doyle-adventuresofsherlockholmes, books in English
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The Adventures
of
Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
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About the author
In 1885 he married Louise Hawkins, who suffered from tubercu-
losis and eventually died in 1906. He married Miss Jean Leckie in
1907, whom he had first met and fallen in love with in 1897 but had
maintained a platonic relationship with out of loyalty to his first wife.
Doyle had five children, two with his first wife (Mary and Kingsley),
and three with his second wife ( Jean, Denis, and Adrian).
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
(May 22, 1859 - July 7, 1930), best
known as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
is the British author most famously
known for his stories about the
detective Sherlock Holmes, which
are generally considered a major
innovation in the field of crime fic-
tion. He was a prolific writer whose
other works include science fiction
stories, historical novels, plays and
romances, poetry, and non-fiction.
In 1890 Doyle studied the eye in Vienna, and in 1891 moved to
London to set up a practice as an oculist. This also gave him more time
for writing, and in November 1891 he wrote to his mother: 'I think of
slaying Holmes ... and winding him up for good and all. He takes my
mind from better things.' In December 1893 he did so, with Holmes
and his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty apparently plunging to their
deaths together over a waterfall in the story "The Final Problem".
Public outcry led him to bring the character back--Doyle returned to
the story, saying that Holmes had climbed back up the cliff afterwards.
Holmes eventually appeared in 56 short stories and four of Doyle's
novels (he has since appeared in many novels and stories by other
authors, as well). Doyle's close friend Dr Mohammed Ebrahim Sufi of
Lucknow, a British Indian Muslim suggested him that the invention of
an additional character as Sherlock Holmes' colleague and personal
assistant would spice his stories up. Doyle relished Dr Sufi's idea and
instantly created the character of Dr Watson.
He is sometimes called Conan Doyle – Conan was originally a
middle name but he used it as part of his surname in his later years.
He was born in Edinburgh and sent to Jesuit preparatory school at
the age of nine, and by the time he left the school in 1875, he had
firmly rejected Catholicism and probably Christianity in general, to
become an agnostic. From 1876 to 1881 he studied medicine at
Edinburgh University, including a period working in the town of Aston
(now a district of Birmingham). Following his term at University he
served as a ship's doctor on a voyage to the West African coast, and
then in 1882 he set up a practice in Plymouth. His medical practice
was unsuccessful; while waiting for patients he began writing stories.
It was only after he subsequently moved his practice to Southsea that
he began to indulge more extensively in literature. His first significant
work was A Study in Scarlet which appeared in Beeton's Christmas
Annual for 1887 and featured the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes.
Following the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the century
and the condemnation from around the world over Britain's conduct,
Doyle to wrote a short pamphlet titled The War in South Africa: Its
Cause and Conduct which was widely translated. Doyle believed that
it was this pamphlet that resulted in his being knighted and appointed
as Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey in 1902. During the early years of the
twentieth century Sir Arthur twice ran for Parliament, once in
Edinburgh and once in the Border Burghs, but although he received a
respectable vote he was not elected. He did, however, become one of
the first Honorary Members of the Ski Club of Great Britain.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Purchase the entire Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf on CD at
Doyle also caused two cases to be reopened. The first case, in
1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George
Edalji, who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated
animals. Police were dead set on Edalji's guilt, even though the mutila-
tions continued even after their suspect was jailed. It was partially as a
result of this case that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established
in 1907, so not only did Conan Doyle help George Edalji, his work
helped to establish a way to correct other miscarriages of justice. The
second case -- that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den
operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in 1908 --
excited Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution
case and a general sense that Slater was framed. Sadly, one would not
say either enjoyed the same resolution as Holmes' clients.
Contents
In his later years, Doyle became involved with Spiritualism, to the
extent that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on the subject, The
Land of Mist. One of the odder aspects of this involvement was his
book The Coming of the Fairies (1921): He was apparently totally
convinced of the veracity of the Cottingley fairy photographs, which he
reproduced in the book, together with theories about the nature and
existence of fairies.
Arthur Conan Doyle is buried in the Church Yard at Minstead in
the New Forest, Hampshire, England.
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1
The Adventures
of
Sherlock Holmes.
Adventure 1.
A Scandal in Bohemia.
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1.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always
the
woman. I have sel-
dom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes
she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not
that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emo-
tions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold,
precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the
most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world
has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false
position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a
 2
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3
gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—
excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions.
But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his
own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to intro-
duce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all
his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in
one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturb-
ing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet
there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late
Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted
us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the
home-centred interests which rise up around the man who
first finds himself master of his own establishment, were suffi-
cient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed
every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained
in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books,
and alternating from week to week between cocaine and am-
bition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his
own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the
study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and ex-
traordinary powers of observation in following out those clues,
and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as
hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some
vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the
case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular
tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally
of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and
successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these
signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all
the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend
and companion.
One night—it was on the twentieth of March, 1888—I
was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now re-
turned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker
Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must
always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with
the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a
keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was
employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly
lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass
twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the
room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and
his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every
mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story.
He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created
dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I
rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had
formerly been in part my own.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was
glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with
a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case
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