The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME I

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  THE WORLD OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE AND SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Introduction

  INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I

  A NOTE ON CONVEYANCES

  A STUDY IN SCARLET - Part I BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H. ...

  CHAPTER 1 - Mr. Sherlock Holmes

  CHAPTER 2 - The Science of Deduction

  CHAPTER 3 - The Lauriston Garden Mystery

  CHAPTER 4 - What John Rance Had to Tell

  CHAPTER 5 - Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor

  CHAPTER 6 - Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do

  CHAPTER 7 - Light in the Darkness

  Part 2 - THE COUNTRY OF THE SAINTS

  CHAPTER 1 - On the Great Alkali Plain

  CHAPTER 2 - The Flower of Utah

  CHAPTER 3 - John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet

  CHAPTER 4 - A Flight for Life

  CHAPTER 5 - The Avenging Angels

  CHAPTER 6 - A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John Watson, M.D.

  CHAPTER 7 - The Conclusion

  THE SIGN OF FOUR

  CHAPTER 1 - The Science of Deduction

  CHAPTER 2 - The Statement of the Case

  CHAPTER 3 - In Quest of a Solution

  CHAPTER 4 - The Story of the Bald-Headed Man

  CHAPTER 5 - Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge

  CHAPTER 6 - Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration

  CHAPTER 7 - The Episode of the Barrel

  CHAPTER 8 - The Baker Street Irregulars

  CHAPTER 9 - A Break in the Chain

  CHAPTER 10 - The End of the Islander

  CHAPTER 11 - The Great Agra Treasure

  CHAPTER 12 - The Strange Story of Jonathan Small

  ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

  A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

  1

  2

  3

  THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

  A CASE OF IDENTITY

  THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY

  THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS

  THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES

  MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

  SILVER BLAZE

  THE YELLOW FACE

  THE STOCK-BROKER’S CLERK

  THE “GLORIA SCOTT”

  THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL

  THE REIGATE PUZZLE

  THE CROOKED MAN

  THE RESIDENT PATIENT

  THE GREEK INTERPRETER

  THE NAVAL TREATY

  THE FINAL PROBLEM

  THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  CHAPTER 1 - Mr. Sherlock Holmes

  CHAPTER 2 - The Curse of the Baskervilles

  CHAPTER 3 - The Problem

  CHAPTER 4 - Sir Henry Baskerville

  CHAPTER 5 - Three Broken Threads

  CHAPTER 6 - Baskerville Hall

  CHAPTER 7 - The Stapletons of Merripit House

  CHAPTER 8 - First Report of Dr. Watson

  CHAPTER 9 - Second Report of Dr. Watson

  CHAPTER 10 - Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson

  CHAPTER 11 - The Man on the Tor

  CHAPTER 12 - Death on the Moor

  CHAPTER 13 - Fixing the Nets

  CHAPTER 14 - The Hound of the Baskervilles

  CHAPTER 15 - A Retrospection

  ENDNOTES

  COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

  FOR FURTHER READING

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME I

  “Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.” (A Study in Scarlet, page 17)

  “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” (A Study in Scarlet, page 22)

  “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” (The Sign of Four, page 126)

  “It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.”

  (The Sign of Four, page 145)

  “Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.”

  (“The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” page 240)

  He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us. Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought. (“The Man with the Twisted Lip,” page 270)

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.” (“The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” page 302)

  “Crime is common. Logic is rare.”

  (“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” page 377)

  Like all Holmes’s reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. (“The Stock-Broker’s Clerk,” page 433)

  “Elementary,” said he. (“The Crooked Man,” page 492)

  Through the haze I had a vague vision of Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black clay pipe between his lips.

  (The Hound of the Baskervilles, page 592)

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  A Study in Scarlet was first published in 1887, The Sign of Four in 1890, and The

  Hound of the Baskervilles in 1902. The stories in Adventures of Sherlock

  Holmes were first collected and published in 1891, and those in The

  Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in 1892.

  Published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,

  Notes, Biography, Chronology, A Note on Conveyances, Comments & Questions,

  and For Further Reading.

  General Introduction, Introduction to Volume I, A Note on

  Conveyances, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright © 2003 by Kyle Freeman.

  Note on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The World of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  and Sherlock Holmes, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright © 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

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  without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics

/>   colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-034-1 ISBN-10: 1-59308-034-4

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43197-3

  LC Control Number 2003102759

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10001

  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

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  10 12 14 16 18 20 19 17 15 13 11

  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  Arthur Conan Doyle had many careers—physician, writer of popular fiction and nonfiction, war correspondent, historian, and spiritualist—but it was the creation of his immensely popular Sherlock Holmes that was to be his enduring legacy. The author was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859. His mother raised ten children on her husband’s small income; his father’s poor health and heavy drinking made that a daunting task. Despite this adversity, his mother’s willfulness and her exhaustive genealogical research instilled in Arthur a decided sense of purpose.

  After early education in Jesuit schools, Conan Doyle enrolled in Edinburgh University, where he earned a medical degree while working part-time to support his family. At the university one of his instructors was Dr. Joseph Bell, who had an uncanny ability to deduce the histories of his patients and who later became a template for Sherlock Holmes. Another teacher, an eccentric Professor Rutherford, inspired the character of Professor George Edward Challenger in The Lost World and other novels and short stories.

  Having had a taste of adventure when he served as ship’s physician on a Greenland Sea whaler while still a student, Conan Doyle longed to travel after graduation and so took a position as doctor on a ship en route to West Africa. Returning to England, he set up as a physician in 1882. His practice was small at first, so he had time to do some writing. In 1887 the first Sherlock Holmes story appeared, titled A Study in Scarlet. Over the next few years, Conan Doyle would write a historical novel, open a new ocular practice, explore spiritualism, and send Holmes on further thrilling exploits. A second novel, The Sign of Four, came out in 1890, and starting in 1891 the Holmes stories regularly appeared in the Strand Magazine . Two collections, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892 and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in 1893, collected a total of twenty-four of the mysteries. However, Conan Doyle felt that work on the Holmes stories was keeping him from writing on more serious historical topics. To the shock of his readers, in the 1893 story called “The Final Problem” he described the death of his famous sleuth.

  In 1894 Conan Doyle published Round the Red Lamp, a collection of short stories with a medical theme; in 1895 The Stark Munro Letters, an autobiographical novel; and in 1896 The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, set in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1900 he traveled to South Africa in the capacity of war-time physician in Cape Town; his treatise on the Boer War earned him a knighthood in 1902. That same year Conan Doyle published The Hound of the Baskervilles, set before the story that had finished Holmes off in 1893. In 1903 new Holmes stories started to appear in the Strand.

  In the coming years, Conan Doyle produced more popular books on a variety of subjects, including three new collections of stories—The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905), His Last Bow (1917), and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)—plus a final Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear (1915). Among many other non-Holmes projects were the three Challenger novels, historical fiction and nonfiction, and several books on spiritualism. He also championed the rights of the wrongly accused, in two separate cases exonerating innocent men.

  With the onset of World War I, Conan Doyle served as a war correspondent on several major European battlefields. Following the war, he became a passionate advocate of spiritualism, which he embraced in part to communicate with his eldest son, Kingsley, who had died from influenza aggravated by war wounds. From 1920 until his death, the author wrote, traveled, and lectured to promote his belief in a spiritual life after the death of the body. After a long, demanding journey through Scandinavia, Arthur Conan Doyle suffered a heart attack; he died a few months later, on July 7, 1930, in Sussex.

  THE WORLD OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE AND SHERLOCK HOLMES

  1859 Arthur Conan Doyle is born on May 22 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the second child and eldest son of ten children that will be born to Charles and Mary Foley Doyle. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities are published.

  1868 Arthur attends school with the Jesuits in England; later he will re ject Catholicism.

  1871 Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass is published. The first book of George Eliot’s Middlemarch is published. Royal Albert Hall, one of Britain’s most important concert venues, opens in London.

  1876 Conan Doyle enrolls in the University of Edinburgh Medical School. As a student, he takes various jobs to help his family, in cluding serving as a ship’s doctor on an Arctic voyage. While at Ed inburgh, he meets Dr. Joseph Bell, whose analytical capabilities amaze his patients and students; Bell later becomes a model for Sherlock Holmes.

  1879 “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley,” Conan Doyle’s first story, is pub lished in Chambers’s Journal, an Edinburgh weekly.

  1881 Conan Doyle receives his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery qualifications, and takes a position as ship’s doctor on a steamer en route to West Africa.

  1882 He returns to Great Britain and establishes his medical practice.

  1885 Conan Doyle receives his M.D. degree. He marries Louise Hawkins; her poor health makes the marriage a difficult one.

  1887 A Study in Scarlet, the debut Sherlock Holmes story, is published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual.

  1889 Conan Doyle’s short novel The Mystery of Cloomber, which is con cerned with the paranormal, is published, as is Micah Clarke, a popular novel about the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685.

  1890 The second Holmes novel, The Sign of Four is published, in Feb ruary in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and in October as a book. The story had been commissioned at the same dinner party at which Oscar Wilde was offered a contract for The Picture of Do rian Gray, also published in Lippincott’s this year.

  1891 The White Company, a tale of fourteenth-century chivalry, is pub lished. Conan Doyle closes his medical practice to devote more time to his writing career. Stories featuring Sherlock Holmes begin to appear regularly in the Strand Magazine.

  1892 The story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is pub lished.

  1893 The year proves stressful, as the author’s father dies and his wife is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Hoping to help Louise’s condition, the family travels to Switzerland, where Conan Doyle visits Re ichenbaeh Falls, the site he chooses for the death of Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem”; he intends for this to be the last Holmes story so that he can turn to literary work he considers more important. He joins the British Society for Psychical Re search. The story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is published.

  1894 Round the Red Lamp, a collection of medical short stories, is pub lished. Conan Doyle makes a three-month speaking tour of the United States (with one stop in Toronto), traveling in the east as far south as Washington D.C., and in the Middle West as far as Chicago; it was his first personal discovery of America.

  1895 The Stark Munro Letters, a fictionalized autobiography, is pub lished.

  1896 The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, about a hero in the Napoleonic Wars, is published.

  1897 Conan Doyle meets Jean Leckie and falls in love with her; the two maintain a platonic relationship until their marriage in 1907. Brain Stoker’s Dracula is published.

  1900 Conan Doyle travels to South Africa to serve as a hospital doctor in the Boer War; he publishes The Great Boer War, an account of that conflict. Oscar Wilde dies.

  1901 Queen Victoria dies.

  1902 The Hound of the Baskervilles, a Holmes n
ovel set before “The Final Problem” (1893), is published. Conan Doyle’s work in a field hospital and his treatise on the Boer War, The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, earn him a knighthood.

  1903 New Holmes stories begin to appear in the Strand Magazine.

  1905 The story collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes is published.

  1906 Louise dies of tuberculosis at age forty-nine. Conan Doyle begins investigations that will exonerate George Edalji, a man who had been wrongfully accused and sent to jail. Sir Nigel, a companion piece to The White Company (1891), is published.

  1907 Conan Doyle marries Jean Leckie. Through the Magic Door, about the importance of books in his life, is published.

  1909 The Crime of the Congo, about Belgian atrocities in the Congo, is published.

  1910 Conan Doyle investigates the case of Oscar Slater, another wrong fully accused man. E. M. Forster’s Howards End is published.

  1912 The Lost World is published; the first of a series of science fiction novels featuring the skeptical Professor George Edward Chal lenger, it is the best known of the author’s non-Holmes stories.

  1913 The second Challenger novel, The Poison Belt, is published.

  1914 Conan Doyle visits New York City and Canada. World War I be gins. James Joyce’s Dubliners is published.

  1915 The final Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear, is published.

  1916 Conan Doyle announces his belief in spiritualism, which holds that the spirit has a life after the death of the body; he will become one of its best-known advocates. James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is published.