The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Read online

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  The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volumes I and II,

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  The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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  TO SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  “Steel true, blade straight”

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  A STUDY IN SCARLET

  PART I—(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department)

  I.

  MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

  II.

  THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION

  III.

  THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY

  IV.

  WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL

  V.

  OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR

  VI.

  TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO

  VII.

  LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

  PART II—The Country of the Saints

  I.

  ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN

  II.

  THE FLOWER OF UTAH

  III.

  JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET

  IV.

  A FLIGHT FOR LIFE

  V.

  THE AVENGING ANGELS

  VI.

  A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

  VII.

  THE CONCLUSION

  APPENDIX: “MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,” by Dr. Joseph Bell

  THE SIGN OF FOUR

  I.

  THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION

  II.

  THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE

  III.

  IN QUEST OF A SOLUTION

  IV.

  THE STORY OF THE BALD-HEADED MAN

  V.

  THE TRAGEDY OF PONDICHERRY LODGE

  VI.

  SHERLOCK HOLMES GIVES A DEMONSTRATION

  VII.

  THE EPISODE OF THE BARREL

  VIII.

  THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

  IX.

  A BREAK IN THE CHAIN

  X.

  THE END OF THE ISLANDER

  XI.

  THE GREAT AGRA TREASURE

  XII.

  THE STRANGE STORY OF JONATHAN SMALL

  APPENDIX: THE DATING OF THE SIGN OF FOUR

  THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  I.

  MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

  II.

  THE CURSE OF THE BASKERVILLES

  III.

  THE PROBLEM

  IV.

  SIR HENRY BASKERVILLE

  V.

  THREE BROKEN THREADS

  VI.

  BASKERVILLE HALL

  VII.

  THE STAPLETONS OF MERRIPIT HOUSE

  VIII.

  FIRST REPORT OF DR. WATSON

  IX.

  SECOND REPORT OF DR. WATSON

  X.

  EXTRACT FROM THE DIARY OF DR. WATSON

  XI.

  THE MAN ON THE TOR

  XII.

  DEATH ON THE MOOR

  XIII.

  FIXING THE NETS

  XIV.

  THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  XV.

  A RETROSPECTION

  APPENDIX 1: THE BUTTERFLY AND THE ORCHID

  APPENDIX 2: THE SOURCE OF THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  APPENDIX 3: WAS RICHARD CABELL “HUGO BASKERVILLE”?

  APPENDIX 4: THE SEARCH FOR BASKERVILLE HALL

  APPENDIX 5: THE DATING OF THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  THE VALLEY OF FEAR

  PART I—The Tragedy of Birlstone

  I.

  THE WARNING

  II.

  SHERLOCK HOLMES DISCOURSES

  III.

  THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

  IV.

  DARKNESS

  V.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE DRAMA

  VI.

  A DAWNING LIGHT

  VII.

  THE SOLUTION

  PART II—The Scowrers

  I.

  THE MAN

  II.

  THE BODYMASTER

  III.

  LODGE 341, VERMISSA

  IV.

  THE VALLEY OF FEAR

  V.

  THE DARKEST HOUR

  VI.

  DANGER

  VII.

  THE TRAPPING OF BIRDY EDWARDS

  EPILOGUE

  APPENDIX 1: “WHO, THEN, IS PORLOCK?”

  APPENDIX 2: PEOPLE, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS IN THE VALLEY OF FEAR WITH THEIR PENNSYLVANIA COUNTERPARTS

  APPENDIX 3: THE DATING OF THE VALLEY OF FEAR

  Chronological Table: The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes

  Selected Sources

  General

  A Study in Scarlet

  The Sign of Four

  The Hound of the Baskervilles

  The Valley of Fear

  Notes for Scholars

  Acknowledgements

  PREFACE

  IN 1968, WHEN I was supposed to be engrossed in law school studies, I received a gift of William S. Baring-Gould’s The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, published the previous year. This magical pair of volumes entranced me and led me back to the stories that I had enjoyed when I was young(er) and had subsequently forgotten. More importantly, the books introduced me to the idea of Sherlockian scholarship, the “game” of treating the stories as biography, not fiction. In later years, as I avidly collected things Sherlockian, I dreamed that someday I, too, would produce an annotated version of the Canon.

  Baring-Gould’s Annotated Sherlock Holmes remained in print for more than twenty-five years and became the cornerstone of every Sherlock Holmes library. Yet it had its idiosyncrasies, with the stories arranged in the controversial chronological order created by Baring-Gould and with footnotes that embraced, in many cases, Baring-Gould’s questionable theories regarding the life of Holmes. Furthermore, there were occasional errors that were never corrected because, sadly, Baring-Gould did not live to see publication of his greatest work. While the Oxford Sherlock Holmes, published in 1993, presented the stories in nine volumes (as they were originally published in book form), the scholarly notes largely ignored Sherlockian scholarship, concentrating more traditionally on analysis of Doyle’s sources.

  I set out to create for the first time an annotated set that reflected the spectrum of views on Sherlockian controversies, rather than the editor’s own theories. In addition, this work brings current Baring-Gould’s long-outdated survey of the literature, including references to hundreds of works published subsequently. In recognition that many of the events recorded in the stories took place in England over 100 to 150 years ago, it also includes extensive background in
formation on the Victorian age, its history, culture, and vocabulary. For the serious scholar of the Sherlockian Canon, there is an extensive bibliography at the end of this volume. A chronological table, summarising the key dates in the lives of Holmes, Watson, and Conan Doyle, and major world events, is also set forth at the end of the volume. I have avoided “lawyerly” citations of the works consulted, but full citations may be found in the nine volumes of my Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, published by Gasogene Books.

  Thirty-eight years have passed since publication of Baring-Gould’s monumental work, and the world of Sherlock Holmes has grown much larger. This edition was created with the assistance of new resources that now exist for the serious student—Ronald L. DeWaal’s Universal Sherlock Holmes, Jack Tracy’s Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana, Steve Clarkson’s Canonical Compendium, and scores of other handbooks, reference works, indexes, and collections, many in computerised format. It also reflects the aid of a new tool—the Internet, which makes immense quantities of minute information accessible to the student.

  This is not a work for the serious student of Arthur Conan Doyle. While Doylean scholarship is vitally important, the reader of these volumes will not find reference to the literary sources of the stories or to biographical incidents in the life of Sir Arthur that may be reflected in the Canon. Here I perpetuate the gentle fiction that Holmes and Watson really lived and that (except as noted) Dr. John H. Watson wrote the stories about Sherlock Holmes, even though he graciously allowed them to be published under the byline of his colleague and literary agent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

  To keep this work from approaching the length of a telephone book, it is published in three volumes: The first two volumes consist of the fifty-six short stories which appeared from 1887 to 1927 (Vol. I containing the stories collected in the volumes called Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. II containing the stories collected under the titles of Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow, and Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes); the third volume presents the four novels A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Valley of Fear. To avoid constant cross-reference to other volumes, and reflecting its separate publication, this volume repeats the relevant parts of notes that appear in the first two volumes. All in all, here is the complete record of the career of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. For the first-time reader of these tales, my best advice is to plunge immediately into the stories, skipping the introduction. Whether this is your first reading or your fifty-first reading of the Canon, I wish you joy in the experience, and I hope that you find that this edition enriches it.

  A Study in Scarlet

  Scholars and casual Sherlockians alike have come to regard A Study in Scarlet (1887) as a fascinating book of Genesis, as it marked the very first public appearance of Sherlock Holmes. Here, after a brief glimpse of Watson’s life before Baker Street, we are witness to a momentous occasion: the initial meeting between Sherlock Holmes and his “Boswell,” Dr. John H. Watson, in a hospital laboratory. (“I’ve found it! I’ve found it,” are Holmes’s first words, appropriately enough.) The two men decide to share lodgings, and Watson discovers that his new roommate has an unorthodox occupation, as the world’s sole consulting detective. Soon enough, the unsuspecting doctor finds himself involved in a dark tale of revenge and murder. Central to Watson’s account of Holmes’s brilliant detection is a “flashback”-type narrative, penned by an unknown author, of the Mormons in Utah under the leadership of Brigham Young. Arresting and lively, the account nonetheless reflects Victorian England’s distorted views of the Mormons and their history in the American West.

  When one compares this picture of the youthful Holmes (he was only twenty-seven when he met Watson) to the balance of the Canon, it is apparent that the Master’s character changed little over the years of his remarkable career. His secretiveness, his bohemian habits, and his low opinion of the official police are all on display here; and while Holmes’s drug use is only hinted at, his other vices and virtues are quickly revealed to the reader (although Watson’s early assessments of Holmes’s “limits” are soon disproved). The author of A Study in Scarlet may have earned little commercial reward from the book’s early publication, but the stage was set for what would later become the most successful series of stories ever published.

  1 A Study in Scarlet was published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887, alongside two plays: Food for Powder, by R. André, and The Four-Leaved Shamrock, by C. J. Hamilton. The first book edition of A Study in Scarlet was published by Ward, Lock & Co. in July 1888; the first American edition was published in 1890 by J. B. Lippincott Company. The 1893 edition published by Ward, Lock & Bowden Limited (the successors to the original publisher) added a “Publishers’ Note to this Edition,” as follows: “As it is in ‘A Study in Scarlet’ that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is first introduced to the public, and his methods of work described, it occurred to the publishers of the volume that a paper on ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ which Dr. Doyle’s old master, Dr. Joseph Bell, the original of Sherlock Holmes, contributed recently to The Bookman, would greatly interest readers who did not see it when it appeared in that publication.

  Beeton’s Christmas Annual (1887).

  Artist unknown

  “Dr. Bell’s ‘intuitive powers’ in dealing with his patients were, so his pupil, Dr. Doyle, tells us in the pages of The Strand Magazine, ‘simply marvellous.’ Case No. 1 would step up.

  “I see,” said Mr. Bell, “you’re suffering from drink. You even carry a flask in the inside breast pocket of your coat.”

  Another case would come forward.

  “Cobbler, I see.” Then he would turn to the students, and point out to them that the inside of the knee of the man’s trousers was worn. That was where the man had rested the lapstone—a peculiarity only found in cobblers.

  All this impressed me very much. He was continually before me—his sharp, piercing eyes, eagle nose, and striking features. There he would sit in in his chair with fingers together—he was very dextrous with his hands—and just look at the man or woman before him. He was most kind and painstaking with the students—a real good friend—and when I took my degree and went to Africa the remarkable individuality and discriminating tact of my old master made a deep and lasting impression on me, though I had not the faintest idea that it would one day lead me to forsake medicine for story-writing.

  “That it did lead Dr. Doyle ‘to forsake medicine for story-writing,’ and with what result, every one knows. And as Mr. Sherlock Holmes has now become a household word and almost a public institution, the publishers of ‘A Study in Scarlet’ hope that the following paper, in which some particulars of Dr. Doyle’s early education and training, and of the circumstances which led him to form the habit of making careful observations, will prove of interest to his many readers. Their cordial thanks are due to Dr. Doyle, Dr. Bell, and to the editor and proprietors of The Bookman for courteously consenting to the reproduction of the paper.” (Dr. Bell’s paper is reproduced as an Appendix to this tale.)

  A Study in Scarlet.

  (London: Ward Lock & Co., 1888)

  PART

  I

  (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H.2 Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department3)4

  CHAPTER

  I

  MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

  IN THE YEAR 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine5 of the University of London,6 and proceeded to Netley7 to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army.8 Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers9 as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war10 had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar11 in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once enter
ed upon my new duties.

  The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires,12 with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand.13 There I was struck on the shoulder14 by a Jezail15 bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis16 had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray,17 my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

  Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawur. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever,18 that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was despatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.