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The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9)

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Aug 16, 2009 Werner rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-stories, mystery-crime-fiction, books-i-own

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a writer I count among my favorites, and I've been a Sherlock Holmes fan since my boyhood. However, although I've read all four of Doyle's Holmes novels, there are still a number of the short stories in the canon that I haven't read; and except for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this is the only one of the author's own collections I've read. This volume collects the last dozen stories Doyle wrote about Holmes (his preface states his intention not to write any more o Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a writer I count among my favorites, and I've been a Sherlock Holmes fan since my boyhood. However, although I've read all four of Doyle's Holmes novels, there are still a number of the short stories in the canon that I haven't read; and except for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this is the only one of the author's own collections I've read. This volume collects the last dozen stories Doyle wrote about Holmes (his preface states his intention not to write any more of them), all set before "His Last Bow," which takes place at the outset of World War I, though they were written after it. (Some of the story settings are given exact chronological dates, and some aren't.) Stylistically, they're very much of a piece with any of the earlier ones that I've read. Holmes solves cases by the rigorous observation of details and the application of deductive logic, in a coldly intellectual fashion that the Neoclassical writers would have approved; but Doyle's essentially Romantic approach shows in the appeal of the tales to the emotions, and the frequent use of outre and exotic motifs and sometimes Gothic atmosphere. Most of the stories here, unlike the majority of modern mysteries, don't involve murder (and some don't actually involve criminal behavior at all). Usually Holmes' faithful sidekick Dr. Watson narrates the tales, but one story here is told in third person, and the great detective himself narrates two of them.

Most of the stories were new to me in written form, though I'd previously read "The Adventure of the Creeping Man," which appears in the excellent Southern Illinois Univ. Press collection The Best Science Fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle; the Holmes stories avoid use of actual supernatural elements (though Doyle wrote supernatural fiction with other characters), but this is a good example of the few that use science fictional elements. (I also realized, while reading the book, that I'd previously read "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" and "The Problem of Thor Bridge," because I recognized remembered passages of dialogue in both of them; but those reads were long ago and I'd forgotten almost all of the plots.) In a few cases, I'd also seen an adaptation of a story years ago on the outstanding PBS series Mystery!, whose wonderful Holmes episodes feature Jeremy Brett, whom I consider THE definitive cinematic Holmes. But the adaptations were different enough from the written stories (and I'd forgotten enough of most of them!) to not be spoilerish.

One of these adaptations was the main source of my interest in this particular collection. The two-part episode The Last Vampire (which is actually feature-film length, and which I taped on VHS and re-watch occasionally) was based on one of the stories here, "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," and I've wanted to read the latter ever since seeing the TV version. The two, however, are actually significantly different. A literal adaptation of the story wouldn't have run for more than an hour (half an hour might have done it). Both story and film are set mostly in rural Sussex, though the latter develops the setting more; the dynamics of the Ferguson household in the film are (mostly) also in the story, and a couple of plot elements are the same, but used differently. But two of the best-drawn characters in the film, Stockton and the vicar, as well as the villagers, are absent from the story, as is the background about the St. Clair family and their ruined mansion, and the whole theme of psychic vampirism is lacking as well. Also, the film version is darker, more suspenseful, and more emotionally impactful. I won't say the story was a disappointment; it's a good yarn for what it is. (But it's nowhere near as ripping good as the TV "adaptation!" Viewed strictly as a adaptation, I'd have to give the latter a D-; but taking it on its own terms just as a piece of cinema in its own right, I'd give it an A+, five stars, and two thumbs up.)

In some cases here, Holmes doesn't have to do much deduction; and in other stories, I was able to figure out the basic nature of the solution to the mystery pretty quickly. (That didn't preclude enjoying the stories, however.) Doyle's leading female characters are often morally courageous, emotionally strong women of admirable character, although we also have one nasty villainess here (and it isn't Kitty Winter, despite her "fallen" status!). "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" is perhaps the most emotionally evocative of the twelve stories here, and "the Adventure of the Lion's Mane" perhaps the most imaginative. A couple of caveats are in order about ethnic stereotyping. One of the minor villains in "The Adventure of the Three Gables" is black (and a police inspector refers to him by the infamous "n-word," though Holmes and Watson don't), and in "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" it's mentioned more than once that a number of Sir Robert's creditors are Jews, though the principal one is a Gentile. But Doyles's criminals are generally white; there's no suggestion here that blacks are commonly criminals, or that Steve is a criminal because he's black. (Blacks have the same range of moral possibilities as any other ethnic group; for writers to always feel self-consciously obliged to portray them as saintly doesn't really represent an embrace of the idea of racial equality, in the actual meaning of the term.) And although the legal and ecclesiastical rules against Christians charging interest on loans (which had meant that in the medieval and early modern eras, only Jews engaged in commercial money-lending) had been done away with by Holmes' time, the traditional pattern in the financial industry still persisted to a degree --most Jews weren't money-lenders, and a number of money-lenders were Gentiles, but a disproportionate number of them were still Jewish. (Doyle doesn't suggest that the trade is in any way dishonorable, or that those who follow it, Jewish or Gentile, are at all out of line in expecting to be repaid money that they loaned in good faith!)

All in all, I think this collection would appeal to any Holmes fan. Mystery fans in general, provided they don't avoid short stories as such, should also enjoy these; the diction isn't particularly challenging, nor archaic. IMO, though, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or one of the first two novels, A Study in Scarlet or The Sign of Four, might be a better first introduction to the character of Holmes, if you've never actually read any of the canon. But that may be just me, and reflecting the fact that those were the first Holmes books that I read! ...more

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