The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Penguin Popular Classics)

From his battle of the sexes with the resourceful adventuress Miss Irene Adler in, 'A Scandal in Bohemia', to his foiling of the criminal intentions of the "fourth smartest man in London" in the truly bizarre and at times comical, 'The Red-Headed League', Holmes is called upon to use his extraordinary powers of deduction and his ability to observe when others merely see, in a battle of wits against as varied and as determined a bunch of criminals as ever stepped outside the law. The cases themselves are sometimes dangerous (The Speckled Band), sometimes cruel (A Case of Identity) but as often as not downright baffling - to you and me !

The famous quotes are all in there as well, such as the one beloved of Agent Mulder from The X Files in 'The Beryl Coronet' when Holmes reveals "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." or his expanation in 'The Red Headed League'that "..the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling.." Or how about his musing to Watson at the start of 'A Case of Identity', "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."

If you want to be diverted from the cares and worries of life, if you want to lose track of time, if you want to face the challenge of trying to help solve the unsolvable and be immersed into a book which, just a little, shows the flip-side of Victorian values, then 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' will suffice, read and enjoy.


A Singular Book   December 15, 2000
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

A hugely entertaining and totally absorbing book which covers a further twelve of Sherlock Holmes' investigations originally published in The Strand magazine.

Holmes adventures are to me fascinating, revealing as they do the dark underbelly of Victorian society and many of them would create lurid headlines were they to actually occur today, even Holmes himself is not free from scandal when he is revealed by Watson to be of all things, a cocaine addict in A Scandal in Bohemia.

From his battle of the sexes with the resourceful adventuress Miss Irene Adler in, A Scandal in Bohemia, to his foiling of the criminal intentions of the "fourth smartest man in London" in the truly bizarre and at times comical, The Red-Headed League, Holmes is called upon to use his extraordinary powers of deduction and his ability to observe when others merely see, in a battle of wits against as varied and as determined a bunch of criminals as ever stepped outside the law.

The cases themselves are sometimes dangerous (The Speckled Band), sometimes cruel (A Case of Identity) but as often as not downright baffling - to you and me !

The famous quotes are all in there as well, such as the one beloved of Agent Mulder in The X Files from The Beryl Coronet when Holmes reveals "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." or his expanation in The Red Headed League that "..the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling.." Or how about his musing to Watson at the start of A Case of Identity, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."

If you want to be diverted from the cares and worries of life, if you want to lose track of time, if you want to face the challenge of trying to help solve the unsolvable and be immersed into a book which, just a little, shows the flip-side of Victorian values, then The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is for you. Read and enjoy.


Excellent intrigue and perfectly balanced stories   October 29, 2000
This book is superb not only because of the quality of the stories but also how well and economically written it is. It really transports you into the Victorian world and its values (a world of gentlemen), you can also enjoy the marvel that a new world of wealth bringed by the Industrial Revolution produced on the English people at the time and the pride of a nation which considered itself at the centre of the world. "The casebook" and "The return" are much mediocre books as Conan Doyle's technique to tell stories becomes too repetitive and obvious.