Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[Lauren]

Richard suggested a discussion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Audra]

I just started a Holmes story today.

[Lynn]

I'm reading The Hound of the Baskervilles as a page-a-day calendar. It's interesting. I'm definitely enjoying it more than I enjoyed A Study in Scarlet. Holmes annoys me as a character.

[Terri]

I need to read all the Holmes ones I haven't as well as try other things he wrote. Also, his life itself was pretty interesting too

[Meghan]

I've been reading the Holmes stories in order and am up to The Hound of the Baskervilles. So far, I have to say that I've enjoyed the short stories much more than the novels.

[Lauren]

Meghan wrote: "So far, I have to say that I've enjoyed the short stories much more than the novels. ."

This has been my experience as well. The shorter stories are more appealing.

[M.J.]

England owes an enromous debt to Conan Doyle for settting his master character in London.

Are there any other short stories that offer such an intense pace and never fail to surprise the reader?

What I have always loved about the stories apart from the sense of atmosphere of the epoch was the fact that Holmes would always solve the crime well ahead of the story's end and then let the reader suffer while he went on offering further clues by asking seemingly obscure questions, simply to frustrate the struggling reader's unequal powers of deduction. Pure genius!

And then you would start another story to see if you had learned anything of his inductive detective ways, only to have your fading intellect beaten again.

Shame really, that he had to go and ruin it all by believing in fairies.

[Benjamin]

I have a very old copy of The Mystery of Cloomber and have wondered .... Could it be good? Only one way to find out!

[Piyumi]

Meghan wrote: "I've been reading the Holmes stories in order and am up to The Hound of the Baskervilles. So far, I have to say that I've enjoyed the short stories much more than the novels."

Oh this is great, I adore Holmes (yayks). Sir Doyle's work was indeed my very first historical mystery read, Hound of the Baskervilles being my first ever book. And Meghan I too found the short stories far more intriguing and enjoyable than the novels. Some how Sir Doyle seem to have lost the intrigue when writing novels to his brilliance in short stories.
How many of you have watched Gatiss and Mofatt's BBC Sherlock and how many love or hate it? :)
I love it, I love Cumberbatch and Freeman and I was blown away by the season 4 finale last Sunday.
It got me wanting to go back to the canon and re-read them too.

[Piyangie]

I came across this thread only today. This made me want to read the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I have the complete collection but have only read the Hound of Baskervilles. Must start the read soon.

[Lauren]

Alice's original request:

Hi guys!! I would like to start reading books with sherlock holmes..Is there a specific order to start???If not can you recommend me ones?

[Lauren]

P.M's reply:

I'd begin with A Study In Scarlett. Holmes and Watson meet for the very first time. Holmes is looking for a roommate. A mutual friend introduces them. 221B Baker Street becomes the base for the adventures and cases. Watson shares his impressions of Holmes, lists interests, proficiencies, begins to learn methods of inquiry ... Definitely start here. That sets the stage for the stories to follow. Next I'd read The Sign of the Four! Enjoy!!

[Lauren]

Piyangie's reply:

I agree with P.M. A Study in Scarlet is the starting point. I only recently started reading Sherlock Holmes and that's where I started. It is the very first story of the duo

[Benjamin]

Lauren wrote: "Piyangie's reply:

I agree with P.M. A Study in Scarlet is the starting point. I only recently started reading Sherlock Holmes and that's where I started. It is the very first story of the duo"

Agreed! There are lots of ways to approach The Canon, but nearly everyone agrees this is how to start. For the historically minded, a good list if you want to read them chronologically (based on interior clues, though this is hotly debated) here's a list: http://bakerstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Chr... Once you've read them this way, you can join in on that particular debate.

Though, I did find this list very interesting too (from most interesting to least): https://www.quora.com/In-which-order-...

[J.]

There are two very good annotated 3-volume editions of the entire Canon. The earlier one, by William Baring-Gould attempts to put the stories in chronological order, not by publication date, but by the character; i.e, the first story is "The Gloria Scott", the second is "The Musgrave Ritual", both of which occurred when Holme was a university student. "A Study in Scarlet" is the 3rd. Very ambitious effort.

[Piyangie]

I return to the thread a little more than two years later. I'm happy to say I read all four Sherlock Holmes novels and the short story collection under the title of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes .

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

I've read all of them, most of them multiple times.

I agree that Study in Scarlett should be first.

[Saurabh]

I've just read all 60 of them (novels plus stories) in the order of publication and enjoyed that. A Study in Scarlett should be the first no doubt.
Mostly the stories are self contained except where Moriarty is involved. Chronological order might also be interesting starting with Gloria Scott but there might be some loss of context.

[J.]

Two items of interest:
1. MX Publishing in the UK has been issuing volumes of new Sherlock Holmes stories by an international collection of authors. (Full disclosure - I've written for 3 of their volumes so far - to date, they've put out more than 20.) There are "rules" set down - sometimes they have to be based on another case, sometimes they have to be set within a certain decade, once they had to start out with a supernatural premise but have a real-world solution - I think there's even one Christmas volume.
2. Apparently the Conan Doyle estate which is a group of descendants of very distant relations (none of Doyle's five children had children, so he has no direct heirs) is suing Netflix and the author and publisher for the movie/book about Enola Holmes, who is a younger sister of Sherlock Holmes. This has been this week's major discussion among Holmes groups.