This book was completely not what I expected and I couldn't be more pleased about it. We're talking about the original James Bond here.

Going into this book, I was already in favorable bias towards it. Classic lit? Check. Takes place in London? Check. Older English/historic? Check. Still, there was so much more to it than met the eye. Here are my thoughts:

1) Every story in this book has something to bring - whether its suspense, action, mystery, excitement, and sometimes even mundaneness (in the sense that things aren't always what they seem)....but by no means did I expect these stories to be so laugh-out-loud funny. Some of the comments Sherlock makes are so blatantly sarcastic English humour, made funnier by the naiveness of the characters around him who don't always pick up on the underlying meanings of his clapbacks. It's funny how a man who is so much about taking things at face value speaks with so many hidden layers.

2) Like I said above, Sherlock Holmes is truly the original James Bond. You sort of expect him to be this quirky middle aged English man who smoked his pipe and reads his books. That side of him is totally true. But he's also a cocaine addict, a renowned boxer, and allegedly one of the strongest men in England (despite not believing in exercise). The nature of the writing makes different events appear to be casual and proper...until you realize this man is really out there running around London chasing his own wannabe-murderers underground and in the mountains.

3) Sherlock and Watson - despite all of the points in #2 - have one of the purest friendships I've seen in literature. It's so uniquely comfortable and intimate. It's a friendship you feel between the characters but there isn't actually much written evidence behind it. In other words, the interactions between them are louder than words and the way they show their affections towards one another are so muted but ever so strong.

4) This is certainly a book I'll treasure for it's wisdom, it's reminder about REAL life, and as something that's easy to read over and over again - whether the whole thing or re-living specific adventures - whenever (like Holmes) I feel I need "an escape from the commonplaces of existence" (The Red Headed League).

4) Less so a point but rather just my favorite line of the whole book is as follows:

"'My dear fellow,' said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, 'life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.'"

I love this line for 2 reasons. 1) It reminds you that even the most imaginative fictional adventure is nothing compared to the beauty and excitement and craziness that occurs in real life. Our lives might seem dull at times, but when you think of everything that's happening, and see it as a chain of everything that's happened...well...that puts the world's best imagination to shame. 2) The first point is reiterated by the fact that it's a completely ironic statement...Holmes is saying real life is the most exciting...but his real life is still our fiction. It's almost like Doyle is making a "case in point" and reminding the reader that hey, this may be SUPER exciting but don't forget it's just a story after all.

rating: 5/5 stars
~
watson saying sherlock is “the best and wisest man” paralleled beside patroclus’s “most beloved” in my mind is breaking me (and giving a little bit gay vibes ngl)

this got darker as it went on. might let n read it when he's at least 12-14.

must read al pragmaticilor

4,5 ⭐️

Quote:

Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.

While I don't think this is the exact same book that I read, it's the closest I could find. Mine is also an exact facsimile with the original illustrations and a foreword about "The Magic of Sherlock Holmes". I picked it up not too long ago after being led into the bowels of the Morristown Library by a gang of elderly annoyed librarians in search of a "book sale" my father and I saw a small cardboard sign for. There wasn't much to choose from- they were mostly selling romances that people had donated to the library (further supporting my belief that romance novels are, for the most part, disposable). I wanted to get something, though, since everything was incredibly cheap and I had nothing to read. I saw a paperback version of this book tossed in a dusty corner and it seemed as good a choice as any- plus it was $2, and there aren't a whole lot of books I wouldn't buy for that price.

So I went to the scowling cashier with the beehive hairdo and paid for it, then tried to find my way out of the labyrinthine library basement. It took a while. Seriously, you would not even believe the books that some libraries have in their basement. Rooms and rooms of them, some with leather covers and clasps that looked older than the United States.

Once I started reading the book, I couldn't stop. I read as we walked, I read during lunch, I read the entire time during the drive back, then stayed up till some obscene hour finishing one last short story. Hence my placement on the "who-needs-sleep-anyway?" shelf.

I love short stories. When they're bad, you don't feel like you wasted as much time as you would have reading a bad novel. But when they're good, they can pack even more of a punch than the lengthiest of epics. They are a true lesson in how much an author can say in so few words. To me, they are like the gourmet bite-sized appetisers of the books world, the pigs in a blanket, the curry puffs, the potato skins, the strange crunchy things at a foreign restaurant that you're not even sure what they are but they're so damn good you scoop a dozen of them onto your plate and have at it.

This is compilation of the first 12 short stories in which Sherlock Holmes and John Watson first appeared. They are the perfect length, not to mention illustrated- I love any book for adults that gives me an excuse to look at pictures. In reading this, I gained a new appreciation for the character of Sherlock Holmes, and I truly believe that until you've read at least one of Doyle's stories you don't know what you're missing.

The true Sherlock Holmes is not very much like he is portrayed in popular movies and TV shows (none that I've seen, at least) and, in fact, neither is Watson. Before reading this book, I pictured Holmes as a bitter, condescending genius with a fondness for deerstalker hats. While that's right to some extent, the actual character profile is far more layered. He's a restless cocaine and opium addict, often does chemistry in his own little lab, plays the fiddle quite frequently, is very moody, and while he is often difficult and gruff, he's not like the sour, world-weary old man I thought he would be. (Also, he only wears a deerstalker hat once in all of the stories in here. Sometimes he opts for a top hat or bowler but more often than not, he goes bare-headed.)

I was surprised at how much I liked Dr. Watson. He isn't as accustomed to bizarre adventures as Holmes is and he is more easily flummoxed, but it is implied that he's actually a real badass. I mean, he's often armed, he's got a military background, he's the only friend of the greatest detective in Victorian London, and he's got a bullet in his arm that he calls a relic of his Afghan campaign. Much cooler than you thought, eh?

Also, he's got a killer moustache.

The dynamic between the good doctor and the detective is great as they help people from all walks of life and solve a spectrum of crimes from murders to people getting their thumbs chopped off with axes as they hang out of windows*. The setting and illustrations serve wonderfully as world-builders and you truly feel like you're in the stagecoach with Holmes and Watson as they roll along the London cobblestones in the dead of a stormy night.

I really must read the rest of Doyle's short stories, and I'll probably read the novels too if I ever get around to it. If you're a chronic skimmer, my favourite stories in this volume were The Engineer's Thumb, The Blue Carbuncle, The Speckled Band, A Scandal in Bohemia, and The Man with the Twisted Lip.

So there you have it. A review of what are considered the first great detective stories and an ode to what $2 can buy you. If you haven't read this yet, what are you waiting for? If you've watched any of the movies or series and yet refuse to read any of the books...

...really?

*Not even kidding.

2.5 peut-être ?

les enquêtes étaient de plus en plus intéressantes au fil du temps mais c'était vraiment trop répétitif, j'en pouvais plus...

this was the perfect book for me to get back into reading! i love the bbc tv series, and the structure of it being a collection of shorter stories rather than one big one meant it was easy to pick up and read a whole story when i had the time.

8/10

This one took a long time to get through as a family read-aloud. It was perhaps better that the stories were interspersed with other books and movies, because they might have felt repetitive if read back-to-back. Still, I'm glad we persevered. Yes, the writing is incredibly old-fashioned and a bit formulaic. True, some of the mysteries don't make much sense, and in many cases the reader isn't given nearly enough clues to have any chance of figuring it out for herself, but Doyle wants us (like the dutiful Watson) to marvel at Holmes more than he wants us to become sleuths. It's fascinating to see, in the original, the characters who have spawned to many adaptations and imitations. And it's fun to peek into the 1880s not via the lens of historical fiction but via contemporary writing from the time -- with all its assumptions, details, oddities, and (at times) cringe-worthy biases. Literary, intriguing, and subtly funny, the adventures of Sherlock (and Watson) do not disappoint.

A bit boring

Entertaining short stories, with in this edition the beautiful detailed original drawings of Sidney Paget

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are the first two collections of Doyle's detective stories, often published together as they are in this volume. The combined collections are kind of peak Holmes as they include many the most famous stories, as well as the first appearances of Sherlock's brother Mycroft and his nemesis Professor Moriarty. There is also indications that Doyle was already getting tired of writing his most popular character, and in fact he tried to kill him off (spoilers for a story from the 1890's).

A typical Holmes story involves a character contacting either Holmes or Watson and then taking up about half the story with a narration of their bizarre or complex problem. Holmes then quickly resolves the case. He sometimes pretends the case has him baffled only to reveal later he solved it before the character finished their story. At least three stories involve people taking strange pointless jobs that turn out to be frauds intended to cover up a crime. Often a character will report inexplicable behavior from a family member, which again turns out to be covering up a past crime or a plot for a future crime.

Doyle's stories are genuinely entertaining, and the short story format keeps the pacing quick and prevents long digressions. My favorites are when Doyle goes a bit creepy and Gothic, such as in The Speckled Band and The Engineer's Thumb. I especially enjoy it when Doyle gives the reader enough information to figure out the mystery, such as in The Man with the Twisted Lip. Occasionally Doyle even dips into humor as in The Red-Headed League and The Blue Carbuncle. The humor tends to dry up in the later stories as writing Holmes seems to become less fun for Doyle and more of a chore.

For anyone interested in trying the original Sherlock Holmes material for the first time, this collection is the best place to start.