Arthur Conan Doyle Books

it's very good this book, but it has got a lot of pages that they are very boring. Thanks and good bye.

Based on the limited information provided about this out-of-print book, I am not certain that the one I am about to review and that which is listed are one in the same. However, their titles are exact, so I will assume that this is the book collected by Peter Haining and published in the 1990s. This book is a great boon to the many obsessed fans and scholars of Doyle's work, as it reprints many obscure articles, stories, and plays that might otherwise be unavailable. Little of this material approaches the quality we expect of the regular Holmes canon, but much of it is interesting. This book contains: Two commentaries by Conan Doyle about his creation, neither of which sheds much new light. Two brief Doyle parodies of his own characters, neither of which are very funny. Two short stories in which a noted detective that many believe to be Holmes plays a small and unfruitful letter-writing part. A fascinating plot outline by Doyle for a story he never wrote. A poem Doyle wrote to defend himself against a critic. Two of Doyle's other short stories, that have much less to do with Holmes than Mr. Haining seems to imagine, but one of which, "The Mystery at Uncle Jeremy's Household" is a ripping good yarn anyway. A long story called "The Adventure of the Tall Man" which Mr. Haining wants to believe is written by Doyle, but which stylistically stinks to high heaven of being written by someone else. Two short plays by Doyle, one of which is an odd Holmes comedy and the other of which is an excellent stage version of what would become "The Mazarin Stone." Also, a most interesting list of Doyle's own favorite Holmes stories. All in all, this is a hodge-podge, valuable to completists and students of Holmes.

King's book deals with the performance of Arthur Conan Doyle's short play "A Story of Waterloo" by eminent Victorian actor Henry Irving and a devastating review of this production written by George Bernard Shaw in 1895. The play is about an old and feeble soldier who has played a heroic role at Waterloo and pathetically dies while reliving his finest hour, thereby bringing the house down (in the theatre, that is). King uses this intersection of two remarkable theatrical careers to consider the Victorians' retrospective glance at the Napoleontic wars, the nature of Irving's performance, which by modern standards would be inconceivably sentimental, Irving's relation to his audience, Shaw's development as a critic and playwright, Irving's leading lady Ellen Terry and her son, the theatre director, designer and Irving acolyte Edward Gordon Craig. An instructive and entertaining read for anyone with a broad interest in the theatre and (cultural) history. Highly accessible, but marred by some unnecessary excursions into academic obscurities that the opening chapters had led me to believe were going to be avoided. Still, fascinating stuff.

This book is a compilation of eight short stories "written" by Dr. Watson after Holmes "retirement." All are set after his capture of Dr. Moriarty.
The first three short stories, aren't that interesting. I found myself knowing the end result way before the end of the story. However, the fourth story "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" which concerns a young man working for the British government that ends up dead on the London subway tracks with 7 of the 10 pages of plans for a super secret submarine in his pocket. The other three are missing. Holmes and Watson must find out who killed the young man and where the plans are. This one is not only the best one of the book, but also one of the two longest.
The other great story in the book is The Adventure of the Devil's Foot.
There's also a great historical insight in the book, with a couple of the characters and plot lines surrounding the British conflict with Germany, and one is also set after the beginning of World War I.
I whole heartedly recommend this book to anybody interested in mysteries or great literature.

Very nice edition of a book everyone sould read when coming from or going to Devonshire. This large print edition is being read nightly -one chapter a night-- by a 95 and 1/2 year old who did indeed just come from Devon.

"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.

Patrick Tull brings the classic Sherlock Holmes horror tale of the Hound of the Baskervilles to stark and vivid life. We may all have seen versions of this particular story done on TV or movie. This totally unabridged reading far surpasses them all. I walk about town and take buses a lot and listening to both these tales engaged me for a couple of weeks now. I'd never heard of The Valley of Fear but I found it even more interesting in many ways even than the Hound of the Baskervilles. It's a very different tale, half of which veers away from the hallowed inspector altogether and has Conan Doyle spinning the tale far and wide.

The man's voice is deep and slow.So easy for listenning.I think this tape is the best tape for learn with English.

Ahh -- the creator of the great Sherlock Holmes tackles dinosaurs! In the first novel in this collection, Doyle's lesser-known protagonist, George Edward Challenger, leads an expedition to a South American plateau where prehistoric life still exists. While there's a bit too much Doyle-style propaganda here about evolution and cavemen (remember Doyle sought "the missing link"), it's a fine piece of storytelling from the man who must be acknowledged as the first "dinosaur novelist" -- and whose title Crichton ripped off, without so much as a thanks-a-lot! There are four other tales here as well involving Challenger -- a worthy collection indeed!

Read it. Is not the best, but is interesting. Some few parts are boring