By Arthur Conan Doyle, the 12 short stories that make up this collection were published in The Strand magazine between December 1892 and December 1893, and in book form in 1894.

Conan Doyle wrote 56 Sherlock Holmes stories in all (plus four novels). This set followed A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Sign of the Four (1890), and the collection called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (published in The Strand between July 1891 and December 1892).

One little question to get out of the way first: Is his name actually "Conan Doyle" or just "Doyle"? Well, it's a bit complicated, but the answer is reckoned to be Conan Doyle:



Why am I reading Conan Doyle at this juncture? Well, I've been interested in revisiting him since coming across Arthur & George by Julian Barnes. Plus, he's the perfect foil for the "hardboiled" style of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.


There's actually more physicality involved than I remembered. Even so, Holmes has nothing on Sam Spade... This drawing, by Sidney Paget, who illustrated many of the stories, is from The Reigate Squires (and it's Holmes who has to be rescued here)

But the real reason for reading it NOW -- and this shows just how capricious a reader I am, truly a jackdaw attracted to any shiny bauble that grabs my attention -- is that one of the stories is called The Adventure of the Yellow Face, and earlier in the year I listened to Yellowface, and I'm about to listen to Audible original Yellow Face... I kid you not. I'm that distractible...

Anyway, The Memoirs make a nice little read. Admittedly, it's problematic that my mental picture of Holmes and Dr Watson is still very firmly stuck with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (we watched several seasons of the TV series while we were in KL). This collection of stories also introduces not only Holmes's even-more-intelligent brother, Mycroft (who takes the form of Mark Gatiss, of course), but also evil genius James Moriarty (who is, unforgettably, Andrew Scott...).

But never mind...

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Some notes on selected stories (the titles all begin "The Adventure of...", but I'll abbreviate):

The Silver Blaze. Dartmoor. Very atmospheric. Holmes extols the value of imagination in detection: "We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified."

And there's this snippet of dialogue between the owner of the eponymous racehorse and our hero:

-- Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
-- To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
-- The dog did nothing in the night-time.
-- That was the curious incident.

The second line, of course, provides the title for Mark Haddon's popular 2003 novel, with its Holmes-admiring protagonist. (Like many others, I enjoyed that book, although I've since read criticism of its portrayal of autism.)


Available for download from Gutenberg

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The Yellow Face. This is a strange one, exemplifying how Holmes can get things wrong (he asks Watson to regularly remind him of this case for precisely that reason), and also how the social environment changes. It's the story of a woman who remarries after the death of her first husband, and then starts to behave rather strangely. Investigating the neighbouring house to which she seems irresistably attracted, her current husband sees at the window a person whose face is strangely yellow and rigid. It turns out this figure is the woman's daughter, who is black, as was the first husband. To avoid attracting attention, the child is kept in the house, and told to wear a mask and white gloves in order not to attract the attention of any passers-by...

The second husband behaves with warmth: "It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door. 'We can talk it over more comfortably at home,' said he. 'I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being."

On the one hand, you have this contemporary reaction: "The Yellow Face is a moral tangle for modern audiences. If we go digging for the veins of racism that run through many a classic text we can certainly find worse, but in the contemporary world it is difficult not to pause over this story’s insensitive handling of the topic. For the time, I think it is actually quite progressive, and I’m all for viewing things in context, but it simply does not make for a comfortable read."

On the other hand, here is a more positive voice: "It has been remarked that Doyle's sympathetic treatment of interracial marriage could be considered extraordinarily liberal because, at that time, anti-miscegenation laws were in effect in several countries. The story is written and set in the United Kingdom, a country with no anti-miscegenation laws, though not without racial prejudice. As is evident from the story, in British society of the time, having contracted an interracial marriage and having a mixed race child was not in any way illegal -- but still was treated as a shameful secret to be kept closely hidden, and one whose revelation might entail very negative reactions."

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The Gloria Scott. Holmes's first case, as described to Watson, which launched him on his career of detection.


Arthur Conan Doyle and dog

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The Crooked Man. Interesting because its background lies in the so-called "Indian Mutiny" of 1857, and it shows that the colonials could be slippery and dangerous even among themselves.

Holmes, by the way, never actually said, "Elementary, my dear Watson." But a bit of dialogue from this story is the closest he comes to it:

-- I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson...
-- Excellent!'...
-- Elementary..."

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The Naval Treaty. Actually my favourite, because it highlights the political situation of the day: "When the story was written, France and Tsarist Russia -- who were to become Britain's staunch allies in the First World War -- were perceived as enemies. In a spy story set in his present, it was as natural for Doyle to portray these two countries as the potential purveyors of the stolen naval treaty as it would have been to portray the Soviet Union in that role in a Cold War spy thriller. And in fact, this story is one of the very first in the emerging genre of spy story."

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The Final Problem. Recounts the death of the famed detective, written by the grief-stricken Watson two years afterwards. He starts by telling us about James Moriarty, seen by Holmes as "the Napoleon of crime, ... the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city, ... a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker". Moriarty and Holmes end up facing off above the Reichenbach Falls. Watson concludes: "An examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms. Any attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful caldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation."

Conan Doyle, determined not to be for ever only the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and to fulfil his literary ambitions in other directions, had decided to allow the famous sleuth to go out in a blaze of glory. It was not to be, however. Faced with financial problems, and unable to deny the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles, he revived his star detective in The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1905.


Paget again

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Things you notice:

1. The duo are always dashing off at a moment's notice, and there's always a train to be caught:

-- "As our visitor concluded, Holmes sprang up without a word, handed me my hat, picked his own from the table, and followed Dr Trevelyan to the door..."
-- "My wife agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the matter before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time I found myself back once more in the old rooms in Baker Street..."
-- "If you are ready we willl start at once for Woking..."

2. A "Penang-lawyer" is a big stick with a heavy end... There's some interesting linguistic detail here.

3. There's an awful lot of "brain-fever" about... For example: "Here I have lain, Mr Holmes, for over nine weeks, unconscious, and raving with brain-fever." This malady was ideal for 19th-century fiction, and there's an interesting study here.

4. There is an incredible amount of Sherlock out there... Interest in this character has really not gone away. Examples of well-populated sites include: Sherlock Holmes; Baker Street; and a podcast (this latter is "a weekly show about details in the Sherlock Holmes stories", and we're on Episode 386...)

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In sum, it's hard to deny that these stories are formulaic products of their time, predictable and stilted. Yet they still make a damn fine read... I'll look up some more in due course.


Another clue expertly interpreted by the maestro