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Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Best of Sherlock Holmes

Best of Sherlock Holmes (Wordsworth Classics)

A hard-to-fault selection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. 12 of the stories were selected by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the best from the 44 Sherlock Holmes stories that had appeared by then. David Stuart Davies adds a further 8 to the mix, which include such classics as The Man With the Twisted Lip, The Blue Carbuncle, and Charles Augustus Milverton. The mysteries seem to lose little of their charm and appeal more than a century after their writing. Short introduction by Davies is a useful bonus that reveals interesting tidbits.


"In the March 1927 issue of The Strand Magazine, a competition was held to choose the twelve best Sherlock Holmes stories from the forty-four already published in book form. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had made his choice and placed the titles in a sealed envelope and readers were invited to match the great man's selection. ... It is fascinating to note that not one entrant chose the exact same titles. The winner, a Mr R.T. Norman, managed ten." [Introduction, pgs xiii, xv)
These are the twelve stories selected by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  1. The Speckled Band - a personal favorite of mine
  2. The Red-Headed League
  3. The Dancing Men - fascinating
  4. The Final Problem - a must-read for every Sherlock Holmes, where the detective meets his end, almost, at the hands of his nemesis, Prof Moriarty.
  5. A Scandal in Bohemia
  6. The Empty House - aka the Return of Sherlock Holmes.
  7. The Five Orange Pips
  8. The Second Stain
  9. The Devil's Foot
  10. The Priory School
  11. The Musgrave Ritual
  12. The Reigate Squires
and the 8 additional stories selected for this collection are:
  1. The Man With the Twisted Lip
  2. The Blue Carbuncle
  3. The Copper Beeches
  4. Silver Blaze
  5. The Greek Interpreter
  6. The Solitary Cyclist
  7. Charles Augustus Milverton
  8. The Illustrious Client

David Stuart Davies was born in 1946. He was a teacher of English before becoming a full-time editor, writer, and playwright. Davies has written extensively about Sherlock Holmes, both fiction and non-fiction.[1] [David Stuart Davies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Sherlock Holmes (pronounced /ˈʃɜrlÉ’k ˈhoÊŠmz/)[1] is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his forensic science skills to solve difficult cases. [Sherlock Holmes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia] 

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930[1]) was a Scottish[2] physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction. [Arthur Conan Doyle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

 

© 2010, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.