Yayyy!!! i finally finished it! it was a huge book! i loved the stories, although some of them just weren’t that fun. you didn’t really figure anything out until the end and i love the mysteries where you can figure things out yourself along the way. other then that, it was super good!

3.5 Stars

I cannot believe I am finished! I started, stopped, sputtered-to-life, halted, then started again. It took me 4 months to plow through this book; which is rare, since size does NOT matter. I have tackled larger books in less time. I did not find this book very interesting in the beginning, but once I set my mind to it this last month, it went quickly (I mostly read it on the weekends this past October).

The stories were relatively short, and actually quite humorous (Robert Downey Jr. played in my head the entire time). With a wonderful British accent, humor and obsessiveness down pact; the stories became quite enjoyable. A Scandal in Bohemia, which introduces us to Irene Adler; The Woman; and The Hound of the Baskervilles; were my favorites. The rest of the adventures were nicely done, and made me use my brain, trying to figure out the dastardly deeds of these criminals. The crimes were no different than today's; with murder, adultery, theft and pure scandal. Thrilling indeed.

I think I would have enjoyed the stories more in "bite-sized chunks" (wal-mart layaway commercial, sorry); than has a complete set. I think the size of it unnerved me and set me up for failure. Well, I don't give up unless the book sucks. This one did not; I didn't even throw it against the wall... count it blessed.

I do recommend reading the stories individually, and not as a set. This book or the stories within would have received 4 stars, due to Sherlock's ability to solve the crimes while being entertaining at the same time.

I won a copy of this in a sixth grade essay contest. My first inkling that maybe I had some talent at writing. Will always love the brilliance of Holmes. Which is why I named my YA protagonist after him.

Since 8th grade I have been head over heals for Holmes. I guess I just like moody intellectuals. It is so intertaining to watch him demonstrate his superior intellect again and again. I am really glad I picked these up a B&N. It's great to have all of Sherlock Holmes in two volumes.

Well, I think I can appreciate the fascination with the character of Sherlock Holmes and his stories. LOL...I never knew he was a raging cokehead though. A good collection of detective stories!! I have to admit though, that I grappled with this thing a bit, and I'll have to reread it at some point in the near future.

If I remember correctly (it's taken me years to get through this), this volume contains three novellas (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and The Hound of the Baskervilles), and the rest are 14-ish-page short stories. The first two novellas are a bit overlong and messy; the short stories are entertaining but mostly consist of a bunch of talking. The Hound of the Baskervilles, though, is everything you want a Sherlock Holmes story to be; it's the best by far, with mystery, adventure, suspense, and character. And who doesn't love Holmes and Dr. Watson?

Many years ago, I happened to pick up a Sherlock Holmes collection and found myself very entertained by the genius detective's adventures. Like generations of readers since Arthur Conan Doyle first set pen to paper, I was entranced by the singular adventures of a man who dedicated his life to uncovering criminals like a remorseless bloodhound, and I always meant to read more of Conan Doyle's work. But I read the collection in my teens, and it took until recently for me to come across this collection at the local library's local book sale, and then to proceed to read it.

"The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume One," as presented by Barnes & Noble Classics, is a huge book, and it contains a lot of Holmes' adventures (I actually had the second volume for a while, but parted with it because I didn't know that I'd stumble across this and be interested in perhaps reading all the Holmes stories. It shouldn't be hard to find online, though). As a general rule, I don't like omnibus editions of an author's work; it makes sense for, say, Shakespeare or any of the poets or playwrights whose individual works are short enough that presenting them in a collected form doesn't necessarily mean that a lot of trees have to die. But when a novelist has his or her works presented in this fashion, I'm loath to pick it up; I like the chance to savor one novel at a time. But in this case, I decided to roll with it because, even though three of the Holmes novels are present here ("A Study in Scarlet," "The Sign of Four," and "The Hound of the Baskervilles"), they're all so short that it's not a hindrance. Indeed, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the longer-form Holmes stories contained in each novel, and that was the discovery of this volume (I knew the short stories were good).

Both "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of Four," while not being flawless, are interesting openings to the saga of Holmes and Dr. Watson, his constant companion (so constant that I can safely assume that the introduction of Watson's eventual wife in "The Sign of Four" was an attempt by Conan Doyle to head off any rumors of just how close he and Holmes were? I'm not sure if gay panic was a thing in the nineteenth century, but Mary's introduction is interesting considering that this is only the second Holmes-Watson novel and already we're pairing Watson off with a love interest). Both novels are rough drafts at what Conan Doyle would perfect in the stories and, in time, in "Baskervilles." Holmes is, of course, a genius who is two steps ahead of the police and, eventually, able to suss out the criminal at the heart of both mysteries, as well as their motivations and exhaustive back stories (the narrative break in "Scarlet" from London to the Old West of the 1840's and 1850's, in particular, is a jolt to this first-time reader, though I can appreciate why Conan Doyle utilizes it). "The Sign of Four" is on the whole more interesting, I think, but both early novels have their charms as first-time reads.

The stories, of course, are the real attraction here, two collections that include a boatload of the famous Holmes stories (including my favorite, "The Red-Headed League"). I'd forgotten how much time is given over to victims and clients telling their entire stories to Holmes, but that's one of the cliches that is reassuring every time we begin a story: we're going to get a lot of exposition that will ultimately help Holmes solve the case (though not always the case). Holmes is perceived in the public mind as the detective who always gets his man or woman, but that's not always the case; included are some stories where he fails, or the outcome of the case isn't satisfying if you're convinced that Holmes is unimpeachable as a genius. But that's the appeal of the stories, to realize how often he's more fallible than you remember from the endless adaptations and variations on the Conan Doyle works.

And then we get "The Hound of the Baskervilles," maybe the most famous of the novels and for good reason; it's brilliant. Conan Doyle was a much more experimental writer than I'd thought, and "Baskervilles" gives him a chance to play with the detective novel genre that he arguably helped codify. The interval where Watson relies on his reports to Holmes and diary entries to help flesh out the narrative ends up working better than I thought it would, if only because Holmes is off-stage and (supposedly) too busy elsewhere to intervene, so Watson has to be his (and our) eyes and ears on the ground. It all comes together in a satisfying conclusion to a mystery that includes hints of the supernatural, though grounded in reason.

So, with all that said, what are the flaws? Few, but worth noting. The early novels aren't entirely masterworks; "Scarlet" definitely feels like a first novel in many ways, and the Mormon interlude is a bit discombobulating at first. And in the novels and stories, we see a lot of things that, while typical for a nineteenth-century British citizen to believe, probably wouldn't fly today (*shouldn't* fly today, for sure). Are there moments of racism and sexism in the tales? Is the sun high up in the sky? Typically, I would say that such instances are reflections of the time and to be dealt with at the reader's own discretion, but I think any first-time reader should know in advance that sometimes Conan Doyle writes some egregious things in the guise of Watson, and whether that's meant to be reflective of Watson or Conan Doyle is up for debate (I am an English major at heart, after all). The Victorian era wasn't exactly the most forward-thinking, and the British Empire was at her height, so many of the aspects of Holmes' literary universe are distasteful to modern eyes. But I think the good of the stories outweighs the bad in many aspects, and even the lesser stories contained in this volume are worth seeking out because they show that Holmes, far from a super-genius who has no flaws, is a more complicated figure than our pop-culture renderings have often given him credit for.

So it's five stars from me on this, a gigantic tome that felt like a chore when I first started it but became a favorite thing to dip into from time to time and eventually something that I wanted to keep reading because of how inventive even the familiar stories seemed to be after years of distance between my initial readings and my most recent. I'm going to seek out the second volume asap, and I might even tackle it this calendar year. Because Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are worth the endeavor, I think.

I have always enjoyed the concept of Sherlock - someone who is so incredibly observant and logical that nearly any little problem can be unraveled - because I think it gives me hope of order and closure in a world so filled with chaos and unknowns. I wonder if that’s why his stories, which are by no means that original, have had the longevity that they have.

For being written over 100 years ago, the Sherlock stories are incredibly easy to read and capture the reader’s attention every time. Holmes may be larger than life, but after sitting to read about his adventures through the eyes of his trusted companion Dr. Watson, one feels like they could call upon Sherlock in his Baker Street apartment today and sit with him while he weaves together seemingly unrelated events into a web of crime and intrigue.

I’m no expert in logic or observation, but like Watson, I feel almost as if I’m a student of the master and as welcome in 221B as he is. I’d like to believe Sherlock would grow fond of me as well!

Hard to rate as a whole when I liked some of the stories far more than others, but overall the stories are all clever and engaging. Doyle relies heavily on the pseudoscience of physiognomy and is a terrible misogynist with few women and even fewer spoken of with anything close to respect. Excepting those aspects, I enjoyed the stories.

Sherlock Holmes is my FAVORITE literary character of all time. And I've only read half the stories.

I never dreamed I would fall in love with the mastery of one fictional man's capabilities of mind. I now use Holmes' methods of deducing, on an everyday basis. (It's just so hard not to, now that I've learned a few of his tricks.) And yet... there's still so much MORE to take in from this master of deduction!

Volume I = complete.
Volume II = here I come!

Sherlock Holmes - everybody knows him, everybody loves him. Me too. Nevertheless, 50% was enough for me. I enjoyed the little detective stories, especially Sherlock himself. But I don't feel the urge to finish this book as the structure is always the same. There is a case and Sherlock and Watson solve it. The End.

The world’s most revered and famous fictional detective first appeared from the pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle almost a 130 years ago, but the author did not finish with his greatest creation until almost 40 years later even after unsuccessfully killing him off. In this first volume of all the collected works that feature Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John Watson, the reader first meets the great detective and his friend through two short novellas, 23 short stories, and the best-known and greatest case the pair ever faced.

The two-volume collection of the original works of Conan Doyle in the American publication order, begins with the first two Holmes novelettes Study in Scarlett and The Sign of Four which are very well written stories that both introduce the main character Holmes, but also through the eyes of his friend Watson. The next 23 short stories then show the genius and resource of the London-based detective and throughout we are given references to cases we have yet to personally read. Of the those short stories I found six the best of the bunch: “A Scandal in Bohemia”, “The Five Orange Pips”, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, “Silver Blaze”, “The Musgrave Ritual, and “The Naval Treaty”.

This volume ends with the most famous and definitely the best Sherlock Holmes story of them all, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Even though there have been numerous adaptations of this most famous novel, upon reading it one senses the place on edge, nature seeming on the verge of overpowering man, and the sounds and shadows of mysterious beings across the moor. It was no small fact that nine years after killing off Holmes, Conan Doyle wrote a novel that no only brought make his character but wrote it in such a way that made people engage with both of the main characters instantly.

There seem to be several missteps, namely “The Final Problem” which seems more to do about setting up the final struggle as is to learn more about Professor Moriarty and see the net Holmes had cast instead of just being told. There are just as many of the other short stories that are not the best than there are very good if not great. Sometimes the eye is in the beholder, but others it is not.

Upon finishing this first volume, I enjoyed reading these 26 stories. As a first time reader of Conan Doyle it was fascinating to see how more human Sherlock seems to slowly become over the course of the stories with him as their focus. In the end I can’t stress enough how you should get this book.