Arthur Conan Doyle Books

Those who begin this book hoping for another untold adventure of Sherlock Holmes may be puzzled or disappointed at first. But I hope they'll stay with it, because it's a deeply moving story, a meditation on age, memory, and identity. The three storylines interweave & fade into one another, just as Holmes' waning faculties drift & wander. His own awareness of his decline is heartbreaking, yet he handles it with grace & dignity. Whether his defenses against that decline demand too heavy a personal price is for the reader to decide.

Still, this isn't just a tale of old age & its inexorable erosion, however beautifully told -- it's an investigation into the mysteries that not even a mind as keen & brilliant as that of Sherlock Holmes can hope to solve. The mystery of meaning, the mystery of loneliness, and the final mystery of death -- these are the mysteries Holmes faces, only to find himself as baffled by their impenetrability as any of us. When you reach the final page, you'll be left with a feeling of thoughtful melancholy, as well as an urge to confront those mysteries yourself. A rich, memorable novel, most highly recommended!

Mitch Cullin's "A Sligiht Trick of the Mind" is a mesmerizing, wonderfully written, inventive novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. This novel features Sherlock Holmes, but lest the reader be disappointed, it is not the Holmes of Sir Aruthur Conan Doyle. It is a much richer, older and emotional Holmes which is the central character of this story. Holmes is a 93 year old man living in post WWII England tending his bees. He is grappling with the continual loss of his physical abilities as well as his mental prowess. Several relationships are highlighted throughout the book which humanizes Holmes in a way that he hasn't been before. Particularly poignant is Holmes' relationship with the housekeepers young son Roger, who to Holmes' surprise elicits paternal feelings in himself. Cullin is able to weave an enchanting story about a well known character with a different but none the less profound impact on the reader. The writing is so well done, I was moved to tears, both by the sadness of the situations and the emotions that Cullin was able to evoke through his writing. Well Done!

Best sherlock holmes story, after ACD's

I read and re-read the book, to understand the delicacies of the nature of elderly sherlock holmes, i am sure everybody has there own picture of sherlock holmes in there mind, but this one gets too close.

This book has good and bad qualities to it. I found it fascinating to read the rambling thoughts of the great detective. His mind is still keen sometimes. But, old age has taken it's toll on him.
There are a couple of storylines that intertwine within the book. The author jumps around frequently to different stories, and different time periods.

Each storyline is fairly good by itself, although I found the endings to be weak. As if Holmes just drifts off in his narration with little closure.
I suppose that is the way of the very old, but it's not a strong finish for the character we all adore.

Its worth reading, if you don't mind Holmes being weak and doddering.

Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind defies expectation of any Sherlock Holmes related novel. As usual, when dealing with a "canon" of fiction, there tends to be some initial distaste at the thought of reading someone else's interpretation of a beloved character. However, Cullin has made Holmes a real person, frail, forgetful, at the end of his life, forced to deal with mortality not with reason, but with humanity. It is not a standard situation for the character and it can therefore be disregarded relatively easily if it doesn't suit the pallet of Holmes aficionados. I would like to say, however, that since Holmes has been more consistently misunderstood by the common reading public (at least as far as his "cultural representation" has been concerned ... only Jeremy Brett ever captured, for example, Holmes' innate alienness and his ability to annoy more than astound the average person), then I would say do not judge this book until you have read it.

Mitch Cullin has decided on a lateral approach to unveiling much of the story in A Slight Trick of the Mind, through a case journal, a recent though poorly remembered trip to post-war Japan, and Holmes eventual return to his beehives. Without spoiling the plot, all three deal with death and Holmes' ultimate emotional awakening to what mortality might mean. Without sounding maudlin, Holmes at the end of his life finally becomes a caring person. Not that he wasn't human before, but he had just not ever gotten around to thinking about the impact his scientific reason had on the everyday person.

Mitch Cullin pulls off quite a feet in giving us a believable post-Conan Doyle Holmes and also a very modern meditation on some more subtle themes that have not appeared too often in the classic "canon." There is some unavoidable crossing of modern fiction themes that seem a bit out of place with Holmes. Like his more famous work, Tideland, the cross-cutting of times, the lack of linear storyline, the internalization of Holmes (to know what he is thinking!) will strike a reader of the Doyle "canon" as jarring. Add to that, of course, the fact that there is no mystery, apart from the mystery of life itself. Most of what I just wrote is by way of warning to the mystery genre reader. It does not mean to say that this isn't an excellent novel, even an excellent Sherlock Holmes novel.

Sherlock Holmes is my favorite fictional detective, and certainly one of my favorite fictional characters. The distant, cocaine-addicted, but brilliant genius of a man is one character who stands out among many others in literature.

Prolific author Arthur Conan Doyle created numerous tales of suspense and excitement starring his best-known characters, Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion, Dr. Watson, names known by every true reader of fiction. However, out of all the Holmes tales, I would have to say that the story which kept my interest the best is Holmes' most famous tale, "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

With this story, Holmes tackles a villain nearly as cunning as himself. The case is one of his most difficult, and one of the strangest and most original in the Doyles' oeuvre.

A curse haunts the Baskerville family. It is told in a family legend that a savage, demonic dog haunts the Baskerville family, a curse brought upon the family by a foul-mouthed, drunken ancestor. Although many disregard the story, the Baskerville family has reason to believe that the story may not be entirely fiction. As Holmes investigates, guarding the latest heir to the Baskerville estate, he becomes involved in a case perhaps more fascinating than any other.

If you're looking for a great read and a solid mystery yarn, look no further than from fiction's greatest detective. My favorite Holmes tale, and without a doubt, one of his best. "The Hound" is mystery-writing at its best, a necessity for any library.

I expected to find it a little dry, but overall likeable. Instead, I found the story a little too far to the supernatural, and Sherlock Holmes turned out to be one of the most unlikable characters I've read in a long time! I really felt for Watson, who did not come across as the dumb, stumbling sidekick. I had a hard time slogging through the book, and it didn't make me want to pick up any more Holmes anytime soon. I guess I expected a little more "Basil of Baker Street" from The Great Mouse Detective.

I was expecting this book to be a bit boring - it's for a literature class. But it turned out to be easy to read and exciting!

"Hound of the Baskervilles" is a unique story in the Sherlock Holmes canon -- author Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it in the years between Holmes' death and his resurrection several years later.

But due to public pressure, Doyle brought Holmes and Watson back temporarily for a sort of "memoir" tale, a tale of supernatural curses, escaped convicts and ghastly glowing hounds. It suffers a little from a lack of Holmes, but is otherwise a tightly-written, solid little mystery.

Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead of a heart attack -- apparently killed by a family curse in the shape of a giant dog. So his pal Dr. Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes to protect Charles' heir, Henry Baskerville, who has just arrived in England to claim his estate and inheritance.

But even without Holmes, Watson can tell that something is up -- secretive servants, peculiar neighbors, an escaped criminal, a giant quicksand marsh, and the sounds of a dog howling in the night. But Holmes knows that the curse is no supernatural hound -- and that Sir Henry is in danger from a more real kind of ancient enemy.

"Hound of the Baskervilles" stumbles in one area -- the relative lack of Holmes. He's out of the picture for most of the book, and Watson does plenty of solid detecting on his own. Everybody loves the faithful narrator, but Watson isn't the Great Detective, and the book feels vaguely incomplete without Holmes inspecting clues and giving little hints to Watson.

The mystery unfolds at a languid pace, dropping a few red herrings along the way. Doyle pays loving attention to the dangerous, almost surreal Grimpen Mire and the surrounding countryside. But when Holmes comes back onto the scene, the book tightens itself up. All the plot threads rapidly slip into place as the real "hound" is uncovered.

Holmes' steel-trap mind is untarnished here, especially when he reveals what he figured out at the end. He's especially likable in an endearing scene at the beginning, where he educates Watson on deduction. But this is Watson's turn to shine, since he spends a long time gathering clues and even solving a sub-mystery without any assistance.

"Hound of the Baskervilles" is a short, satisfying Holmesian mystery, which is only hampered by Holmes' absence for about half the book. Solid work, and a good introduction to the Holmes series.

I had never read a Sherlock Holmes mystery before, nor had I seen a Sherlock Holmes movie. I picked up this book because I like to inject classic pieces into my reading and this had been recommended to me.

This did not disappoint! Although very short - just over 200 pages - this novel has a huge impact. I would say this novel is closer to a thriller/mystery, and it includes a cast of potential villains or heroes, a creepy moor, a spooky house, a mysterious curse, and an overall gothic feel. Even though the language is formal, it is easy to feel engaged and the action sweeps the reader into it.

There is an absence of Holmes, which I was not expecting, but it makes his appearances in the book all the more intriguing. I had always thought the character of Dr. Watson was more of a foil or a prop, but he plays a very central figure here and that was interesting.

What I truly appreciated in this work is that it is a thinking person's mystery. I usually avoid mysteries, especially modern mysteries, because they aren't challenging and I usually solve them partway through the book. This novel allowed for clues to be given, almost like a puzzle, to be thought over and contemplated. I very much enjoyed that.

I can now say that I look forward to enjoying more Sherlock Holmes mysteries! I'm eager to find out how the short stories compare to the novel.

An 18th century author writing about the dark ages. It reads more like incidents within a narrative rather than a single story. I found the ending abrupt and not credible. I expected more of the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

My parents had a series of books when I was a child. They a book-of-the-month collection that contained the collected works of many of the most famous western authors such as Shakespeare, Balzac, Wilde, etc. They had them mainly for show but being an avid reader, I went thru many of them.

My first introduction to Sherlock Holmes and Watson were in Sir Conan Doyle's volume but the story that fascinated me more than any other was "the White Company." I read that story dozens of times. When my parents moved and decided to give the books to the school library, I kept that volume. Somewhere in the last 35 years it disappeared. Thank goodness I found it and the previously unread companion piece, Sir Nigel.

Each poetically descriptive sentence is as a brushstroke that paints a colorful, lively picture of the scenery, landscape, characters, and events. You can picture everything very vividly in your mind. The characaters were each unique and fascinating. The story unfolded quite differently than I would have expected for a book about a war. It was a beautifully constructed story; an education about chivalry and how wars used to be fought. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this book, and hope to re-read it in the future.

I discovered the White Company while reading Louis Lamour's "Education of A Wondering Man". It was included in Lamours reading list from the 1930's. On a lark i checked it out.

What a gem this book is! I simply could not put it down. The language, the characters, the history and the humor simply crackle off the pages.

If you have a son, here's your next gift.

I loved this book as a kid, and found new depths to it when I came back to it as an adult. A must-read! The breadth of imagination and the color and vividness of the descriptions are hard to match, and the characters are memorable -- Samkin Aylward the master-archer is my favorite.

Conanan Doylechanged police from bribers of low life to rat on others or to beat confessions from poorly educated or low intelligence souls tothose who sought to know the facts.The facts came from evidence of all sorts, witnesses,debris on the scene, or from the area or arena of suspects o those involved. The courts the\n rejected evidence that was tainted.This included statements from tortured or possibly tortured persons that was not corrobrated by tangible evidence. So today we have a system that is closer to trying to get the truth than getting a conviction. This enables those who can manipulate it to beat the justice sytem in the short term. The safety valve is that those who tend to break the law do so again until getting caught.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are widely available in numerous editions, but this one stands out for three reasons. First, there is a superb introudction of over 60 pages ("The World of Sherlock Holmes"); second, there are numerous original illustrations, photographs of the scenes of the stories, and so on; third, and most important, the annotations--which are extensive--include both real facts about the Victorian world that one needs to know to understand the stories *and* "Sherlockiana".

For example, when, in "the Adventure of the Beryl Coronet", a mysterious nobleman asks a banker for "a trifling sum" of 50,000 pounds, the modern reader might shrug--surely 50,000 pounds *is* indeed a "trifling sum" for a rich nobleman?--until one realizes, as the annotations say, that it would be over $6,000,000 today. The annotators do an excellent job with such factoids: less and some of the stories' references would remain obscure; more and they would become pedantic.

What really sets it apart, however, are the "Sherlockian" annotations, which pretend "A. C. Doyle" was Watson's pen name and that the stories describe real events--and makes up theories to explain apparent contradictions or omissions. For example, in "The Man with the Twisted Lip", Watson's wife calls him "James" (instead of "John"). Why? The obvious answer--Doyle made a slip--is, of course, not allowed by the rules of the Sherlockian "game". The annotators give three pages to summarising the numerous theories Sherlockians offered--from claiming "James" was Watson's middle name, to claims it was her lover's name (thus also "discovering" Waton's middle name, and/or explaining why he seems to have left his wife).

Even if you have no interest at all in such intellectual games, the photographs and illustrations, the historical introduction, and the factual annotations alone more than justify a "five stars" rating. If you *are* interested in Shelockiana, these books are more than that--they're an instant classic, sure to be the "standard edition" of Sherlock fans for years to come.

Rather than repeat the reviews of the previous authors, I'd like to make two points related to the production of the book:

The book should have been stitched rather than gummed at the spine. I can almost foresee my grandson many years hence trying to read Grandpa's favorite book that was willed to him, only to have the spine break. A book of enduring value must have a stitched spine. OTOH looks like it has been printed on acid-free paper, which is a good thing.

How I wish there was a CD-ROM edition. The book is unbelievably bulky. That is fine for someone's study or library. If there was a CD-ROM based edition, people short on space, or those who travel on public transport could enjoy the author's work more conveniently (e.g. by reading on their laptop).

Unfortunately Amazon does not ship this book free. But some of its competitors do. It pays to shop around.

Well, to start, I see that I am the 25th person to review this double volume of these marvelous stories in this wonderful edition.

It is so wonderful to sit down in my big old wing-back chair, especially on a rainy day or evening, and re-read these fabulous stories again, some for perhaps the 6th or 7th time, others the 3rd or 4th. And, the highlight, of course, is to ponder the notations in the margins of these wonderfully crafted and beautifully presented books.

Next time you feel like doing something "Nice" for yourself, why not treat yourself to this beautiful, and so much fun to revisit, set of the Sherlock Holmes Short Stories! You will never regret it...they always seem to be like old forgotten friends each time you come back to them. ~operabruin

(PS: Do not forget the Novels, also part of this edition in their own volume.)

I cannot add to the kudos bestowed by virtually every review of this 2 volume delight.
A warning: Check the "Adventure of the Priory School" for missing footnotes. The numbers appear in the margins but the (red type) prose is missing! Someone goofed seriously at the printer's shop. This may not be a major catastrophe (perhaps it is an intentional mystery created by the author), but it's like buying a new car with a dimple in the hood: you know it's there (or, in this instance, it isn't there!) If you are affected by this lack of annotation, return the volumes to Amazon, write a letter to the publisher (Norton) and get restitution, by George!

Perhaps my least favorite of the longer Holmes works, at least the last time I read it, causing it to slip below the magic number. To be revisited at some stage. This in no way means it is bad, just not as beloved, or perhaps as brilliant as the others. You still can't go wrong with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

A young woman visits Holmes and Watson, relating the story of her missing father. This leads one of the most famous partnerships in literature into a strange case involving treasure, murder, and betrayal. As he did in the previous novel of the series, Arthur Conan Doyle tells two stories. One is the tale of Holmes, Watson, and the unraveling of the case. The other is the flashback to the story of the main villain, an adventure tale involving a native mutiny against colonial masters. As a product of his time, Doyle cannot, I suppose, help being sympathetic to the colonialists and there is an undercurrent of racism that can be troubling to modern eyes. However, it is encouraging to note that not a single racist sentiment (that I can recall) is attributed to either Holmes or Watson. This is a fine mystery that benefits from the strong evocation of fog-bound Victorian London.

The first two-thirds of this short novel are ripe with the foggy atmosphere of Victorian London, as Holmes and Watson seek to help the pretty young client secure her legacy, a trunk filled with stolen jewels. But the thief-murderer duo are apprehended long before the end, and the last part is his rather mundane account of how the jewels were stolen in India and life at the prison on the Andaman Islands. There's actually very little "mystery" or detection to it, since we know who the thief-murderer are early on. The boat chase on the Thames is not especially interesting or convincing, nor is the romance between Dr. Watson and the pretty client. What saves this is the almost palpable atmosphere of London in the time of Jack the Ripper, plus the outrageous conclusions drawn by Sherlock Holmes.

Published in 1890, "The Sign of Four" was Doyle's second work, featuring the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. The first chapter is appropriately titled "The Science of Deduction", and serves as a wonderful introduction to the enigmatic man and his methods. Holmes asserts that there are "three qualities necessary for the ideal detective", namely knowledge, the power of observation, and the power of deduction. Holmes' abilities at observation are superb, as evidenced by some of the books he's produced on obscure topics like the tracing of footsteps, the influence of a trade on the form of a hand, or the enumeration of 140 forms of cigar, cigarette and pipe tobacco ash. He is careful to distinguish mere observation from clear deductive reasoning, and it is the latter which really is the essence of Holmes. To him the only thing that is important is "the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes" by which he unravels a case. Already in the opening, he demonstrates his powers of deduction by coming to stunning and perfectly logical conclusions about Watson's brother, merely by seeing his watch. What is obscure to everyone, is of course perfectly obvious to Holmes: "so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous." He is the epitomy of deduction and cold hard reason.

While Holmes is the embodiment of reason, Watson is the embodiment of emotion. Holmes is naturally critical of the emotional and romantic streak in Watson. "Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner." When Watson comments on the attractiveness of Holmes' client, he replies "Is she? I did not observe." Completely deprived of emotion, he looks not at beauty, but at cold hard facts. "It is of the first importance not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities ... The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning." In this story Watson finds himself a wife, something Holmes would never consider: "...love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment." Fortunately we need not share Holme's cold and emotionless tastes to love him, because we are involved in the story through the first person narrative of Watson, who has more than enough emotion and romance to make up for what Holmes lacks. Watson is a brilliant literary device for Doyle, because it enables us to portray Holmes with his cold logic without having to identify with him. Instead we identify with Watson as passive observers and view Holmes himself as a curious object to be marvelled at.

We need not identify with Holmes to appreciate his passion for deduction. In "The Sign of Four" Holmes applies his powers of deduction to a remarkable case involving Mary Morstan, whose father disappeared under mysterious circumstances some ten years earlier. Investigation uncovers the facts of his death, and the suprising discovery that he has bequeathed her a tremendous treasure. The plot thickens as the treasure disappears along with a classic locked-room murder mystery. Mysterious notes with "The Sign of Four" seem to be the only clue to the mystery. Of course only Holmes can and does unravel the mystery, even when all the other police detectives are desperately misled by both clues and lack of reason. As usual Holmes will cooperate with them, but only on his terms: "You are welcome to all the official credit, but you must act on the lines that I point out."

As with "A Study in Scarlet", we're again introduced to the elements that typify a Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes utilizes "the unofficial force - the Baker Street irregulars" to help him. They consist of a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs, whom Holmes pays in return for information gleaned from the streets. "They can go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone." Holmes also utilizes the power of disguise, which he expertly uses to even pull the wool over the eyes of his companion Watson. But "The Sign of Four" also gives a glimpse of Holmes' weakness - an addiction to morphine and cocaine. The justification is that he only resorts to the use of drugs when he is not busy with a case. "My mind rebels at stagnatism." "Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brainwork." He much prefers the mental challenge of a case "...it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine." But just as Holme's intellectual brilliance stimulates himself, so it stimulates the reader. In the process of his deductions, he evidences an astute understanding of people, articulating gems like this: "The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness." On carefully asking people the right questions: "The main thing with people of that sort is never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do they will instantly shut up like an oyster." On women: "Women are never to be entirely trusted - not the best of them." And as with most mysteries, as readers we are reminded of what lengths the passions of greed and revenge will go in corrupting human behaviour.

As in all the Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes himself unquestionably emerges the hero. However, Doyle had not yet perfected the Sherlock Holmes formula, because in the lengthy extended flashback of the final chapter as the murderer describes his story Holmes himself falls to the background. The truth is, we want more of Holmes and his deduction, and that's what Doyle perfected in his later short stories. But if deduction is indeed a science as Holmes believes, then he himself is its greatest scientist, and there are few pleasures greater than seeing this enigmatic scientist at work in the laboratory of life. -GODLY GADFLY

In this, the second Sherlock Holmes story written by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is called upon by a young lady who needs the great detective's help with a mystery. However, when this mystery leads to murder, Holmes must seek to uncover secrets that have lain hidden for many years, and have their roots in treacheries upon treacheries in far-off India. There's a one-legged man who is at the center of this mystery, and he has a murderous friend who may just be the end of Sherlock Holmes!

As I said, this is the second ever Sherlock Holmes story, written in 1890. As with the very best of the Holmes story, this one is absolutely gripping, carrying a fascinating story with mysteries wrapped up in mysteries that only Mr. Holmes can possibly conquer. As an added bonus, in this story, we get to learn about Dr. Watson's meeting of his true love, and his eventual marriage - which should end some rumors that people spread.

Yep, this is a great story, one that is sure to please any fan of mysteries, and is certain to delight any Sherlock Holmes fan!

Daniel Stashower's biography of Conan Doyle is well written, as one would expect from the author of the Houdini mysteries, but never profound. We are given the great man's public life without any deep examination of the inner man. The result is a rather straightforward narrative, interesting because Conan Doyle led a fascinating life, but with all the weight of a magazine profile. The complete absence of citations reinforces this impression, and there are no footnotes, although a comprehensive bibliography is included.

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle was a complex and honorable man. Toward the end of his life he embraced spiritualisim as he did everything else, wholeheartedly, and this led to many people dismissing him as a crackpot. However, as author Daniel Stashower pointst out, such was not the case. Conan-Doyle really believed in life after death. This belief filled the void in his life that was left when he renounced his belief in the Catholic Church. Daniel Stashower has written an even-handed fair biography of Conan-Doyle. The book is well researched and Conan-Doyle comes to life on these pages. Conan-Doyle, of course, is best known for creating Sherlock Holmes but as Stashower shows Conan-Doyle wrote many more works of fiction and non-fiction in his long career. If you want to have an idea of what made the man behind Sherlock Holmes tick then I recommend this book highly.

Teller of tales is a biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of the Sherlock Holmes series. I was required to read a non-fiction book and write a review for the book on amazon.com. At the time, I had just been introduced to the Sherlock Holmes series, and was currently reading my way though a collection of these novels. I was intrigued by he author's unusual writing style, and somewhat ashamed that I knew nothing about him, so I decided to read his biography.

The author of this biography, Daniel Stashower, addresses a lot of controversies pertaining to Conan Doyle throughout the book, rationalizing some of Conan's more unusual decisions and actions while keeping an impartial 3rd person tone throughout the entire book. "Many critics assume that the reason for Conan's actions were this, but at the time Conan was going through this. It can be speculated that..."

The book was very entertaining and thought provoking. Conan Doyle himself is an interesting character, though he is nothing like his famous book character. Besides eth actual storyline, there were many great books written during Conan Doyle's time period, but none of these books are required reading through high school. After reading this, there are many novels I want to look into, novels that I would never have heard of otherwise. Although I feel it is a shame that many kids my age never have and never will read these stories, I can't remember enjoying any book I was forced to read.

Daniel Stashower has written several mystery novels of his own along with writing this biography. He is also a freelance journalist, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and many others. However, it is easy to tell that he is a credible author when reading Teller of Tales.

I can only think of one drawback to this book, and it wouldn't be fair to hold this against the book or the writer. I personally can't read more than one book at a time. Since I stopped reading my Sherlock Holmes collection to read this novel, and since the book makes many references to these stories and stories by other authors that I would like to read, the task of finishing this book has become somewhat painful.

This is a very readable and engaging biography of Arthur Conan Doyle. While many people only think of him in association with the stories of Sherlock Holmes, in fact Conan Doyle (his compound last name) was a multi-faceted man who grew up in poverty, became a medical doctor, served on a whaling ship in the Arctic, and worked in an Army hospital during the Boer War. He began his literary career writing stories for magazines, and one of these stories concerned a detective named Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes stories became popular, although Conan Doyle did not consider them serious literature and would come to consider the demand for this character as pulling him away from his efforts at more important works.

Conan Doyle lost many close relatives during WWI. Perhaps as a result of this he developed a deep interest in spiritualism, and this interest gradually began to absorb his life as he left off literary pursuits to advocate for spiritualist research via press and podium. This advocacy led many to lose their esteem for the creator of Sherlock Holmes since they assumed that Conan Doyle and Sherlock must be one and the same in personality and temperament.

I was interested to learn that Conan Doyle wrote his detective stories by determining the ending, and then working back toward it. Thus his character's "brilliant observations" and deductions were always carefully planned by knowledge of the solution before it was apparent to the reader. While Sherlock's powers of observation and deduction came to represent a paradigm of rational scientific proof, in reality they were an illusion working back from given solutions. In the same way, Conan Doyle would advocate for spiritualism by pleading for people to restrain their skepticism, and believe in order to know. Seen in this way, the contrast between his flinty-eyed detective and the real-life Conan Doyle's interest in spiritualism seems less dramatic.

Overall, this book read like a novel and was a good balance between Conan Doyle's whole life story and the part of it that involved Sherlock Holmes.

Years ago I read the biographies of Conan Doyle by John Dickson Carr and Charles Higham, and even tried to get beyond Sherlock Holmes by reading as much as I could of Conan Doyle's other fiction. Therefore I thought I knew something about Conan Doyle as a writer and as a person, but Stashower's fine book was still a revelation to me; it's not an exaggeration to say that I found new insights into Sir Arthur on nearly every page.

Stashower has done his research, but he is also unafraid to use Conan Doyle's semiautobiographical fiction, not to mention his poetry, to provide windows into the inner Sir Arthur that Sir Arthur's own autobiography carefully conceals.

Sir Arthur, of course, created a character that (along with Tarzan) is one of the immortal icons of adventure fiction, a character as popular today as he was when his short stories first hit the STRAND Magazine like a thunderbolt. One thing everyone knows about Conan Doyle is how deeply he resented the fame of Sherlock Holmes, but even here Stashower has some startling information to relate.

He is particularly good on the last couple of decades of Sir Arthur's life, when his seemingly mindless advocacy of even the most infantile and transparently fradulent aspects of Spiritualism, and his output of nearly a dozen unreadable religious tracts, left almost all of his readers convinced he had lost his mind. His endorsement of the authenticity of some photographs of fairies supposedly taken by two little girls (who had actually cut the tiny figures out of very familiar magazine ads for Fairy Soap!), and his calling in a psychic detective to "solve" the not-very-mysterious disappearance of novelist Agatha Christie, were the final straws for even his most tolerant fans.

On top of it all Sir Arthur was a terrible judge of the relative merits of his own fiction, and anyone who attempts to read his entire fictional output, as I did some years ago and as Stashower obviously has, will see how sadly he frittered away and squandered his unique gifts as a "teller of tales."

How could a man who created one of the immortal icons of rationality be in person so gullible, irrational, foolish and unworldly? Well, Stashower does as good a job of explaining the apparent paradox as anyone will probably be able to do. Highly recommended.

This is Arthur Conan Doyle's second collection of short stories originally published in the Strand magazine. Reading my way through the canon for the first time, I am often struck by how violent and frightening the stories sometimes are, in contrast to the cozy, fireside mysteries I had expected. (Just for the record, it comes as a pleasant surprise.) Within the pages of this fine book, you will encounter a brutal mutiny on the high seas, a sinister case of kidnapping and torture, and any number of fiendish murders, all unraveled by the deductive genius of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle continues to construct fascinating mysteries and shows his more enlightened side with the sympathetic treatment of interracial marriage in "The Yellow Face," which is welcome in light of the occasional problematic references to race in some of his earlier works.

These are some of my favorite stories in the Canon! Silver Blaze includes the memorable line about "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" ("The dog did nothing in the night-time. That was the curious incident, remarked Sherlock Holmes)". The Gloria Scott may be the start of Holmes career as consulting detective, and in these Memoirs we also have the introduction of brother Mycroft. The annotation by Leslie Klinger on this edition is superb, with diversions into the constant problem of train timetables (Did Watson purposely obscure these facts?). I was interested in her annotation of the difference between American and English editions (for example in "Yellow face" the longer time that Grant Munro was silent in the American Edition was "presumably because inter-racial marriage was unacceptable in America in the 1890's"). The footnotes always help to place the stories in context (for example what is "brain-fever" suffered in 7 of the Holmes stories?) and also detect inconsistencies in Watson's telling. Perhaps my favorite footnote is in "The Yellow Face" stating that actor William Gillette may have been to the Holmes household and met the page "Billy" (Who was played by Charlie Chaplin in 1903!). The few appendices deal; with "Sherlock Holmes the Horseplayer", "The post-graduate years", or "Theories of Mycroft Holmes". The Sidney Paget drawings are always welcome!

What can we say about the literary icon Sherlock Holmes that hasnt already been? Very little, so we therefore redirect our evaluations towards the unending line of dramatizations that even today are still being released. In my humble opinion, these are the best efforts, certainly in pure audio format, of these immortal tales ever to be produced. Merrison may at first bug you as he did me. We are used to a more booming authoritative Holmes. Merrison has a decidedly very small and nasally timbre to his voice. But his incredible acting abilities will quickly win you over. His absolute command of the situations and his sadly all too sparsely employed dry humor; make him as formidable a Holmes as any who have attempted the role. Contrast to Jeremy Brett's somewhat effeminate and decidely dark interpretation of the great detective, Merrison offers a much more genial and personable version, yet one that is no less impressionable than any of his predecessors. But it's the late Michael Williams to me, however, who finally after 100 years of fruitless attempts by actors, displays a true understanding of the character of the narrator, John Watson, and in doing so, makes these productions such a resounding triumph. Watson is all too often seen as a boob, ala Nigel Bruce. Or when not, he is played as dry humorless tagalong. These stories, through Williams's depictions, offer us at last an interesting and complex Watson. As Doyle no doubt intended him to be. Clearly no match for his constant companion intellectually, but as the absolute invaluable assistant to Holmes. Gone are such ponderings as "Why would a genius keep company with such a fool?" Or "Why would such an interesting multi faceted eccentric, befriend a lifeless, vapid man of medicine?" As in all BBC productions, the supporting casts and sound effects, provide true listening enjoyment in the spirit of the golden age of radio.

Although he also wrote several novels featuring the world's greatest fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, it was especially in his short stories that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle perfected the Holmes formula. "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" (published in 1893) is the second of the five collections of Holmes short stories. Along with the third collection ("The Return of Sherlock Holmes"), "Memoirs" is generally regarded as inferior to the superlative first collection ("The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), but easily better than the last two in the series ("His Last Bow" and "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes"). This collection includes Silver Blaze (usually regarded as one of the five all-time most popular stories in the Holmes canon), but also contains other excellent stories like The Stock-broker's Clerk, and The Musgrave Ritual, and favorites like The Reigate Puzzle, The Greek Interpreter, and The Final Problem. Those who have already enjoyed "Adventures" will certainly not want to miss "Memoirs".

Here's a list of the stories in this collection (with the better stories marked with stars):
**Silver Blaze, 1892 - Often regarded as one of the five all-time top 5 Holmes stories ever, this tale has Sherlock Holmes unravel the mystery behind the sudden disappearance of the prized race-horse Silver Blaze (favorite for the upcoming Wessex Plate), and the brutal murder of her trainer John Straker.
The Yellow Face, 1893 - Sherlock gets it wrong as he surmises that the strange behaviour of Grant Munro's American wife Effie is because her former husband is not dead.
**The Stock-broker's Clerk, 1893 - Just when he's about to start a new job at Mawson's, Hall Pycroft is offered another job copying out parts of a telephone directory for a ridiculously high salary, which turns out to be part of a scheme reminiscent of the favorite "The Red-headed League".
The 'Gloria Scott', 1893 - In a story with overtones of the premise behind "The Sign of Four", the arrival of an old sailor brings Mr. Trevor terror and death, as he is forced to face his past involvement as part of mutiny on the ship "Gloria Scott" while journeying to Australia as a convict.
**The Musgrave Ritual, 1893 - In another top ten favorite, Holmes unravels the strange "Musgrave Ritual" to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of a butler and a maid, and the discovery of bag with rusted metal and pieces of glass in a nearby lake at the home of Reginald Musgrave.
*The Reigate Puzzle , 1893 - While staying with Watson's friend Colonel Hayter near Reigate, Holmes gets to the bottom of the mysterious burglaries at the nearby Acton estate and the Cunningham estate, as well as the murder of the Cunningham's coachman William.
The Crooked Man, 1893 - Colonel Barclay is apparently murdered by his devoted wife Nancy, but Holmes uncovers the involvement of another party who is intimately involved in both of their pasts.
The Resident Patient, 1893 -Dr. Percy Trevelyan is paid to practice medicine in the house a gentleman called Blessington, and when Blessington is apparently commits suicide, it takes Holmes to explain the connection of these events with a gang of five bank robbers.
*The Greek Interpreter, 1893 - Sherlock pairs up with his brother Mycroft Holmes, whose neighbour Melas is taken to a secret location to act as a Greek interpreter in a very suspicious affair involving a woman and man from Greece.
The Naval Treaty, 1893 - Holmes helps Percy Phelps, a former class-mate of Watson, recover an important naval treaty document that was stolen.
*The Final Problem, 1893 - Often regarded as being in the top ten of the canon, here Holmes apparently meets his end in a duel at the hands of Professor Moriarty, "the Napoleon of crime", after Holmes has had his gang arrested and unmasked him as the organizer and mastermind behind criminal activity in London.
- GODLY GADFLY

What a wonderful surprise it was to come across Leslie Klinger's outstanding annotated versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories on Amazon! Klinger's notes are extremely helpful and informative (not to mention entertaining), and the copious illustrations by Paget are a great addition as well. This (and the other volumes, of which Adventures, Hound of the Baskervilles, and Study in Scarlet have been published to date) are a worthy successor to William Baring-Gould's justly acclaimed annotated Holmes from years back, and are, in opinion, a better value and more enjoyable read than the rather dry Oxford editions.

If you are new to Sherlock Holmes, this may not be the most economical way to pick up all of Conan Doyle's work. But if you are a long-time Holmes fan, or just want to experience the Holmes stories in a deeper and more informed way, I can think of no better purchase than this. Very highly recommended!!!

Detective novels can get irritating, as coming to the final solution is just being strung out too long. Sometimes it is ok to wonder why-and-whodunit for 200 pages, but sometimes I just like to know, don't you?
Therefore I like detective short stories, especially the cleverly crafted format of the Holmes stories. They are all cleverly crafted, but also predictably structured:
From Watson's point of view, someone comes to Holmes with a problem, he listens and just has to clear up some points, to which end he does some investigating, Watson can't figure the case out and wonders what he has missed, Holmes tells him the solution, we and Watson wonder how he came to that. Finally Holmes gives the explanation of how he has come to his conclusions.
At the end of each story the reader, identifying with Watson, feels amused as well as satisfied, that the facts are so blatantly simple and obvious when working backwards, yet not perceived at the time.
The stories were enjoyable and relaxing to read, easy to dip into and out of and fairly timeless. On several occasions it occurred to me that had Holmes had the option of using modern forensic science he may not have benefited by this, as the logic he applies seems generally infallible. It may be said that such an infallible hero is unrealistic, but I, like many people I am sure, found this comforting, a bit like the superhero effect and their popularity, and God. It is a nice feeling to think there are people and powers out there who have the ability to take care of things and ensure everything will be all right, or at least solved and brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
This selection is also useful as it provides a model for many detective stories written since.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were hugely popular in their day. Readers would sometimes line up outside the offices of the Strand magazine, which originally published these stories, eager to get their hands on the latest adventure. Doyle is a master at constructing a mystery. I've read the novels "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of Four" and find that the short story is a more suitable form for Doyle's formula. In the novels, Holmes and Watson disappear for long stretches while the narrative flashes back to the events surrounding the mystery in question. In these stories, the famous duo are never gone for long, if at all. I also enjoyed the humor in these tales, which I had not expected when I began reading.

After having read "The Hound of the Baskervilles" children's version at the age of 10, for some reason I believed that I knew all there was to know about Mr. Holmes. When the whim struck me I started reading "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and discovered that there is far more to these stories than I had originally given credit for. This is a series of short stories, told from the voice of Holmes' famous confidant Dr. Watson.

This is a series of mysteries that Sherlock Holmes encounters that are told at a swift pace with very little spare verbiage to wade through. Doyle has an excellent mind for the mysteries, keeping them fresh, new, and interesting. Though often I was able to figure out from the very beginning what was going one, I assume it is due to these tales having been used as the basis for so many other mysteries that they may have become familiar. None the less it is always entertaining to follow Sherlock's mind through the twists and turns of the clues to piece together the truth of what is laid out before you.

I have to admit as a parent, that I am glad I elected to read this before handing it over to my son, a 10 year old who read the children's version of the "Hound of the Baskervilles" and has since become a Sherlock Holmes fanatic in the way that only a 10 year old can achieve. Anyway, I purchased this book for him to read and ended up sitting down and skimming it when leaping out of the page at me was the word "cocaine." It immediately dawned on me that this book was written in the times of the opium dens when cocaine was the height of fashion. I decided I'd best read the book and sure enough much to my dismay, Sherlock Holmes mentioned vices include smoking tobacco (no biggie) and shooting cocaine (a REAL biggie for a 10 year old).

Now I personally enjoyed reading this book, never growing weary of the style or the topics. But I have to admit that I elected not to share it with my son for a few more years. My only complaint with this book is that even though it is technically a short story book, it does not read like one. So when you get to the end of the final story, you are left feeling as though someone ripped the last few pages out of your book. There is little to no closure to the series of tales. For some reason I had been expecting there to have been some sort of closure, or a summation from Dr. Watson as to why he chose to include the cases he did, or something about his dear friend Holmes, but as with all short story books, when the final mystery is solved, there is no point turning the page because you are done.

5 of 5 stars.

You can see why this detective model has been copied so many times: these short stories are the hour episodes of today's ubiquitous crime shows. Doyle manages a wonderful balance between intellectually entertaining crime solving, character development of Holmes and Watson, action, and turnover of each tale's novel guests and events.

In college I went through a phase where I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories. Once I got started reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, I didn't want to stop. It was sad when I read the last story.

Now years later it was fun to read them again. I enjoy the Sherlock Holmes short stories more than one of the novels. For me one of the most enjoyable parts of a Sherlock Holmes story is reading about what happened, and then reading how Sherlock Holmes solved the problem. A collection of short stories provides this experience many times.

This collection has many classics. It has the famous line "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." (The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.)

It is also interesting to see what life was like in England 100 years ago. They had the underground, but use carriages, there was lots of travel by train, and life in general was a bit rougher than today.

If you haven't read any Sherlock Holmes stories, this is a good place to start.

Sherlock Holmes is approached by his estranged cousin, the actor Edwin Booth, regarding a series of attempts on his life. Edwin is the elder brother of the infamous John Wilkes Booth, and it is his story that Holmes must investigate to resolve the mystery of the assassination attempts on his cousin's life.

Covering some of the same ground as Barrie Roberts' 'Sherlock Holmes and the Royal Flush', I ended up reading these two book in a fairly close period of time. This allows me to compare how the two authors put facts from John Wilkes Booth's life and death into their books. The problem is - it would be a dead giveaway on their plotlines to do so! Suffice to say, 'The Surrogate Assassin' takes the issues in a more active and head-on way.

I found Christopher Leppek's writing style quite readable, and his portrayal of Holmes and Watson well within my view of how the characters should be written. However, I did find some of the facts a little contradictory with the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes' creator. For instance, he makes casual reference to Mycroft Holmes, who Watson would not even know of for several years to come! Mind you, Doyle was pretty careless about such things as well (for instance, Moriarty's appearance in 'The Valley of Fear') so one shouldn't be too harsh.

Leppek knows his stuff! Not only is the story credable in it's facts it is fast paced entertainment. I can only say words of praise of this book-- it a must read for both Sherlock fans & historical alike!

As a supreme Booth family armchair scholar, I moved mountains to find this book and would you believe it, in my curiosity to see how many pages it had, I saw the name of the "surrogate assassin" on the last page before I had even started reading the book! So as I read it, I could see the clues. Still, I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in mysteries, Sherlock Holmes, the Lincoln Assassination, or the Booth family.

As a supreme Booth family armchair scholar, I moved mountains to find this book and would you believe it, in my curiosity to see how many pages it had, I saw the name of the "surrogate assassin" on the last page before I had even started reading the book! So as I read it, I could see the clues. Still, I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in mysteries, Sherlock Holmes, the Lincoln Assassination, or the Booth family.

This book is less an adventure of Sherlock Holmes than it is a re-examination of the Lincoln assassination and the role of John Wilkes Booth. The author uses Holmes (and utilises every horrid, tired cliche' in doing so) as a vehicle to put forth his own theory regarding the assassination. There are significant flaws in the reasoning he forces through Holmes to reach his conclusion (for instance, there is a key error of fact which no educated Englishman, particularly Holmes, could possibly have made). Overall, though, the writer does an admirable job of breathing life into this period of American history. The historic people and places who hitherto have been mere names are vividly drawn and can be clearly seen and heard by the reader. Although I won't give it a place of honour on my shelf of Holmes pastiches, it is still worth reading for entertainment.

A biographer looking to paint the full life of the subject must necessarily dig into areas of the subject's life that may not be of much interest to the typical reader. In the case of Arthur Conan Doyle, who quickly moved beyond medicine to become one of the more prolific of Victorian-era writers, and one of the most successful, there is a lot of ground to cover.

Yet, for most of us today, all we really care about is Doyle's great creation, Sherlock Holmes. Doyle's many historical novels, books about spiritualism, plays and poetry are today generally forgotten. Without Holmes, Doyle would have been a cipher in the history of literature.

Andrew Lycett's biography is thorough-going, clearly well-researched and, for someone trained at Oxford, well-written. Its critical fault, for me at least, is that it treats Doyle's great creation as just another part of the author's large output.

Who cares about The Story of Mr. George Edalji (1907)? Who cares about The Wanderings of a Spiritualist (1921)? Who cares about The History of Spiritualism (1926)? Or about a dozen or two other now-forgotten tomes?

We want to know all the juicy Sherlockian details. We want to know every detail about how Dr. Doyle came up with one of the most original characters in literature. We want to know what he thought of his creation. We want to know how each story evolved. This Andrew Lycett fails to give us.

This is a biography that covers everything about the long and generally happy life of Arthur Conan Doyle without, despite the title, fully satisfying our sweet tooth for information about Holmes and Watson, the only thing that really matters in the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

--Lan Sluder

If you're looking for the creative process that Conan Doyle employed in memorializing perhaps the most famous fictional character in literary history, this book will disappoint. Other than the well-known fact that Joseph Bell was the real-life model for Sherlock Holmes and that Conan Doyle needed to supplement his meager medical practice with additional funds, this book is more of the chronolgy of the life of a man who lived a rather mundane, if somewhat, typical Victorian existence.

True, his father was an alcoholic and Conan Doyle's first wife was practically an invalid the last ten years of her life causing him to initiate an adultrous affair with a woman who would later become his second wife; however, much of the book simply relates the travels, associations, business ventures, family squabbles and misunderstandings that were conventional to that period. Andrew Lycett, the biographer, admits in the Afterword that getting to know Conan Doyle up close and personal was difficult due to the heir's reluctance to release certain documents and letters. Following Conan Doyle's death, there was a real donneybrook over who got what from the estate. Greed and jealousy ruled and posterity and Conan Doyle's legacy has suffered because of it.

For my part the image of the man is forever tarnished by his obsession with the occult, paranormal, and spiritualism. Apart from Sherlock Holmes, he failed to live up to what he could have achieved in his lifetime as an author of great promise had he not been fixated with contacting the dead. His misguided intentions to divest himself of the true Christian faith marred a life that brought untold satisfaction to tens of thousands of devoted readers.

With that as a personal aside, Lycett from all accounts has written the most definitive biography to date on the life and times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Lycett takes complete advantage of recently released family papers, and although at first glance they seem largely like household account books that reveal how much money was spent on this and that in any given period, soon this accumulation of data grows a fascination of its own. We can see through a myriad of details how Conan Doyle, by his own literary labors, started out with nearly nothing and wound up one of the wealthiest writers of his day, living life in a nearly baronial fashion with everything he could dream of. Was this affluence worth the price he paid for it? In some ways, Lycett argues, he was completely happy and very much a man of his time, but his growing spiritual instincts show, some have argued, a guilt consciousness overtaking him, making his soul restless as those whose peregrinations through ectoplasm he studied night after night, the victim of some of the worst frauds the world has known.

I enjoyed the biography, though it is superlong and at the same time, rushed during the second half of Doyle's life, where so many things happened to him that Lycett's chapters devolve into mere laundry lists of "And then he," "and then he," without much analysis. But by then he has given us ample evidence with which to judge Doyle's character. I suppose no biography of the man could fail to examine his mysterious second marriage, and when the love affair between ACD and Jean Leckie began. They always put up a public front, as did their children, that no way did anything untoward occur between them while the first wife, tubercular Louise, was still alive. Lycett takes a middle ground, referring to Jean as Conan Doyle's "mistress" even while accepting that perhaps there was no sexual activity between them. It must have been a trying time for Jean, not to mention Louise! And much of ths strain fell on Louise's two children, Mary and Kingsley, whom Jean seems to have resented terribly and who she made sure were always being sent away to school or to spend their vacations far away from wherever she was. Conan Doyle comes off as sort of a man torn in two, but Jean seems just horrid in every way.

Lycett finds echoes of this central conflict in many of Conan Doyle's stories and novels, pointing to the way that the author of the Sherlock Holmes tales withdrew "The Cardboard Box" from a proposed volume of "Memoirs," even after it had been published in periodical form, because its tangle of illicit love affairs reflected too much of the lustful drives he himself was feeling but had, as a Victorian paterfamilias, to keep a dark secret.

Lycett ignores the current controversy about the authorship of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and does not so much as refer to the possibility that Conan Doyle had Fletcher Robinson "bumped off," though he does spend a lot of time, particularly in what is otherwise a very rushed account of Doyle's final 20 years, on his putative involvement in the Piltdown Man hoax. In his analysis of the George Edalji case, he shows us rather humorously that Conan Doyle's championing of the wrongfully imprisoned Edalji had many roots, not just the simple one of wanting justice done, including the fact that a fellow clubman had managed to clear a wrongfully accused man just the previous year and perhaps ACD wanted some of the glory too! All in all, a splendid book and one that will be much discussed in the years to come.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh Scotland to native Irish parents. His father was a minor painter who died an alcoholic in a mental asylum. His formidable mother Mary was a smart and literate woman who relished telling tales to Arthur and his siblings.
Arthur studied and graduated with a degree in medicine from Edinburgh University where his favorite teacher was Dr. Joseph Bell. Bell would be his inspiration for his famous detective creation along with Oliver Wendell Holmes. Doyle went on a ship to the Artic in his 20th year serving as the medical officer. He enjoyed travel and adventure throughout his life. He loved America and often visited our shores.
In the 1880s he set up practice in Portsmouth becoming a prominent figure in the community. He married his first wife Louise with whom he had two children: Mary and Kingsley who died of disease in World War I.
Doyle enjoyed sport all of his life indulging in cricket, skiing in Switzerland, tennis, bicycling, motoring and golf. He was a macho man's man who was also a patriot loving the British Empire. He was friendly with such writers as Kipling, Stevenson, Meredith and Hardy.
In the 1880s and 1890's he produced his first Sherlock Holmes novels:
"A Study in Scarlet" and "A Sign of Four." The Holmes short stories were produced in the Strand magazine and were wildly popular. Holmes pooh-poohed these tales wanting to write historical fiction in imitation of his idol Sir Walter Scott. In this genre the prolific doctor produced such works as "The White Company" He often sought to kill off Holmes but the last tale of the detective would not be published until late in his life due to the love the public had for the man in the deerstalker. Holmes was also played on the stage by William Gillette and was seen in silent and early talkie films.
Doyle's wife Louise died from TB in 1906. The famous and wealthy author had already begun an affair with his second wife Jean Leckie with whom he was to marry and have three children.
Doyle participated in the Boer War and visited the front in World War. His last years were spent as an evangelist for spiritualism. He died in 1930 known today almost exclusively for the Sherlock Holmes tales he so disdained in his lifetime.
Andrew Lycett has authored several literary biographies including those of Dylan Thomas, Ian Fleming and Rudyard Kipling. He has written a good book on Doyle which is illustrated and researched being based on several of the recently released letters of Doyle.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. A scientist who loved spiritualism. A married and settled family man who committed adultery. An icon to boys who often was far from home and family. An Irish heritage person who opposed the home rule of the Emerald Isle. A brilliant observer of life who was often duped by spiritualistic charlatans. A born Roman Catholic who did not like organized religion.
This book along with the recently published "The Letters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" will increase your knowledge of the genius behind the creation of Dr. John Watson and the inimitable thinking machine from Baker Street. One also gains in knowledge of the Victorian/Edwardian literary scene.

A case could be made that the most famous character in fiction is Sherlock Holmes. Everybody knows him, if not from the original stories, then from the countless plays, movies, and parodies. There is an international fan club, and the great detective still gets mail at his 221B Baker Street address in London. But his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was not so enthusiastic. Surely Holmes was the making of Doyle as a literary man, but six years after Holmes first appeared, Doyle wrote in 1892, "I am weary of his name." The public enthusiasm over the detective was, in Doyle's view, keeping him from writing the better things for which he wanted to be known, among which were his books and pamphlets in defense of the new religion of spiritualism. He failed in many of his non-Sherlockian efforts, and thus his most recent biography is called _The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_ (Free Press) by Andrew Lycett. The author has made a specialty of literary biographies (Ian Fleming, Rudyard Kipling, Dylan Thomas) and has had a long battle with the complicated network of Doyle heirs (described here in an afterword) to produce a big and detailed portrait of a gifted and deeply conflicted author.

Doyle was born in 1859 in Scotland, of Irish parents. He was all her life devoted to his "Mam", perhaps excessively even by Victorian standards. Many of his words quoted here are from letters to her. His father was insane and an alcoholic, incarcerated for years in mental institutions. Doyle abandoned his family's Catholicism and as a young man claimed agnosticism at a time when the term and the idea was a new one, before eventually claiming spiritualism. Though Lycett covers Doyles other literary works, it is Sherlock who will always be most important. Doyle killed Holmes off and remained a popular author without him, but not as popular and not as wealthy, and the reading world rejoiced to learn that Holmes's death was only apparent, not actual, when the stories resumed. Lycett writes, "Becoming a spiritualist so soon after creating the quintessentially rational Sherlock Holmes: that is the central paradox of Arthur's life." Lycett has examined the paradox thoroughly, but probably it can never be fully explained. Doyle never mixed spiritualism into the Holmes stories. When Holmes encountered superstition, it was always with the understanding that there were rational, material explanations for what people had misinterpreted as the doings of the supernatural.

Lycett's book is excellent about Doyle's literary efforts and his eagerness to involve contemporary concerns into his fiction, even if he was careful not to mix his spiritualism with his famous detective. Lycett's extensive investigations into newly-available archives mean that we can know Doyle's whereabouts, budgets, and enthusiasms with sometimes day-to-day accuracy. Doyle was an anomaly in many ways, supporting and uprooting conservative British ideals in different spheres, and Lycett has done justice to his many non-literary interests. It is as the creator of his famous detective, however, that he must always be best remembered, and the many Sherlock fans will find a treat in this a detailed, far from elementary biography.