The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 4 Novels and 56 Short Stories (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IN THE YEAR 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This volume, authorized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, contains all 4 full-length novels and all 56 short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. At over a thousand pages, the weighty tome is a perfect gift for budding amateur sleuths, and it is an ideal companion for a long stay on a desert island (or a leisurely trip through the English countryside). As the reader wades past the tense introductions of A Study in Scarlet and moves towards such classic tales as The Hound of the Baskervilles, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," and "The Final Problem," she is sure to draw her own conclusions about Holmes's veiled past and his quirky relationship with his "Boswell," Watson. Doyle never revealed much about Holmes's early life, but the joy of reading the complete Holmes is assembling the trivia of each story into something like a portrait of the detective and his creator. By the end of the long journey through London and across Europe (with a long stopover at Reichenbach Falls), one is apt to have found a friend for life. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been given a fitting tribute in The Complete Sherlock Holmes...150 years after his birth. I've enjoyed David Timson's spirited readings of the stories ever since The Speckled Band appeared in 1999. He is one of those narrators who sinks himself so convincingly into character, so subtly differentiating timbre, dialect and accent, that you can hardly believe that the reading is being done by a cast of one - this requires extraordinary versatility given the 228 disguises in the four novels and 56 stories starring Holmes that Conan Doyle penned. Timson told me that he elected to go back to the original Strand Magazine version of the tales, warts and all. Conan Doyle never proofread his work, believing that the sweeping energy of the telling was more important that accuracy of detail: "What matter if I can hold my readers?" he said. Hold them he and Timson certainly do. - Christina Hardyment, The Times David Timson must have had difficulty returning to his real self after this recording tour de force - every nuance in his voice is Holmes. All 56 stories nd four novels are here: 60 CDs with a chunky booklet. Years of top listening. -Rachel Redford, The Observer It has taken 10 years for Timson to record all 60 Sherlock Holmes stories. The hard-working radio actor has completed the project just in time for his bumper compendium to appear as crime-fiction fans mark the 150th anniversary of Conan Doyle, the creator of perhaps still the greatest ficitonal detective...the appeal of the super sleuth was and is irrepressible. Holmes's violin-playing is reflected by the plentiful bursts of plangently atmospheric strings in these productions, and Timson draws a nice vocal contrast between the flinty solver of mysteries and his bluff amanuensis. - Karen Robinson, The Sunday Times Conan Doyle would surely feel gratified by this magnificent recording of the Holmes canon of four novels and 56 stories. Timson brings to life a huge cast of characters, from murderers to maiden ladies, and there is incidental music by Dvorak, Paganini and others. A tour de force. --Jane Shilling - Daily Mail --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 944 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Classics; Deluxe edition (October 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553328255
• ISBN-13: 978-0553328257
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 3.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (137 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,649 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.", August 9, 2000

By	John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Silver Lake, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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In Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created one of the world's best known and (arguably) most fully realized literary characters. Since Doyle's death, there have been plenty of people writing knockoffs of his stories. But with rare exceptions (Nicholas Meyer comes to mind), most have not lived up to the high standards Doyle set in at least the best of his Holmes tales.

This volume includes the complete canon of Doyle's original stories -- four novels and fifty-six short stories, from "A Study in Scarlet" to "His Last Bow." While there are a handful of cases that bore significantly on international affairs (e.g. "The Bruce-Partington Plans"), most of them are of interest simply because of that touch of the _outre_ that Holmes loved so much and that provided such stimulating material to the ideal reasoner.

There are some clunkers in the canon, of course, but the vast majority of these stories -- especially the earliest ones -- are just brilliant. If you are reading them for the first time, I envy you; the sturdy Dr. John Watson is about to introduce you to a new world, a world of Victorian gaslight and Stradivarius violins, of hansom cabs and cries of "The game's afoot!"

For in reading this volume you will find such classic tales as "The Red-Headed League" and "The Man With The Twisted Lip"; you will encounter the famous dog that did nothing in the night-time ("Silver Blaze") and several versions of Holmes's favorite maxim ("When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"); and you will meet one of the most fascinating and memorable characters ever to spring from the printed page: Holmes himself.

Perhaps most importantly, you will catch a glimpse of the world as an ideal reasoner might see it -- not as a grab-bag of random atomic facts in which our own role is negligible, but as a vast interconnected whole in which each part bears some necessary relation to the rest, and in which the reasoned pursuit of justice in all matters great and small is the business of each and every one of us.

Incidentally, the twentieth-century philosopher who presented that vision most consistently and cogently is, to my own mind, Brand Blanshard, and any Holmes readers who are interested in philosophy may enjoy investigating Blanshard's works as well.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous!, February 22, 2000

By	David Lee (RI United States) - See all my reviews

Thrilled recently to discover the excellent Jeremy Brett filmed episodes of Sherlock Holmes, I then took to reading the original stories and enjoyed virtually every one of them. There are a few plots which nearly duplicate other ones, but the 56 short stories and 4 novels comprise a stunning collection of fiction which evokes the atmosphere of late Victorian era England in a straightforward prose that grabs you instantly and makes you turn page after page and then read story after story. As you get further and further into the world Doyle created, you'll begin to hear the sounds of horse carriages, smell candles and gas lamps, and also, in the manner of Holmes, to begin to truly NOTICE the small details of life which may end up meaning far more than they seem to at first. Sherlock Holmes is one of the most intriguing characters in all of literature. You'll end up wishing you could've met him or, even better, followed him into the bowels of London or into the English countryside as he probes a mystery, running only on adrenalin. I also recommend Doyle's fine book of "Round The Fire" stories.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No lover of classic mysteries should be without it, July 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Sherlock Holmes (Hardcover)

I discovered Sherlock Holmes via a couple of short stories in anthologies in the late 1950's, when I was in 7th grade. These whetted my appetite for more, so I was tickled to discover a copy of this book (in an earlier printing) at the house of a friend. I wish it had been available as a multi-volume edition -- this one was mighty hard to sneak under the covers for post-bedtime reading by flashlight. And it's highly unsuited for summertime use: it'll sink your canoe or cause your hammock to sag to ground level! Still, it's a good, reasonably priced, solidly bound, and well-printed volume that should be in the library of any lover of classic mystery stories.
As for the stories themselves, they're not only THE best mysteries in the English language, but fun to read as a picture of life in the Victorian era. There are some clinkers, and some of the situations and characters are rather absurd (Doyle shares with most of his fellow-countrymen an ineptitude for writing convincing American English!), but in general I'm still amazed at Doyle's ingenuity and his convincing portrayal of life in many different sectors of society. This is one of the few favorite books from my childhood that I still enjoy -- not as an exercise in nostalgia but as a Good Read.