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The Original Illustrated 'Strand' Sherlock Holmes
ISBN 1853268968 (ISBN13: 9781853268960)
It is more than a century since the ascetic, gaunt and enigmatic detective, Sherlock Holmes, made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From 1891, beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the now legendary and pioneering Strand Magazine began serialising Arthur Conan Doyle's matchless tales of detection, featuring the incomparable sleuth patiently assisted by his doggedly loyal and lovably pedantic friend and companion, Dr Watson. The stories are illustrated by the remarkable Sydney Paget from whom our images of Sherlock Holmes and his world derive and who first equipped Holmes with his famous deerstalker hat. The literary cult of Sherlock Holmes shows no sign of fading with time as each new generation comes to love and revere the penetrating mind and ruthless logic which were the undoing of so many Victorian master criminals.
(back cover)
It is more than a century since the ascetic, gaunt and enigmatic detective, Sherlock Holmes, made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From 1891, beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the now legendary and pioneering Strand Magazine began serialising Arthur Conan Doyle's matchless tales of detection, featuring the incomparable sleuth patiently assisted by his doggedly loyal and lovably pedantic friend and companion, Dr Watson. The stories are illustrated by the remarkable Sydney Paget from whom our images of Sherlock Holmes and his world derive and who first equipped Holmes with his famous deerstalker hat. The literary cult of Sherlock Holmes shows no sign of fading with time as each new generation comes to love and revere the penetrating mind and ruthless logic which were the undoing of so many Victorian master criminals.
(back cover)
1126 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1996
2 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Conan Doyle
16k books24.5k followersSir 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 31, 2015
It will take some time to write a full review for the entire volume. For now, all I can say in short is that the stories are excellent for their time, as they are timeless and undoubtedly entertaining.
The quality of the book itself is impressive, with excellent paper, cover and art.
The quality of the book itself is impressive, with excellent paper, cover and art.
March 20, 2022
Conan Doyle is like Edgar Allan Poe. You love him. You want to read him. You just don’t want to read him all at once. I wanted to read this book over the course of a year or two, reading a couple of stories then putting it down for a while.
Unfortunately for me though, I had a library book.
The settings, mostly London, are well sketched and historically interesting. In some ways what the stories say about the place and the times are as interesting to me as the cases themselves.
Of course the stories are clever, and Conan Doyle must have been at least as clever as Holmes. It’s fun to watch them both work. The writing now is dated but lovable, especially the conversations.
The only two characters of any importance are Watson and Holmes. They are both introduced in the first few paragraphs of the first story, a short novella called A Study in Scarlet, and as we meet them is how they remain. There is no growth. There is almost no character development. And though they are able to overcome endless difficulties together we never really get to know either man at all, and we don’t see these victories affecting their human growth in any way.
This is what began to bother me as I continued to read the stories one after another. Why, they not only failed to show any personal growth, they didn’t even appear to age. This is also why I stopped reading after about 550 pages. This and the due date at the library.
But these were fun stories. They were written as individual short stories and I think not as a connected series of stories so there is no reason to expect from them what one would look for in a novel. Though to be honest, in The Hound of The Baskervilles, a novel contained herein, neither character showed any growth, change or new understanding of the world they inhabit either. At least I saw none.
Again, had I a longer period of time in which to read these beloved classics I may well have given this five stars. The stories were certainly fun and the style of writing was great. But I could only give four. Maybe I just need to buy the book and read more slowly over a longer period of time.
Unfortunately for me though, I had a library book.
The settings, mostly London, are well sketched and historically interesting. In some ways what the stories say about the place and the times are as interesting to me as the cases themselves.
Of course the stories are clever, and Conan Doyle must have been at least as clever as Holmes. It’s fun to watch them both work. The writing now is dated but lovable, especially the conversations.
The only two characters of any importance are Watson and Holmes. They are both introduced in the first few paragraphs of the first story, a short novella called A Study in Scarlet, and as we meet them is how they remain. There is no growth. There is almost no character development. And though they are able to overcome endless difficulties together we never really get to know either man at all, and we don’t see these victories affecting their human growth in any way.
This is what began to bother me as I continued to read the stories one after another. Why, they not only failed to show any personal growth, they didn’t even appear to age. This is also why I stopped reading after about 550 pages. This and the due date at the library.
But these were fun stories. They were written as individual short stories and I think not as a connected series of stories so there is no reason to expect from them what one would look for in a novel. Though to be honest, in The Hound of The Baskervilles, a novel contained herein, neither character showed any growth, change or new understanding of the world they inhabit either. At least I saw none.
Again, had I a longer period of time in which to read these beloved classics I may well have given this five stars. The stories were certainly fun and the style of writing was great. But I could only give four. Maybe I just need to buy the book and read more slowly over a longer period of time.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews