Sherlock Holmes: Short Stories

📒 "This book contains the whole series of stories concerning Sherlock Holmes apart from the four novels, "A Study in Scarlet", "The Sign of Four", "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "The Valley of Fear". It begins with his first appearance in this form in "A Scandal in Bohemia" which came out in 1892, until he made his final exit in "Shoscombe Old Place" in 1927. As his methods and character became familiar to the public there was naturally less element of surprise, and the later stories suffered by comparison. As a witty critic remarked, "He may not have been killed when he fell over the cliff, but he was never quite the same man afterwards". I hope, however, that the reader who can now take them in any order will not find that the end shows any conspicuous falling off from the modest merits of the beginning". Arthur Conan Doyle