Sherlock Holmes stories

Connavar

Connavar

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I saw several threads for Arthur Conan Doyle but not one for the stories he is most famous for. I saw more about spoofs,wierd writing of Doyle etc


I know several people here are fans and for a long time but i read The Scarlet Study to a close just about now. Sure about 10 years earlier i tried reading Holmes,Doyle in my early teens when picking up a book was an effort i wasnt really interested in. Of course the langauge,writing was too heavy then. I barely understood the english.

Tonight it was different for clear reasons and the story was devoured easily and with alot of pleasure. Most impressed by the unpreaditcable turn it took in the middle. How the writing went from the formal,correct of that day to more free,singing prose when the story went to the other place.

Humor a new fan of Holmes and say a few words about what you think of the first Holmes story ?
 
I've read all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, some of them many times. Obviously, I'm a fan.

But A Study in Scarlet, although an enthralling story, well-told, always makes me uncomfortable with its anti-Mormon bigotry.

For the longer tales I like The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles better.
 
The Mormon thing wasnt so bad. I have seen worse side of them in Operah.....

Plus it was Pioneer era,19th century world alot worse things than what those mormons did happened. I thought the revenge angle was well done. I felt for Hope like i did for Edmond Dantes in a certain author famous revenge story.

I liked the story even more when it moved to US. It was more heroic,historical adventure,western that a writer like L'Amour wrote.

It made me think i should get Doyle's historical "romances".
 
Actually, A Study in Scarlet is the logical place to start reading the Holmes tales because it includes the first meeting of Holmes & Watson. After that, it would seem best to proceed almost chronologically, beginning with the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (that set of stories that incudes "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Red-headed League") The Sign of Four can be picked up at almost any time. If you get this far, then you will likely want to read the stories in sets (Memoirs, Return, Last Bow, Case Book) And the other two novels, The Valley of Fear and the iconic Hound of the Baskervilles, will have to be absorbed as well. ;)

But then you'll discover all this along the way in your journey. And what a "...long, strange trip" it is. Accept no substitutes. All of the Holmesian stories penned by other authors after Doyle (including Caleb Carr), just never capture the spirit and ambience of the real thing.
 
I read A Study In Scarlet and The Sign Of Four one after the other years ago and kind of get them mixed up. The boat chase on the river (Thames?) with the guy blowing poison darts was one of the most exciting scenes I've come across either in books or on the silver screen. Read Hound Of The Baskervilles twice and enjoyed it thoroughly both times. (A great book for Halloween, by the way.) If I had to list my five favorite books of all time The Lost World would be one of them.
 
It didn't involve Holmes, but I quite enjoyed The Return of Moriarty by John Gardner. Although I found the answer as to how Moriarty escaped the falls a little hard to swallow.
 
He's been my favourite detective since I first met him a long, long time ago in Hound of the Baskervilles. I then went and searched out the rest (thank you God for wonderful librarians). I still read them every now and then and have several editions of the books, one of which fits nicely in my bag.
 
Must say Holmes is more interesting than expected of characters of his type and era.

I liked it best when he showed fear of being wrong when his theory didnt work and he doubted himself for few minutes atleast.

Although i prefer C.Augustine Dupin but that might be due to the writing ability of Poe and the too much awe Watson and co showed about Holmes.

Its funny in the first story how cynically sure he was about not getting the credit for his work and the police getting it no matter how the case went.

Wondering how he will deal with his later fame. Im geussing people know more about him ability after a few famous cases.
 
I read the complete works of Serlock Holmes several years ago. It is amazing how contemporary the writing style feels with being written over a hundred years ago. My favorite stories usually involve Professor Morairty, and the one story with "the woman". I have the Bantam Signet version of the complete works, which made it very nice to be able to read all the stories in chronological order.
 
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I got hooked on Holmes when I was a child and would watch the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movie interpretations with my father (who was not a reader). Stumbling across the stories and novels (having to pay library fines for keeping The Complete Sherlock Holmes too long) I have since read the entire series several times. I've always found the character facinating. Holmes has also been the basis for many other characters, many in Science Fiction. I later found that one of the most famous Holmsian quotes is the most practical and logical way to troubleshoot an electrical or mechanical problem. ("...when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth..."). It's been over a year since I last went through the complete series, it may be close to time again.
 
Let's talk about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and novels again (elsewhere, please, for movies, television, & Holmes stories by other authors). I propose that we begin by discussing the first story collection, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). Everyone will have read at least one or two of these. Maybe in a little while we can discuss the first two books about Holmes that were published, A Study in Scarlet (1888) and The Sign of (the) Four (1890) if there is interest.

Why was it a blunder to begin this first Holmes story collection with "A Scandal in Bohemia"? Or was it?

When does the main action of "The Red-Headed League" occur?

Why is "The Speckled Band" so good despite being so bad?

Why was it an excellent idea to place "The Engineer's Thumb" relatively late in the sequence of stories, but not at the end?

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Wikipedia

220px-Adventures_of_sherlock_holmes.jpg
 
Rothgar said:
I read the complete works of Serlock Holmes several years ago. It is amazing how contemporary the writing style feels with being written over a hundred years ago. My favorite stories usually involve Professor Morairty, and the one story with "the woman". I have the Bantam Signet version of the complete works, which made it very nice to be able to read all the stories in chronological order.
Click to expand...
That would be the only story Moriarty appeared in, although he was mentioned in others.
The Red Headed League took place in October 1890 as to the other questions that is harder to answer. I seem to recall that the press idea from the Engineers Thumb was used in a Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode when Solo and a young girl were placed in a giant wine press by a THRUSH agent.
 
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Anyone want to make a case that the date of "Red-Headed League" isn't so obvious?

I'm pretty sure that Moriarty isn't mentioned in any stories up until the one in which he "killed" Holmes and died, "The Final Problem," but may have been mentioned later.

Professor Moriarty - Wikipedia

(Thanks for taking a poke at my "Red-Headed" question. Do you, or does anyone else, want to comment on any of the other questions?)
 
Wish I could join in but I'm well into a really good biography of John Wayne and a big thick book of classic mysteries. Maybe if this discussion is still going on in seven or eight months...:(
 
I read the complete works when i was very young, maybe twelve at a guess. As far as i recall, the prose was pretty accessible and exciting even back then. Im going to read the whole lot again soon.
 
Yeah -- it seems to me that I read the whole Doyle SH corpus at a young age too, though, at about 14, not as young as you were. I think maybe family friends had the Annotated Sherlock Holmes (Baring-Gould) and we borrowed it (2 volumes). I wish I knew.
 
I read the Penguin complete SH aged about 18, living up a mountain in India, during a year out between school and university. There was an excellent library at hand so I also worked my way through Sartre, Camus, Genet, Marquez, the autobiography of Malcolm X, and the complete works of Robert Ludlum.
SH is the only one I have reread with any frequency. Great popular writing.
I had read bits when younger: a schoolteacher gave me SIS when I was about 11. The Readheaded League, and Speckled Band were also early reads.
What always struck me was how badly Watson was misrepresented in the Rathbone/Bruce movies.
 
Agree with you about Watson though still believe Nigel Bruce was a perfect Watson when he was playing it straight.
 
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