I mostly liked these books. Given how old they are, they're not bad to read if you're willing to use a dictionary here or there for a word. My collection didn't include 'The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes', but I read it online for free, and I'm including it in my review. You can read or listen to them all for free, the copyrights gone, I think the copyright for the last Sherlock Holmes book still existed when my book set was made thats why the last book wasn't included in my collection but the copyrights expired now. 5 books are a collection of short stories('The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes', 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes', 'His Last Bow', and 'The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes') and 4 books are actual full size novels with chapters ('A Study in Scarlet', 'The Sign of the Four', 'The Hound Of the Baskervilles', and 'The Valley of Fear'), my collection combined the four full size novels into 2 books, 2 per book. I liked the short stories way more than the novels. It is easier to read and follow and satisfying to read a mystery quickly and easily, then take a break. The longer stories felt drawn out. I gotta say the first story of the collection or canon is 'A Study in Scarlet', and I absolutely HATED this book. It's the first book, and it sets up the meeting of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, but I just couldn't get through this. It's set up into 2 parts, part 1 is the murder mystery, part 2 is the backstory of the murder mystery or the people involved. It feels like two completely different stories, the second part not feeling like Sherlock Holmes at all. 'The Valley Of Fear' also does this but does it much better in my opinion. By the time I finished reading the second part I forgot the entire first part of the novel, which included Sherlock Holmes, Watson, and the murder. If you want to get into Sherlock Holmes I would read 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' first, I loved this book and hated the first official book. All the stories jump around different dates and times, so you don't have to read these "in order" really. There are big events kind of but the only books you really need to read first then second is 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes' and then 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' but the rest you can read in any order and I highly recommend reading the short stories first. 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes' was the best of all the books. Best mysteries, best characters, and the most satisfying endings (if you don't mind a cliffhanger -pun here-). Having read the complete series here's the good and the bad. I liked the stories involving murder and theft better than the rest of the stories. I hated the stories where the bad guys got away, this happens a lot, like a lot, and it totally feels like it's Sherlock's fault, he needs a police officer with him at all times just to simply keep an eye on the person who commits the crime or just to simply be there. When the criminals easily (very easily) get away I was super annoyed. I also hated Arther Conan Doyle's description of characters, He's very bad at describing character traits and appearances. Doyle's got like 2 or 3 different ideas for types of people, and that's it. All thin hawk like people that are quiet, or portly grizzled haired people quick to anger, and swarthy people, lots of grey eyed or black eyed swarthy peeps. I swear it's the same 3 people in the entire series of hundreds of characters. I loved the plots, they're great and hold up, sometimes you can solve it yourself, other times only Sherlock can solve it because he knows things the reader doesn't, which is fine with me if it's interesting. I was surprised how different the books are from the TV and movie adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. I thought Benedict Cumberbatch would be closest to Sherlock Holmes in the books but really Robert Downey Jr seems closer to the books both in manner and skills. Sherlock Holmes isn't cold and distant or mean, he's very kind and gentle, now he does do this to a degree to get his way but I never found him mean spirited or coarse, which is nice to not hate Sherlocks personality. Sherlock in the books has a strong moral compass. Sherlock can be a bit much and get on people's nerves but not too bad, more than willing to give the police the credit and help them even if he thinks they're slow or dimmer than him, like i said much kinder than he's been portrayed. John Watson is by far the most different in the books than he is in media, but I hate the Watson in the books, he's such a Sherlock Holmes fanboy. The John Watson that's tired of Sherlocks shit in the movies and TV shows are way better than the Watson in the books whose "astounded and amazed" every time Sherlock farts. Jude Law's and Martin Freeman's Watson's are far better than book Watson and more useful. Loved Mycroft and Moriarty, although you'll be surprised at the lack of Moriarty in the books. Moriarty is more of a behind the scenes presance than actual character, kind of like Sauron. I'm a fan of Sherlock in TV and movies and wanted to read the books. Are there better mystery novels? probably, but these are the first ones to do it. There wouldn't be a Hercule Poirot or Benoit Blanc without Sherlock Holmes so I take on the clunkiness easily with most of these books just like I do with some of the clunkiness of 'The Lord of the Rings', just as good and revolutionary as ever. In conclusion, i'm glad i read these. 'A Study in Scarlet' was dogshit though.