Wow, zawsze czuję się dziwnie, kiedy dzwonią do siebie TELEFONAMI ☎️

This was truly a bittersweet moment completing the ninth book in the Sherlock Holmes and final collection in the canon, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. This essentially was the case-book examining twelve mysteries that baffled the police and investigators over the years in stories that were published between 1921 and d1927.

These stories included: The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone; The Problem of Thor Bridge; The Adventure of the Creeping Man; The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire; The Adventure of the Three Garridebs; The Adventure of the Illustrious Client; The Adventure of the Three Gables; The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier; The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane; The Adventure of the Retired Colourman; The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger; and The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place. But I will finish the collection of works in the parting words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

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And so, reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes! I thank you for your past constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of romance.
———- ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

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Despite the title previous Holmes compendium being called  His Last Bow and the fact his brother Mycroft killed him before that, this is the last last Holmes novel by  arthur conan doyle.

Anyway, in keeping with my last Holmes and Watson review I offer the following:

"Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson went on a camping trip. After sharing a good meal and a bottle of Petrie wine, they retire to their tent for the night.

At about 3 AM, Holmes nudges Watson and asks, "Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see?"

Watson said, "I see millions of stars."

Holmes asks, "And, what does that tell you?"

Watson replies, "Astronomically, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Theologically, it tells me that God is great and we are small and insignificant. Horologically, it tells me that it's about 3 AM. Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Holmes?"

Holmes retorts, "Someone stole our tent."

Indeed

That's it. That's the end.

I had grown fond of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson's adventures and now... I know that my previous reviews were not much useful to understand my real feeling toward their stories, however I can swear that I truly love them. I began this last book with a heavy heart knowing that everything would soon be all over.

This collection starts with an introduction written by A. C. Doyle, that really made me come to tears. It was beautiful, and sad, and I still cannot realize that I will not read anything new about those two. It was a pleasure to read their adventures, because it was my opportunity to prove my intelligence, to see if I would have been able to solve the mystery like Sherlock did, or if I would have stared in amazement the final revelation. Sometimes I was able to solve it, sometimes not, sometimes I did both. Anyway, it was an amazing thrill.

It was a great ending, tho. Not only for the stories themselves, probably among the strangest cases Holmes and Watson had ever followed, but also for the writing style: third person narrator, Watson' narration and, wonder of wonders, this time we even have a couple of adventures narrated by Holmes himself (even though I felt the absence of Watson). Anyway, I really enjoyed these short stories, I really had great times with them.

Oh, I feel so sad.

'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

3.5/5

This was a fun collection of short stories! Some were much more enjoyable than others, but at the end of the day I'm there more for Sherlock and Watson's friendship than the mysteries. And that's a wrap on the Sherlock canon!! I look forward to re-reading all the stories at some point in the future!

متعة غموض طرافة ترجمة جيدة.
لقد كانت حقًا رحلة جميلة برفقة كتاب تمنيت ألا ينتهي.

You can’t convince me that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson aren’t in love.

So after nine years of deliberately slow reading, I've got to the end of the Sherlock Holmes canon. I've no doubt I'll go back and reread all the books at some point in the future, but it's still a wistful moment to know there are no more original stories to be discovered.

According to popular wisdom, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is a bit of an anticlimax; it's regularly referred to as the worst of the Holmes books and a few of the stories in particular really get backs up among some of the more serious-minded scholars.



Well I'm happy to be unpopular. Even the worst Arthur Conan Doyle is better than 90 percent of the mystery fiction out there (and there are plenty of self-published efforts on Amazon if you want to see what a properly bad Sherlock Holmes story looks like); his invention, his wit, his knowledge of his characters (with the possible exception of their given names) are second to none. It's no wonder people are still picking over the footnotes of his works a century later.

There's only one true dud in Case-Book (The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone, an almost wholesale rerun of The Adventure of the Empty House, clunkily adapted from the stage) and a number of genuine late classics.

For all that it's controversial, I really enjoyed The Adventure of the Creeping Man. True it verges on the science-fictional, but for me Holmes and Watson have always occupied the same cultural sphere as their more obviously fantastic contemporaries: the Invisible Man, Fu Manchu, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Moreover, it's a story that's obviously the work of the same Doyle who wrote Lot No. 249 and The Disintegration Machine, and I really like that guy.

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman, The Adventures of the Blanched Soldier, The Adventure of the Lion's Mane and The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger all have their own particular bits of ingenuity or colour that earn them their right to be considered in any discussion of the best of Holmes – and by this point I've listed over half the collection.

True, certain themes and devices reoccur that we've seen before, but not so much as the naysayers would have you believe. It's important to remember that by this point Doyle was no longer writing contemporary mysteries, but evoking a past and fondly remembered age. He was in some ways the first Holmes continuer.



Aside from a wistful final sentence, nothing about The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place suggests it is the final Holmes story. Doyle had tried and failed to wrap the canon up three times before – I suspect he'd have returned to Holmes at intervals for as long as he lived.

It is, though, fitting that our final encounter with Holmes and Watson should be another regular case; for as long as people want to look in on them at 221B Baker Street, they will be there, sat either side of the fireplace, waiting to hear the step of their next client on the staircase...

possibly my very favourite sherlock holmes collection!

Zawiodłam się na tym "całościowym" rereadzie Sherlocka. W mojej głowie zapisały się wspomnienia mile spędzonego czasu, ekscytacji i sympatii do głównego bohatera. Tymczasem okazuje się, że jest z tym wszystkim krucho :/
Niemniej, ostatni tom okazał się być w miarę znośny.

3,75⭐️