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52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Conclusion Of A Brilliant Commentary, December 3, 2005
This review is from: The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear) (Hardcover)
This one volume box edition compliments last year's two volume collection of the 56 short stories published by Arthur Conan Doyle. In nearly a thousand pages, the third volume contains the four Sherlock Holmes novels. There are many solid editions of these novels, but if the reader is looking for explanations of the background and history of the Victorian age in which these stories are set, then this edition is for you.
This large oversize book contains annotations that are placed alongside the text for easy reference plus many of the original illustations by Sidney Paget and period photos. Mr. Klinger's working assumption is that these stories and novels concerning Sherlock Holmes are historically true. This leads to some hysterical explanations of the many contradictory statements present throughtout these three volumes (Mr. Doyle evidently never went back to earlier writings to make them consistent).
If the reader should procure all three volumes together on Amazon, they are half of the $200 list price. These prices are a steal for nearly 3,000 pages of a beautiful edition of this quality (think of the Library of America publications) which will last a lifetime. All three books are more comprehensive than the two volume set by William Baring-Gould (1968) and less bulky than the nine volume edition from Oxford University Press. Mr. Klinger's annotations are clear, concise and well-informed by his considerable research of the world of Sherlock Holmes. This is an edition that the reader will return to again and again on a cold winter's night.
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53 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Excellent Volume, November 8, 2005
This review is from: The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear) (Hardcover)
With this 3rd volume brings end to a project started in 2004 when the 1st & 2nd volumes of Holmes short stories reached both book stores and reading public.
All volumes are boxed with slip cases, and I have never had a better set of books on my shelves. As with the first two volumes, the text is printed on the left-hand side of the page in black, with the annotations in red printed on the right-hand side. A plentitude of pictures/illustrations to the time of Holmes, gives the reader an historical feel of this era. In addition, the pen & ink of Sidney Paget we have come associate with Holmes and Watson are here also.
As with the forerunner two, this volume is one most Sherlock Holmes fans will want on their library shelves. I started reading volume 3 the day it arrived. For those of us who have read the Holmes stories for years these annotated copies, such as these three, are not only a necessity but they are books from which most readers can still learn much. For most of us no matter how much we know of Holmes there always seems to be more we can learn. And if you enjoy Holmes, these are the best books to come on the market in the last 40 years, bar none.
Be sure to check out the first two volumes also. You may need all three if you are a Sherlock Holmes fan. However, you may want to take note that these 3 volumes are oversized and have some weight to them.
I highly recommend all three.
Semper Fi.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Makes Complete The History of Holmes And Watson, January 2, 2006
This review is from: The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear) (Hardcover)
This third volume of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes makes an excellent companion to the first two volumes already published. It contains all four of the Holmes novels, each one with a splendid introductory essay and appendices as well as numerous fascinating annotations.
What I find most charming about these three volumes is the annotator's full blown acceptance of the major tenet of Sherlockian studies: Holmes and Watson were real people who actually solved the crimes and mysteries documented by Conan Doyle, who in the Sherlockian world was merely a collaborator and editor. This leads to fascinating speculations on the nature and location(s) of Watson's war wounds; the actual addresses of some of the crime scenes; and the true nature of such varied topics as Mormonism and the English Corn Laws. Thus an enthusiast for Holmes will not only learn a great deal about his favorite detective, he will also pick up a lot of information about life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Not only does this third volume complete the annotation of all of Doyle's writings on Holmes, it also makes an elegant addition to your bookshelves: when placed alongside the first two volumes, the jackets combine to make a nice silhouette of Holmes in his deerstalker!
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