“He loved Peace Eagle (Irene Adler) purely, chastely, asexually, exclusively, in a way that put aside the female race most effectively, I dare say; a most proper chap, my imaginary friend—even for the 1890s….”

And yes: ‘Irene Adler’ implies German blood, and a Latin education: the world was the way it should be, (smiles).

It’s amusing…. Adventures are hardly ever about True Liberation (TM), of course, right…. A late Victorian guy dealing with death and murder and moral decay may have actually been unusually beyond-polite for that high noon of repression, you know, actually…. That Lord Dunsany guy’s signature book, for example, came later, a few years into the Jazz Age, right, and he was younger: and they were both adventure stories, but LD’s book was more…. Perfunctory; polite and nothing, right: whereas ACD’s first move apparently is to go immediately up to edge of respectability to demonstrate how far it was acceptable to go in ultra-pro-social hero-adventure tales, without straying over into things that should only ever be sung in Italian, rather than printed in English, right…. Which if you think about it, is ALMOST daring, right…. As opposed to just flowery vapid polite nothings, which would have been a dime a dozen back then and for many, many more years, as well, right….

…. (reads a few lines of technobabble discoveries) The adventure-technobabble does seem less stupid, cuter, than “The Martian”, though that’s a three-quarters case of being the difference between my mind-world a few years ago, when I was less sociable and less happy and more susceptible, therefore, to being blown off-course, by seeking fun, but not wanting it, basically: versus today….

Certainly there is that element of ‘a hero for worship’, right: it is curious how you could see one thing and make a few correct sly guesses about it, right—it’s far from impossible…. But sooner or later, you’d make more incorrect guesses than Hero Worship Boy Books would imply, right…. [It is true that, literally speaking, SH does encounter human limitations on a decent number of occasions: but the reader is never made to FEEL a sense that he is limited; it has no emotional meaning in the stories, IMO; it’s just…. I don’t know; it’s put in there for form’s sake, not because you’re meant to take that seriously, SH’s human limitations….], yeah, read poorly as a naive 7th or 8th grader, maybe even several grades earlier than that, whenever it was, this probably wasn’t the best influence on my development, given the context of those times—the 1990s—not that anything too substantial has changed, right…. (shrugs) But I expect it to be amusing…. It’s just so fascinating how the late Victorian times could be the high noon both of sentimental housewives, passive almost to the point of suicide by forgetting when to breathe, and, at the exact same time and place and class/race, the most robotic male super-cyborg intellectuals, right: you see kinda the same thing in the more ‘political/serious’ book ‘Resurrection’ by Tolstoy, although that’s not a book worthy of hero worship, either, really…. [If perhaps it also doesn’t deserve to get put down the memory hole on the sly, which is the treatment it has received, essentially, lol.]

(shrugs) But yeah: I mean, ~EYE~ guess wrong sometimes, why not Sherlock Holmes? I was watching the most putrid propaganda-romance film the other day, “The Proposal” (2009), and although I was taken in by no lie: I did guess incorrectly about what lie Leni Riefenstahl (and I did literally watch it out of curiosity due to the woman-director aspect, lol) had slated for the next scene, lol….

I don’t know. It’s entertainment. Novels are one form of entertainment. I’ll swap out the Dunsany for this, once I’m done: Elf-bride boy didn’t really write anything I’m glad to have read, today, in retrospect, and really nothing in that book rewards the award of time, right; whereas this does promise amusement….

…. It’s amusing how Sherlock both lies and indeed, breaks the law, right. I don’t mean that as criticism, of course. Who doesn’t fantasize about doing just what they like, legal or not? Evidently not people who solve crimes for a living, a-hahaha! 😁

And yeah, it’s funny how being an opera girl was like the next thing to being a high-price….

~”Back then, things were good, children! Women lacked power; men lacked desire! It was the way Jesus intended when he created the world, before there were Democrats!” (rolls eyes) “Yes, Grand-mama[/papa]….”

…. (finishes the Bohemia story) Rather nicely done. It’s very cute, and very aware of the current ideas, in an amusing way. Cute, and yet it could JUST have happened, right…. Sometimes the interpretations of life and society that the characters give are quite questionable: although they’re just what people would have said, at the time, right….

…. (The Red Headed League) I did read this book, I think, as an older-child Millennial 90s youth, right: I guess reading is a good habit to get into, right, but it is amusing how little you get out of it at a certain point in your journey…. (It doesn’t help if people don’t really raise you to see the actual important issues: they just coach you to be loyal—I think that the technical term is, ‘parenting’, lol—and have minimal “improper” behavioral expressions, right…. Although, I got into trouble anyway, because there isn’t a single, one-piece, simplistic sort of system to be loyal to, anymore, right…. Although I don’t know that our way of raising kids has really changed, right….) I thought that a ‘red headed league’ was just the most quixotic, most random thing, right, just take out a coin and flip it random, right: like a club for people whose name starts with A, right…. But this was the 1890s; for us today it would be more like, ‘A club for people whose name is Carlos’, right…. It’s the equivalent of having a Carlos Club, where people who are named Carlos get a chance at a computer programming job, right…. (At the time, encyclopedias were like, technology, right?)…. Although the whole thing wasn’t really what it seemed, right: although I don’t think/I hope that the REAL (criminal) plot wasn’t an ‘ethnic’ one, right; it was the Anglo handlers of the program who were up to a little something something….

…. It’s funny how the first two stories are almost modern, but in the 1890s British way, you know: ‘disreputable’ women, and then one of the ‘disreputable’ ethnicities, and both stories reference the USA, right!…. Not to backtrack, but it is funny, how the gossips talk about opera girls, now vs then, right….

…. “…. and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple cooking, and keeps the place clean….”

Well, I guess that’s the way it should be: the way of the ancestors, right? Wholesome, traditional womanhood, unsullied by feminism, living wholly within its own proper sphere, but not without a certain power, unique to that peculiar sphere, you know…. 😉

👽

…. Sherlock as a lover of music and leisure (and then-legal drugs) is curious. I rather believe it….

I wonder how unusual it was in the 1890s to portray the ‘ethnic’ British man as assimilated and un-harried—a little unimportant, you know….

…. (A Case of Identity) It’s not quite as Freudian as I was expecting; I suppose that even male lovers want more than (failing the other thing), flirting—but that, OTHER, thing, that is relevant to dalliances, right…. [💵….]. I suppose it’s the pre-Freud’s fame, ‘Freudian’ thing, right. It is true that these things do change from time to time, even if the sexy sexist Dr. Sigmund was correct, that they tend not to be ‘respectable’, right. To make a small tangent, Freud himself wanted people to be ‘respectable’, albeit in a non-‘respectable’ way; he wanted to be the superego, reminding people, (especially women, of course), to sacrifice ‘sufficiently’, for ‘love’, right…. But, I digress.

…. Oh, and I’m reading the story on a Kindle, which shows popular lines to underline: and apparently people tend to underline the one line, the callously sexist one, about how, women just love their delusions, right; the cautiously cross-cultural one about how Hafiz is as good as Horace, not so much…. Well, it’s the 21st century, ladies and germs: oppression is over: you can all go home now! That’s right, I said it: scram! Nothing to see here!….

Move along! 🏏 (the ball isn’t as relevant as the bat, lol)

…. (Boscombe Valley Mystery) A little rural murder to investigate…. Good, good: best to get out into the pure air…. ~People always used to talk like that, about country air: and I guess they’re right; I guess during Queen Vicky’s days, people still remembered that their cities produced pollution, right…. Though of course, American (to speak of myself) agriculture grows more and more unnatural every year, I suspect, to speak of only the aspect of society under review…. But yeah: it’s curious; city air versus country air—the thing too obvious to be retained in the popular imagination….

And it is funny how Watson’s wife emerges just long enough to underline her lack of importance, almost like the servant; and Sherlock underlines how they don’t trust country people, it seemed like he was saying, right…. Yes, the urban English male person, with money, right, back in those times…. (smiles, jazz hands)

…. At least there’s a lot of ambiguous woman characters in the story, right. Loads of ambiguous characters, you know: the male characters, you know, are of course not arranged in a hierarchy, right….

It is amusing to think that a man, especially if perhaps not only in the 1890s, (we just wouldn’t have this choice anymore, right), would rather increase his chances of being killed by the state, than disclose the nature of his romantic humiliations, you know….

I certainly believe that part, right?….

…. It is true, that it is amusing, how clever Holmes is.

…. (The Five Orange Pips) A story about the KKK is an unusual choice for 1890s England, so that’s certainly curious; however, ACD seems to have bitten something off without being able to chew and digest properly: he set himself the sort of task he was not adjusted to doing well. [Not exactly a BAD choice, being ‘ambitious’ like that, but it can affect the quality of the work, if you follow.] It’s fascinating, in an idle sort of way, to read these sorts of Technology of the 1890s Sleuthing Stories, but something more is required for an adequate investigation into the story of a white terrorist organization hunting traitors, you know?

…. (The Man with the Twisted Lip) Reading things “from history”, so to speak, can be curious. Nowadays, the “problem” is immigrants—they don’t even look like us! Back then, the “problem” was areas associated with the “emigrant ships”, right: they can’t even make it here!…. The societal attitude towards the districts which peopled emigrant ships, which is echoed, is by no means kind, right….

(smirk) But then, kindness ought to be the attribute of women, right: and not men….

…. And whenever Sherlock has the slightest difficulty with his powers, he is most inhuman with himself—but I suppose that, “all men are like that”, right. [😉]

…. I don’t mean to be precious about the poor—anyone can be greedy; viciousness is here there and everywhere; class lines are blurry; crazy is everywhere, people get used to it, shrug it off—but yeah: the Victorians, the English Victorians~ they told some far-fetched fantasies about the poor, you know. The poor…. They’re rich!…. They’re a real problem!

…. (The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle) It seems like quite a random, circular, goes-nowhere story, thematically speaking, but, here’s a funny line: ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know’—That’s the character, right: right there. And that’s why his name is a byword for the intellectual-who-stirs-up-resentment-in-us: you know, that vaguely [USA] Midwestern phrase, ‘No shit, Sherlock’, all that sort of phraseology; they resent it—and why periodically people plunge however-many millions into Sherlock Holmes Costume Dramas, you know: because he’s the Grand Old Scientist From the Past, and people look up to him, right. [figure it out lol 🤷‍♂️]

…. (The Adventure of the Speckled Band) Obligatory trashing of the minority ethnic community (Gypsies, as they are sometimes called)….

…. So Sherlock is a strong man: lifts weights, apparently, or: some kind of strength training. Curious. Of course, there’s so little of that shown, as opposed to the (non-romantic) dandyism, and the intellectualism—that there is that possibility of male vanity/beauty; whereas the hero worshipper has even sometimes associated himself with virtue/strength he does not have, out of loyalty, and a sense of the abstract-ideal ‘male’, and fantasy, and all that….

But yeah: that is one of the benefits of a less technological time, (although hopefully one day we will learn the true sort of thought, and not the obsessive sort of thought, and learn to balance the true sort of thought, with the strength of the embodied creature, right): in old times, before powerful technologies—and even the Victorian times was an age of ~~very young~~ technology, right: there was more of a sense of the need of bodily vigor….

People think they can get their bodily vigor back by supporting old-fashioned prejudice: which is a bit like saying…. I don’t know, that learning French will make you a good cook: and I’m not talking about going to Paris, just doing some crazy ass thing like reading Petrarch in French, right; yes, I know where he was from, lol….

…. This isn’t about any of the stories, but, SH isn’t always bad.

~Sherlock in the Future!

“They tell me that this is food, my good man.”
~(examines plastic, then shakes head) An interesting hypothesis, of course…. (returns to him) But, there’s no evidence.

…. (The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb) “…. when the facts evolve slowly before your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth.”

…. (a medical patient to a doctor) “Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man….”

Not that I don’t wonder what some medical historians of the future will think we were on about, with some of these chemicals of ours, and some of our ideas, but: but, yeah…. Progress has certainly been made in our civilization, upon certain lines, anyway. And it’s silly to have hero-worship notions about the past, sometimes, right?

…. ~The Cassandra: The men of the 1890s felt unconsciously guilty for sidelining women, and Christianity encouraged guilt as a positive experience, right. They were also naturally enough afraid of the machine of man, that they were a part of, right….

…. (The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor) “As to his dress, it was careful to the verge of foppishness….”

It’s funny, describing clothing style as ‘careful’, nowadays, at least if we were listening to a song (in the unlikely event that the words were non-liquid enough to describe anything as practical as clothing or even, in a concrete way/in any sort of complete way, appearance, even, right), or watching a movie: in something like that, today, ‘careful’ wouldn’t necessarily tend towards the idea of going for the heart-strings, IMO, right—more like, playing to the nostalgics/parents, etc. (Although clearly there is more overlap between the two strategies than either ‘parents’ or ‘children’ sometimes admit, right.)…. But yeah: in person, I do think that you’d get an idea that a ‘careful’ choice of clothes is going in for the kill, albeit by the very weapon of respectability, right. And in the early 21st century, the notion has indeed survived that pleasant appearance is indeed not suitable to Team Adjutant-to-the-Birth-Giver, right (‘foppish’). I’m not sure I want to seem beautiful myself; I’d rather be more like a practical woman (a drudge, lol), than a beautiful one, in order to be of service ‘to a lady’, right: although here the issue is more class, than gender considered in splendid isolation, right….

…. “We can’t command our love, but we can our actions.”

…. Here comes the crazy man, old chap, said Watson with disdainful glee. I wonder that his relatives don’t keep him locked in the attic or the cellar, with the dogs and the servants who have taken ill.
~I’m going to make money today, so that fate will never be mine, Sherlock declared, rubbing his hands together in material delight. But soft! What light from yonder window breaks! It is the customer, who will be properly serviced, and billed. 👻

~But yeah: I’m always so thrilled when my fellow white men take such a kind and egoless concern with my welfare, right. Aside from old white ladies going to church socials and being, correct-human-beings/helpless invalids, Black people being violent and American, white people being violent and American, and the woke people deciding that I am better off feared than engaged with, that has to be one of my absolute ~favorite~ things, when one of my fellow-white-men looks at me like, Hey Jim! It’s that guy! It’s that white kid who looks just like us! Yes, that random stupid kid with the fucked-up resume! The crazy one—the very same!…. (British gaze, from above) Do you think he can do any tricks? (considers this question with all deliberate consideration)

~(shrugs) I mean, they’re amusing stories, don’t get me wrong…. But they’re not about, me, even, you know…. I don’t know how to describe it….

…. ‘The only disadvantage to the girl, is that she is pretty, and men like her: but really she is a fine servant, truly serviceable and adequate.’

Oh, to be a girl in those times: just to ~live~ in those times!…. And all that has only been slightly changed: everything is loosened from its fixtures and changed, but not healed or at all different in essence: merely dislodged from its security, and risen up, therefore, in wrath!

…. Girl receives suitor, unknown person—get snippy at both of them

Girl has suitor, known felon, runs away—write her off, we have enough problems

But yeah: the information processing is indeed pretty remarkable. It’s the moral values, lol, that are lacking….

…. (The Adventure of the Copper Beeches)

~(SH) To the lover of art for its own sake, sometimes the less-prestigious art is of greater merit or interest….

~I’m surprised to hear him say that, given of what one takes his character to be, and of course the date: but it is true. It is very true. The prestigious things, the sort of things that cannot be avoided because they flow down from on high into everything else, are sometimes well, but prestige, and merit or interest are different things, and sometimes place ought to be yielded to that which also cannot be avoided, the flower of the ever-fertile valley, which abounds greatly, and as the air is clean and true up on high, so too is the earth soft and living down in the valley, wouldn’t you say?

Prestige, and merit or interest are different things, though not many of Queen Victoria’s subjects necessarily agreed, right…. But there was a lot of Aquarian energy on Arthur Conan Doyle’s chart: and God knows we’re strange people, we Aquarius sorts….

…. (SH) “Crime is common. Logic is rare.”

It’s not that he has a perfect personality, or is without a personality, or is never bent on receiving pride of place—a useless sort of location, right. (Though perhaps I don’t know that either; but then, it is hard to forget sometimes that “Sherlock” has entered the folklore memory as, at least in part, the caricature of an intellectual, and I hope I am not THAT, though I am quite sure that I have, some, at least, of the character defects of my general type.)

But yeah, there is, still, a sort of truth to that striking sentence, right: crime is common…. I have never been the logician sort of intellectual, even at the times when I have been most studious and withdrawn, right. But they too, have a certain claim to truth, right: the logic-finders…. Crime is common…. Logic is rare…. You could draw false inferences from that dictum; but it is, itself, true, you know?….

…. A man with money offering you way above the market value of your services is, “a philanthropist or a villain”, that’s so true, and in a book of crime and/or general misconduct adventures, we know which it is, right…. God, sometimes I feel like I’d get in trouble, you know, for tipping a girl ‘too much’, right…. What a world, gentlemen and gentlewomen! What a world! 🤪

…. This last story is wonderful. Obviously there is the issue of upper-class solidarity, and then too, it wasn’t at all uncommon, wouldn’t you say, for Victorian popular opinion to be awake to the issue of sexual abuse, albeit in its own peculiar way, right…. But it does seem to be very tuned in with sympathy to a woman with agency: ACD seems far more touched by needs of the woman with intellectual training, than many men of the 1890s would have been, right…. It seems almost to anticipate the good as well as the bad points, of a Betty Friedan, right….

…. So yeah: it is kinda a story about a polite society man making a fetish out of polite beauty (women’s hair); it’s a very good premise….

…. (SH) “I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.”

It does indeed go both ways…. Not to be laboriously autobiographical, although naturally what I, as well as what everyone else writes or says is under-written by lived experience: but it’s always curious when the parent is “normal” or “successful” or at least, I don’t know, “not too different from everyone else; just another working adult”, and the child, much less so, right: not that individuals are not distinguished, but often a line of thought that leads to madness was pursued in the child until the consequences flowered, that they learnt from the parent(s), as the parents possessed it, but which they themselves, (the elders), in a fit of instinct, extinguished partially just in time, or else by sheer whim did not pursue (their error, that is) in any sort of ‘logical’ way: thereby escaping the lion’s share of the consequences, or the ‘price’, so to speak.

Although it appears that the plot does not bear out my previous supposition, (“a fetish out of polite beauty”), at least, literally, although on psychoanalytic grounds, it would appear (vis a vis politeness and ordinariness) very strange a story indeed, substituting the one idea for the other….

So much of men’s lives is ruined by having power, right…. Our greatest wish, in our moments of bravery, is to show what powers of women overshadow us: but if women are nothing but passive vulnerability only, then our desires themselves are lies, and our lives, though surely spent and worn out, by and by, one way or another, burn out, but only in a half-lived way, right….

…. Yes, a drop of gore is the thing, right. It’s obviously kin—a sort of older cousin—to the sort of ‘crime’ reporting that often fascinates people who in fevers and delusions imagine that the fears it stokes benefits them: not infrequently even by those populations most obviously disadvantaged by that sort of thing, right; drops of gore, and pounds of foolishness…. Still, it is true that there are violences and wars and battles, in our so-called peaceful, unified, and rational society, right….

The themes in the stories are usually almost entirely laid out in their first half: with the second half being largely mechanical and more a matter of ‘cleaning up’, so to speak…. But he’s not a bad writer at all, ACD: competent, and also, amusing.

This one collects some of the most famous and iconic adventures, from the lighthearted Red-Headed League to an almost Poe like horror story in The Speckled Band. The narration from Jacobi is fantastic and he has a variety of voices for the different characters, though I think Steven Fry's narration wins out as the best Sherlock Holmes reader on his exuberance. ( )

You gotta love holmes! ( )

An interesting classic that remains easy to read, even more than a century later. ( )

These are the classic Sherlock tales, and they’re probably the best known of all the short stories. I remember my dad reading these aloud to my brother and me when we were children. These stories are distinctive and quite enjoyable, and in my opinion, some of Sherlock’s most memorable moments occur within these pages. I liked that not all of these stories involved traditional crimes, and I also liked that several of them featured strong women. Holmes fails in at least two of these stories, and it really was something to see the great detective in his lower moments as well. He is still a very human character, for all his powers, and he’s very well fleshed-out here. On the whole, a wonderful collection of tales. ( )

I wish I could give half stars, because this is really 3 1/2 stars to me. I haven't read any Sherlock Holmes since [b:The Hound of the Baskervilles|8921|The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes #5)|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311281165s/8921.jpg|3311984] in junior high school, and I remember enjoying that very greatly. I didn't enjoy this one as much. I don't know if it's due to my changing tastes, or my cognitive functions declining, or, the most likely culprit, that I simply don't enjoy short story collections as much and the stories here were rather staid. My enjoyment did vary from story to story, and there were a few I liked, especially "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" and "The Adventure of the Copper Beaches," which makes sense - those are some of the more exciting stories, that have a little bit (very little) of action. ( )

A Scandal in Bohemia - 10/10
The Red-Headed League - 10/10
The Speckled Band - 9/10
The Copper Beeches - 10/10

The other stories from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" are missing from my edition, although there are several other stories, mostly from "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (4 stories) and the "Final Problem" from "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes", but I will rate it as it is til I read the others. ( )

It was nice to read some non-fiction for a change. ( )

Even though Doyle wrote two novels before these twelve stories, for me, it all begins with this book and the first short story “A Scandal in Bohemia.“ If you're new to the world of Holmes and Watson, this is the book to start with. Twelve masterful short stories that have most of the best of the Holmes canon. I don't know how many times I've read these, but I keep rereading and will keep rereading for as long as I can. I am truly #sherlocked. ( )

Holmes and Watson come alive in short stories. Someone (who, I wish I'd recall) once said that if you only read Agatha Christie's short stories, and Conan Doyle's novels, you'd think both were terrible writers. It certainly seems true in Conan Doyle's case (from the two I've read thus far).

Either way, of the twelve stories in this collection, all of them are quite enjoyable. They showcase a slightly more even relationship between the two heroes, as well as featurnig a varied array of guest characters, and mysteries which Conan Doyle easily shifts from political intrigue, to international conspiracy, to simple mistaken identity. In fact, the only story that I don't think really works anymore is "The Five Orange Pips" - and this is only because it has dated to the point where the killer's identity was something new and curious in the 1800s, but is now quite commonly known by most Westerners, meaning that most readers will probably catch on from about page three.

After this, I have renewed vigour to move on to the 4th of Holmes' 9-book canon. We'll see! ( )

This is the third book featuring master detective Sherlock Holmes. Unlike the first two, which were stand-alone novellas, this collects twelve short stories. Among them are such memorable tales as “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” and “A Scandal in Bohemia,” which leads off the collection. It also contains some lesser achievements. Even Holmes remarks in the final story about Watson’s tendency to write up the more trivial cases. However, he concedes that these sometimes present the most curious puzzles. Nothing delights him more than what he calls a three-pipe problem.
Throughout, Holmes displays his attention to detail, often mystifying Watson, who sees but does not observe. Many cases feature beautiful young females of pure character in mortal danger. This chivalrous view of womanhood somehow includes the seeming exception, Irene Adler. Other hallmarks of a Holmes yarn recur, such as the love of disguise; not only does Holmes adopt one in several stories, but he expresses his admiration of someone else’s use of one. There are instances of maiming; the engineer’s thumb is a particularly gruesome instance. Oddly, Doyle doesn’t seem to have settled on the identity of their housekeeper; Mrs. Hudson appears in only one story.
I continue to be struck by the frequent plot device of a crime (set in an exotic locale) before the local crime recounted in the story itself. This backstory often makes Holmes indifferent to whether the culprit has to face justice.
Holmesians sometimes ponder the incompatibility of Holmes, whose powers of rational deduction match those of his detection, as a creation of Doyle, who in later years championed spiritualism. But Holmes remarks: “Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. . . . There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.”
I enjoy becoming reacquainted with these tales sixty years after first devouring them. ( )

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on 14 October 1892. It contains the earliest short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, which had been published in twelve monthly issues of The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The stories are collected in the same sequence, which is not supported by any fictional chronology. The only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson and all are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.

In general the stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes identify, and try to correct, social injustices. Holmes is portrayed as offering a new, fairer sense of justice. The stories were well received, and boosted the subscriptions figures of The Strand Magazine, prompting Doyle to be able to demand more money for his next set of stories. The first story, "A Scandal in Bohemia", includes the character of Irene Adler (perhaps, next to Holmes and Watson, Doyle's most fascinating character), who, despite being featured only within this one story by Doyle, is a prominent character in modern Sherlock Holmes adaptations, generally as a love interest for Holmes. Doyle included four of the twelve stories from this collection in his twelve favorite Sherlock Holmes stories, picking "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" as his overall favorite. ( )

This is the first Sherlock Holmes I've ever read, though like many, I've seen various adaptations. I started with this book of short stories mostly because it was the one I owned. I've never been a huge fan of short stories, though, and while I wish now that I'd started by checking A Study in Scarlet out from the library, I'm still glad I've started reading Holmes in any form. The issue with reading this book of shorter mysteries, though, is that a lot of the clients start to blend together, as many of them talk and act similarly when they bring Holmes their case. I did spread the stories out, reading 3 at a time, then reading other books before coming back for more, and I think that helped some.

My view of Holmes and Watson, and even some of the other characters, started with an understanding based on some of the adaptations I've seen, and while Holmes was indeed standoffish and generally assumed he was the smartest one in the room, I didn't think he was quite as cold as I've seen him portrayed. A few of the cases were really interesting, while there were a couple that I thought had a much less intriguing solution. The introduction of Irene Adler wasn't at all what I expected, but I wonder if she'll be back in a future story. Overall, I enjoyed reading these vignettes, and have a feeling I'll appreciate even more the longer stories when I get to them. ( )

Excellent! My Watson & Sherlock crush continues. ( )

"Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, "here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone." ( )

Book title and author: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur Conan Doyle). 5/3/23
I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA
II. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
III. A CASE OF IDENTITY
IV. THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY
V. THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS
VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP
VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE
VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND
IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB
X.THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR
XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET
XII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES

Why I picked this book up: this is the 3rd of 32 books in Banned Books compendium
I won this book from LibraryThing’s April 2023 early review.

Thoughts: from description in The Banned Books Compendium: 32 Classic Forbidden Books by Gringory Lukin (Editor) this book talked about why this book was banned. “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on 14 October 1892. It contains the earliest short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, which had been published in twelve monthly issues of The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The stories are collected in the same sequence, which is not supported by any fictional chronology. The only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson and all are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.
The book was banned in the Soviet Union in 1929 because of its alleged "occultism", but the book gained popularity in a black market of similarly banned books, and the restriction was lifted in 1940.” I think that is interesting since I thought Russian was atheistic. These took me longer to read than I expected. Not all of them were equally as entertaining to me but I liked reading them. Sherlock’s drug use is odd to me. I read he used for his overactive mind. Dr. Watson was not too happy with his drug use. I wonder if he gets his drugs from Dr. Watson?

Why I finished this read: I really enjoyed some of these entertaining stories. Sherlock was so observant, witty, intelligent, logical and kept the pages turning.

Stars rating: I really enjoyed these stories 4 out if 5 stars. ( )

I'm borrowing a friend's heap of Sherlock Holmes collections--she read them in three weeks, and my challenge is to read them in less.

Unfortunately I seem to dislike to mildly like the short stories so far. A few stand out to me, like the ones that travel to the countryside or feature a tomboyish woman (traditionally I gravitate to stories featuring independent heroines). Still, those stories I only mildly like. The rest are okay.

Considering the vast popularity of the Sherlock Holmes series and its lead character, perhaps I should address how it's possible for someone to quickly lose excitement when reading:

1) Almost all dialogue. Maybe I'm a big fan of the "show, don't tell" strategy to writing or I'm a big of a misanthrope who wants to tell the characters to get over themselves, but I find having almost every sentence within quotation marks exhausting. Roughly half of the stories are three characters (Holmes, Watson, and a client) standing or sitting in a room, the client rattling the backstory. Frequently there are quotes within quotes, like relaying gossip. Sometimes the plot revolves around an almost petty issue so the dialogue sounds like gossip or someone who lacks the spine to resolve their own issues. I never cared for soap opera.

2) Too convenient. The other half of the stories have Holmes explaining step by step the solution to the problem with a deus ex machina quality, like the stars aligned just so that Holmes has everything he needs to promptly reach the right conclusion. Forgo any outliers or natural element of randomness. No one reads this for immersion. Granted, these are short stories, so I can't hold this part against the plot too much.

3) Stiff characters and language. While it is amusing to read with a general, BBC accent and many people love the English elite culture of the Victorian era, I found it all too stuffy. Impersonal. Everyone other than Holmes is colorless and shown next to him as complete imbeciles. Rarely is there someone who is more than an audience in a room. Outside of the round-about aristocratic dialogue, Doyle's writing is of no particular artistry or literary value.

I had to look up what the literary value of the stories were because I couldn't deduce them myself. Apparently Sherlock was popular because Doyle was the first to successfully write a mystery using forensics (others, including Edgar Allen Poe, did it first but didn't rise to main stream success).

It's one of those things where if you're impressed with the main novelty of the story (Sherlock's power of deduction in an era where that was "the" new thing) you'll love the story--most people seem to. However, what's novel to some is often gimmicky to me. I need more depth, even in short stories. ( )

One day I came across The Sign of Four and said, "what the heck let's read it". I loved it. Now I am slowly reading all the books and short stories.
From a historical perspective I loved reading about late 19th century London i.e. the customs, the conveyances, how women were regarded.
My favorite from this volume is the Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was scary and mysterious. How could Sherlock solve it?
Pros : I felt like I was there
Cons: Sherlock always disappears to gather evidence, sometimes I wish we could go along on the trail. ( )

Excellent short stories with the same detective and his friend Dr. Watson, the stories normally being less than 20 pages. I like how the stories are bizarre yet still realistic and that logic plays such a big part. Quite entertaining. ( )

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

Who doesn't know Sherlock Holmes these days? Even if not everyone might be familiar with the original version invented by Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. Holmes has become such a legend in his own right, a development fed and supported by numerous stage, screen and radio adaptions, that it is nearly impossible to hear the word 'detective' without immediately associating Sherlock Holmes.

'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' is a collection of altogether twelve short stories, published as the third part of the Sherlock Holmes series following Doyle's novels "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of Four". Not without reason do many readers consider this collection to be Doyle's masterpiece, myself included. It simply was no masterpiece which absolutely thrilled or stunned me. Blame it on me or my inability to read all the stories from this collection in less than four months, but a lot of the fun about Holmes' and Watson's adventures was deprived from the novel by repeating exactly the same concept in each and every one of those stories.

Let's take a look at the short stories itself, which may very well represent the very essence of Doyle's works in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia and concluding with The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Doyle invented two famous female characters frequently associated with the stories about Holmes: Irene Adler and Violet Hunter. Both may be considered ahead of their times, surprisingly independent and brave. The other characters Doyle brought into play during the other ten stories were not quite as memorable, however. The Red-Headed League turned out to be a sweet little short story which isn't very outstanding in the Sherlock Holmes series because of its predictability, but still includes some interesting quotes and follows a suspense-packed plot with a conclusion which will keep you turning the pages ... just as The Boscombe Valley Mystery, an interesting mystery story about a man being suspected of having murdered his father, consisting of fast-paced dialogues and an exciting turning point. Everyone seems to have guessed the ending correctly before reading it - everyone except for me -, which may be the reason for why I liked it so much.

A Case of Identity was far off being nearly as intriguing - I have written a full review for this story here - while The Man with the Twisted Lip emerged as a really good short story with an interesting twist I would never have figured out on my own. In addition, Arthur Conan Doyle included some interesting material surrounding Sherlock's drug addiction here, and once again, he masterfully explored the friendship between Sherlock and Watson. Afterwards, a story about the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, The Five Orange Pips, eloquently narrated by Watson as usual, once again followed the pattern of a classic Holmes tale with an interesting plot and new layers of depth to the character of Sherlock Holmes. Sadly enough, it wasn't as unique as Doyle wanted the story to appear.

Another rather interesting little story, but not outstanding or mind-blowing was The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, enjoyable, but nothing more. Therein, Holmes has to deal with a stolen carbuncle appearing in the throat of a Christmas goose, entering on the search for the real culprit. The Speckled Band is one of the most well-known stories in this collection, and the hype this short story received is understandable due to its complex mystery and the stunning conclusion. I liked the story myself. However, never before has Doyle confronted us with so many plot holes, which ultimately disappointed me. A story full of potential which was stripped from its credibility for the sake of cutting it short - the story certainly provided home for more potential than some of Doyle's full-length novels. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb deals with an engineer whose thumb is chopped off, stinging Sherlock to work out the background of this new case.

The Noble Bachelor focuses on the disappearance of a Lord's bride immediately after the wedding ceremony. Quite an entertaining story with snarky Sherlock Holmes at his best, and a stunning conclusion which once again made the reader feel as dumbfounded as John Watson about Sherlock's investigative talents. The second-last story, The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, deals with the damage mysteriously inflicted to the coronet of a British earl, and, finally, during the conclusion of the collection Doyle rises to fresh heights of his writing with The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, breathing life into a suspenseful story surrounding a woman who assumes work at the mansion of a strange couple with dark secrets.


While most of these stories are independently enjoyable and memorable on their own, added up on each other they amount to a collection of great mysteries Doyle could have been proud of. However, for me, the problem in getting through the anthology proved to be the similar execution of each and every story. All of them started with Sherlock and Watson sitting or conversing in Sherlock's home, right before the case's new victim appeared - in most cases on the story's second page. After elaborately recounting their experiences in a way so explicitly formulated that they might have been the starting-point of a story without Sherlock or Watson being present, the second part of all the stories mainly consisted in Sherlock and Watson calling upon the location of the occurence, right before the third part was used to allow Sherlock to narrate the real events leading up to the upcoming of the mystery based on his investigations. Now and then, the second step was even skipped if Sherlock started the investigation without Watson (who was the first-person narrator, which resulted in us only being allowed to look at Sherlock's approach if Watson was present as well), and it just bothered me to read the same concept over and over again, only embedded in different plotlines. And, just as a footnote, someone should have told Sherlock not to consider every single one of his cases as the greatest challenge of his career. It became repetitive after a certain point.

However, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" remains a great work and can be seen as a tribute to the wonderful and world-wide famous characters of Holmes and Watson. My only disappointment results in my shattered hopes that Mycroft - Holmes' brother - or Moriarty - Holmes' archenemy - might be introduced during one of these stories, but my anticipation of meeting them obviously needs to wait slightly longer. Up next on my Sherlock Holmes quest: [b:The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes|194373|The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4)|Arthur Conan Doyle|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1410716044s/194373.jpg|6328892]. ( )

Gotta love Sherlock Holmes, the iconic detective. Nothing could endure like he does if it weren't amazing. ( )

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Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Series: Sherlock Holmes #3
Author: Arthur Doyle
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 360
Words: 104K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org

"A Scandal in Bohemia" July 1891

The King of Bohemia engages Holmes to recover an indiscreet photograph showing him with the renowned beauty, adventuress and opera singer Irene Adler‍—‌the revelation of which would derail his marriage to a daughter of the King of Scandinavia. In disguise, Holmes witnesses Adler marry the man she truly loves, then by means of an elaborate stratagem discovers the photograph's hiding place. But when Holmes and the king return to retrieve the photo, they find Adler has fled the country with it, leaving behind a letter for Holmes and a portrait of herself for the King. The king allows Holmes to retain the portrait as a souvenir.

"The Red-Headed League" August 1891

Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker, consults Holmes about a job, gained only because of his red hair, which took him away from his shop for long periods each day; the job for to simply copy the Encyclopædia Britannica. After eight weeks, he was suddenly informed that the job ended. After some investigation at Wilson's shop, Holmes contacts a police inspector and the manager of a nearby bank. With Watson, they hide in the bank vault and catch two thieves who had dug a tunnel from the shop while Wilson was at the decoy copying job.

"A Case of Identity" September 1891

Against the wishes of her stepfather, Mary Sutherland has become engaged to Hosmer Angel. On the morning of their wedding Hosmer elicits a promise that Mary will remain faithful to him "even if something quite unforeseen" occurs, then mysteriously disappears en route to the church. Holmes deduces that Hosmer was Mary's stepfather in disguise, the charade a bid to keep Mary a spinster and thus maintain access to her inheritance. Holmes does not reveal the truth to Mary because "There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman"; he had already advised her to put the matter behind her, though she responded that Hosmer "shall find me ready when he comes back." At the end, Mary's stepfather escapes and Sherlock Holmes predicts he will commit more crimes.

"The Boscombe Valley Mystery" October 1891

Inspector Lestrade asks for Holmes's help after Charles McCarthy is murdered, and his son, James, is implicated. McCarthy, and another local landowner, John Turner, are both Australian expatriates, and Lestrade was originally engaged by Turner's daughter, Alice, who believes James is innocent. Holmes interviews James, and then inspects the scene of the murder, deducing a third man was present. Realising Holmes has solved the case, Turner confesses to the crime, revealing that McCarthy was blackmailing him due to Turner's criminal past. Holmes does not reveal the crime, but secures James's release because of the presence of a third person at the crime scene.

"The Five Orange Pips" November 1891

John Openshaw tells Holmes that in 1883 his uncle died two months after receiving a letter inscribed "K.K.K." with five orange pips enclosed, and that in 1885 his father died soon after receiving a similar letter; now Openshaw himself has received such a letter. Holmes tells him to do as the letter asks and leave a diary page, which Holmes deduces is connected to the Ku Klux Klan, on the garden sundial. Openshaw is killed before he can do so, but Holmes discovers the killers have been travelling on a sailing ship, and sends the captain a letter with five orange pips. The ship is lost at sea.

"The Man with the Twisted Lip" December 1891

Neville St. Clair, a respectable businessman, has disappeared and his wife claims she saw him at the upper window of an opium den. Rushing upstairs to the room she found only a beggar who denied any knowledge of St. Clair – whose clothes are later found in the room, and his coat, laden with coins, in the River Thames outside the window. The beggar is arrested, but a few days later St. Clair's wife receives a letter from her husband. Holmes concludes, then proves, that the beggar is actually St. Clair in disguise; he confesses that he has been leading a double life as a beggar, making more money that way than in his nominal work.

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" January 1892

A "Blue Carbuncle" is stolen from a hotel suite, and a former felon is soon arrested. However, an acquaintance of Holmes discovers the carbuncle in the throat of a Christmas goose. Holmes traces the owner of the goose, but soon determines that he was not the thief by offering him a replacement goose. The detective continues his search, first to an inn and then a dealer in Covent Garden. The dealer refuses to provide Holmes with information about the source of the goose, but Holmes observes another man trying to find the same information, and confronts him. The man, the head attendant at the hotel, confesses to his crime. Holmes allows him to remain free, arguing that prison could make him a hardened criminal later.

"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" February 1892

Helen Stoner worries her stepfather may be trying to kill her after he contrives to move her to the bedroom where her sister had died two years earlier, shortly before her wedding. Stoner is herself now engaged, and Holmes learns that her stepfather's annuity (from the estate of his wife‍—‌Stoner's mother) would be greatly reduced if either sister married. During a late-night investigation of the bedroom, Holmes and Watson discover a dummy bell-pull near a ventilator. As they lie in wait a whistle sounds, then a snake appears through the ventilator. Holmes attacks the snake with his riding crop; it retreats to the next room, where it attacks and kills Stoner's stepfather.

"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" March 1892

An engineer, Victor Hatherley, attends Dr Watson's surgery after his thumb is chopped off, and recounts his tale to Watson and Holmes. Hatherley had been hired for 50 guineas to repair a machine he was told compressed Fuller's earth into bricks. Hatherley was told to keep the job confidential, and was transported to the job in a carriage with frosted glass, to keep the location secret. He was shown the press, but on closer inspection discovered a "crust of metallic deposit" on the press, and he suspected it was not being used for compressing Fuller's earth. He confronted his employer, who attacked him, and during his escape his thumb is chopped off. Holmes deduces that the press is being used to produce counterfeit coins, and works out its location. However, when they arrive, the house is on fire, and the criminals have escaped.

"The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" April 1892

Lord Robert St. Simon's new American bride, Hatty Doran, has disappeared almost immediately after the wedding. The servants had prevented an old love interest of his from forcing her way into the wedding breakfast, Hatty had been seen in whispered conversation with her maid, and Inspector Lestrade arrives with the news that Hatty's wedding dress and ring have been found floating in the Serpentine. Holmes quickly solves the mystery, locating Hatty at a hotel with a mysterious, "common-looking" man who had picked up her dropped bouquet after the ceremony. The man turns out to be Hatty's husband Frank, whom she had thought dead in America, and who had managed to locate her only moments before she was to marry Lord St. Simon. Frank and Hatty had just determined to go to Lord St. Simon in order to explain the situation when Holmes found them.

"The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" May 1892

A banker asks Holmes to investigate after a "Beryl Coronet" entrusted to him is damaged at his home. Awakened by noise, he had found his son, Arthur, holding the damaged coronet. Arthur refuses to speak, neither admitting guilt nor explaining himself. Footprints in the snow outside the house tell Holmes that the banker's niece had conspired with a blackguard to steal the coronet; Arthur had discovered the crime in progress and the coronet had been damaged during his struggle to prevent it being stolen. He had refused to tell his father the truth of the crime because of his love for his cousin.

"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" June 1892

Violet Hunter consults Holmes after being offered a governess job subject to a number of unusual conditions, including cutting her hair short. The wage is extremely high, £120, and she decides to accept the job, though Holmes tells her to contact him if she needs to. After a number of strange occurrences, including the discovery of a sealed-off wing of the house, she does so. Holmes discovers that someone had been kept prisoner in the wing, but when Holmes, Watson and Hunter enter, it is empty. They are accused of freeing the prisoner, who was the daughter of Hunter's employer, who sets his dog on them, though it attacks him instead. It is revealed that Hunter had been hired to impersonate her employer's daughter so that her fiancé would believe she was no longer interested in seeing him, but the daughter had escaped and the pair later married.

My Thoughts:

I remembered the gist of almost all the stories from my read in 2009, so this wasn't a taut read. More comfortable really. Like putting on a pair of old slippers.

★★★✬☆ ( )

Another great collection - I especially enjoyed 'The Speckled Band'. ( )

Sherlock Holmes solves mysteries.

2.5/4 (Okay).

Some of these are pretty bad, especially the early ones where Doyle (and therefor Holmes) is on the side of the villains as often as not. They improve as they go, as Doyle settles into a formula. Unfortunately, unlike the preceding novellas, there's no character development at all.

(May 2022) ( )

Skemmtilegar sögur af snilli einkaspæjarans sérvitra Sherlock Holmes. Hann er sennilega ein fyrsta ofurhetja skáldsagnanna og það sem gerir hann svo eftirminnilegann er að Doyle skapaði hann breyskan, drambsaman, félagslega heftann og frámunalega gáfaðann. Allar bera þó smásögurnar keimlíkan svip. Kúnni mætir til þeirra Holmes og Watson, leggur fyrir þá vandamál þar sem sárafáir einstaklingar koma við sögu. Holmes sér það sem enginn annar sér, leiðir af því réttu rökin og leysir málið. ( )