild scare or a well developed scary story, I say give some of these a try.

[Shalini Gunnasan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most stories were great. I'd read many of them before, but some were new. They were not all interesting, I had skipped the one about the submarines as it had bored me terribly. Still engaging on the whole.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not what I was expecting from the writer of Sherlock Holmes. Very strange and very interesting very ethereal.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about a notebook detailing the height record for single-person planes.

Uses imagery vividly, is a great concept for a story and worked well over such a short number of pages.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of SciFi & Fantasy stories by a master story teller, best known for his Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

[Mehedi Sarwar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant short story collection of horror and supernatural genre written by Sur Arthur Conan Doyle who is more famous for his Sherlock Homes stories. First of all, Doyle’s writing is impecable, always ahead of time. In this Collection he explored 14 different themes in 14 well crafted stories. In some stories the horror is realistic horror of facing monsters, in other stories things are more supernatural such as possession of soul, vision into future or unknown past or Egyptian mummy’s coming into life. Very atmospheric and fun.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird Tales by the author of Sherlock Holmes

A fine collection of strange stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Ranging from science fiction to gothic horror. The title story is an early example of science fiction that concerns the disappearance of pilots and what is causing these disappearances. Another tale involves a mummy that predates the Universal Studios franchise by several years. These two were the most memorable off the book but all were quite readable. Doyle was obsessed with spiritism following his son,s death at the Battle of Loos in 1915.

[Frank McAdam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of Victorian horror stories. Doyle was an imaginative writer and deserves to be known for more than his Sherlock Holmes stories. The weakest stories in the present collection are the first two, "The Captain of the Pole Star" and "John Barrington Cowles," because they are only suggestive and tantalize the reader's expectations without satisfying them. Probably the best stories are "Lot No. 249" and "The Brazilian Cat," but the most interesting is "Playing with Fire" insofar as it reveals the depth of Doyle's obsessive interest in spiritualism.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not really scary at all. Just creepy.

[Gael]

Paused after 80 pages on 10/31/24. I plan to return to it at some point. I was reading it leading up to Halloween but decided to pause it until after my Christmas books.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real smorgasbord of stuff here: horror, ghost stories, comedy, straight espionage. "The Parasite" I found unintentionally funny, and "Danger!" was a rather tedious (and topical) bit of satire. The American in "The American's Tale" spoke like no American I've ever heard before (he sounded rather more Scottish). Speaking of which, the inclusion of several Scots dialect stories had me feeling a wee bit doon.

Probably the best story here was "Through the Veil"...only a few pages, but quite original (and a very vivid effect). Also the style of "The Winning Shot" was nicely modern and readable (reminding me in fact a little of "The Yellow Wallpaper"). It contrasted favorably with the thicket-like syntax of a lot of the other offerings here.

Oh yeah, and "Lot 249" was good too...another one of the items that (after the ancient fashion) purports to be somebody or other's narrative (or left-behind manuscript).

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but nothing amazing. Lots of old tropes with mixed success. The problem with old tropes is that while to modern readers they may be an interesting set up for a scary story, to Doyle they are the story in it's entirety. Take the great Keinplatz experiment for example. A professor and his student switch bodies, interesting set up we have seen a number of times, what happens next? Nothing. That is the whole story. If you had never heard such a story it might be a frightening concept but now it feels incomplete.

[Chad Anctil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read lots of Sherlock Holmes but hadn't tried any of Doyle's other works. I was introduced to 'The Horror of the Heights' during a recent Pseudopod podcast and it really blew me away. It's a great story from a bygone era that evokes a real sense of both wonder and horror! From an era where we really hadn't explored much of our natural world, the idea that terrible creatures could live in the extremes... I loved this story and want to find more like it...

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as Sherlock Holmes, and I wouldn't exactly call them "horror" stories, either. However, considering these were some of the first scary stories ever written, they probably were pretty horrific at the time of their publication. So props to you, Conan Doyle.

[H.M. Chambers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not your typical Doyle.....certainly not reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes....but if you like Doyle, you are in for a treat.

[Fishsanwitt]

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