Of all the ways I liked to entertain myself as a kid, the one that I chose most was reading. I read a lot. And I really liked adventure novels, so having full book collections of sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne and the like was a blessing (they were all Russian translations, of course). And, well, of all the famous book characters, Sherlock Holmes was one of my biggest heroes. I read all of those novels and collections of short stories on Holmes so many times… Yet, until last year, I never actually revisited them since I was, probably, 13.
Often times, revisiting things that you liked as a kid leads to disappointment. But, there was so much stuff written on Holmes, that I knew that somewhere there could still be at least one short story I would still enjoy today. Luckily, I liked far more than that.
I will go through all of the novels (all 4 of them) and collections of short stories in the order they were originally released. Which is different from how I originally experienced these stories, as in the collection that I own they were presented in a slightly different order. In fact, some of the stories from the latter collections were not included and neither was the final novel The Valley of Fear which I first experienced during this revisit. Anyways, let’s get started. The game is afoot.
A Study in Scarlet
The very first tale about Sherlock Holmes feels very much like the very first tale about Sherlock Holmes. It’s rough, it lacks some of the touches that later stories by the author will include due to his lack of experience and its ending is actually extremely abrupt and unsatisfactory. Here, only the overall concepts about what we know and love about Sherlock, Watson and some of the secondary characters (mainly Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson) are established. In comparison to the latter stories it often feels off about the characterization too – some conclusions and plot twists feel a bit too extraordinary, some narrative choices are questionable. Big problem is a huge second half of the story that switches the perspective to a different character to explain the complex backstory that led to the murder that serves as the main focus of the first half of the story. It’s not a bad story, it’s still a pretty good way to first experience a Sherlock Holmes tale (especially since we’re literally seeing Watson and Holmes meet for the first time), but I feel that it would’ve worked far better as a much shorter story with less in-depth exploration of the backstory, especially since the ending is so underwhelming.
The Sign of Four
This is the point at which sir Arthur Conan Doyle started figuring out how a good Sherlock Holmes story works. This is the exact point where both Watson and Sherlock form as the characters we love, the detective work is also far more intriguing, despite remaining extraordinary. There’s far less reliance on some pure chance for the resolutions to happen as well, further solidifying Sherlock as a brilliant planner. This is where we’re also introduced to the character of Mrs. Hudson (though if you know the character from any adaptations, her role in all of the books remains extremely minimal). It’s also where John Watson meets his future wife, we see the wonderful dog Toby and where we’re introduced to the now infamous cocaine addiction of Sherlock. Though, it was probably not less infamous at the time of publishing as this is the only story where he’s described using it, in later ones he’s avoiding it due to Watson’s insistence. The story also avoids any unnecessary jumps to other viewpoints and tells all of the backstory that it needs to tell without overstaying the welcome. The end, and the “villain” of the story are far more interesting here as well. Definitely worth reading.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The first collection of short stories is where things get almost consistently good. It was here where Sherlock became extremely popular in Britain. And in my opinion, this move to short story format was the exact thing that Sherlock Holmes as a character needed. This collection has a lot of amazing tales. There are curiosities, like Five Orange Pips which resolve in a shocking way, or the case with The Woman. Yet, there are also great stories that feature Holmes in a very minor role, yet remain extremely engaging, like the fantastic The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb where Sherlock just explains the missing pieces, and brings a certain closure to the story. There are some disappointments too, however, like the overall creepy The Adventure of the Copper Beeches being really tense and great, but then abruptly ending. A few of the cases are just boring as well, like the forgettable The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor. Still, the collection is definitely worth reading and is really fun to go through.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
A fantastic continuation of the previous collection where Sherlock and Watson continue to develop as characters. More facts about their personalities and their past is revealed, including some of the “early cases” from Sherlock’s late teen years. It is here we are introduced to Mycroft Holmes, though for an extremely short time, because it is also here where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decided that he had enough of the character and the last story, that introduces yet another famous character of the canon – Moriarty, – was meant to be the actually last story where Holmes dies. It’s a shame, really, because here the author is really getting good at writing these stories and even though some of them feel barely related to Sherlock at all, heavily dabbling into more typical Gothic Horror, they’re genuinely good. It’s a really solid collection and luckily it wasn’t meant to be the last.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
This might be the single most famous work in Sherlock Holmes canon. It is also arguably the best novel of the 4. Curiously, I actually remembered the tale to be far more complex than it actually is. It has some great Gothic Horror vibes to it and it’s tied to a real life legend of a mythical ghost black dog. Its narrative evolves in really surprising ways, there are multiple plotlines and complex main mystery and some good secondary characters. It does get resolved a bit too quickly and some of the plot resolutions are actually not that great, but despite this ending being more flat than it should’ve been, it’s still a good read.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
After the events of the previous novel happening before the supposed death of Holmes, this was the first collection to tell about the return of the famous detective. And it’s really good. With 10 more years of experience and a revitalized interest in the character Conan Doyle is killing it with the new stories. It’s a very strong collection with very few misfires, some of the most memorable tales are found here. Some of the well known recurring characters are introduced in this collection as well, including a new dog (the famous Toby actually appears only in the Sign of Four). Though by this point the existence of Watson’s wife is ignored completely, as she died between some stories, and it will continue so for the rest of the canon. Still, definitely worth reading.
The Valley of Fear
Fourth and final novel in the series. This one has a really cool story setup, an okay twist and really good character evolution for everyone involved… yet gets progressively more boring. As with A Study in Scarlet, for whatever reason the backstory of the case has a dedicated whole second half of the novel and it’s really boring. It talks about interesting things, secret societies with cool characters, yet, it just reads in such a plain boring way. And due to that, the end twist doesn’t feel earned. It feels like it was written as a second half story first, then the whole Sherlock element was added as a way to “sell” the story. But it only lead to a really poor tale overall. Oh yeah, and since this happens before Sherlock’s death it mentions Moriarty, even though in the story where he is introduced and gets killed Watson never heard of him before. Either way, I feel like even if it was in the collection I read as a kid I would’ve forgotten it entirely. Not really worth reading.
His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
Possibly the most surprising thing about His Last Bow collection is that it manages to be one of the best in the series. It’s weird how this late, and after The Valley of Fear at that, Conan Doyle managed to tell some of the most memorable stories about Holmes and bring even more fun elements to the canon. It isn’t all fantastic, mind you, as the titular His Last Bow story is a rather awkward attempt at spy fiction that feels silly. Yet, despite that most of the collection is an absolutely essential read if you’re already invested in the Sherlock canon.
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
And then, 10 years even further, there was this final collection of short stories and the final addition to the canon. It genuinely feels as if it was written of need than rather out of want. It’s a real shame, because at this point Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became extremely good at writing stories and purely in terms of structure and character moments, this has some of the best of them all. But the stories themselves are more often than not complete utter garbage. Some start well but end in a dumb way. Some are bordering supernatural in the worst possible way for a Sherlock story. Some are just bad from start to finish. And there’s even one story where a character just tells a story about how a murder plan went wrong – no real mystery, no investigation involved. Unless you’re an absolute Sherlock Holmes fanatic, there’s no reason to bother reading this one.
And there we have it. I was really glad to see that I liked a lot of the stories even today and that despite several fantastic adaptations of the character canon, the originals can still be a joy to experience. Even when you know exactly what happened. If you’ve never read the original books, definitely give the best ones a go if you like mystery stories.