Book Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The literary world is incomplete without mention of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary fictional character Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes ruled the minds of audiences in a way that no other literary character has been able to, and his adventures continue to amaze, frighten, and thrill us to this day.

The author wrote several novels with Holmes, but it was his short stories that became a huge hit with readers. Of the five collections that were published, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, published in 1892, was the first and most popular. Contains all but one of the five most popular tales of all time in the Sherlock Holmes catalog (A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-Headed League, The Blue Anthrax, and The Speckled Band), as well as a few other gems like The Five Nuggets of Orange.

These stories are considered to be among the best ever written in the detective and mystery genre and for those wishing to try the work of Arthur Conan Doyle for the first time, it would be a great idea to start with these stories first.

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A scandal in Bohemia

This is the first story to appear in the collection and one of the best. The story involves Holmes’ rare failure to find the culprit. He is hired by the kingdom of Bohemia to recover a scandalous photograph of the future king of the kingdom from the beautiful Irene Adler. After going through a plethora of disguises and detective work, Holmes is outwitted by the lady in an intriguing way.

The League of Redheads

Generally considered the second best Sherlock Holmes story of all time, this bizarre story features a money-lender who is paid money to join the mysterious league of redheads, as part of an ingenious plan to rob a bank.

Complete list of stories in The adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  1. A scandal in Bohemia
  2. The League of Redheads
  3. a case of identity
  4. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
  5. The five orange seeds
  6. The man with the crooked lip
  7. The Adventure of the Blue Anthrax
  8. The adventure of the speckled band
  9. The adventure of the engineer’s thumb
  10. The adventure of the noble bachelor
  11. The Adventure of the Beryl Crown
  12. The adventure of the copper beeches

because I like The adventures of Sherlock Holmes a lot? Well, the exquisite details of the characters make them real rather than made up, the stories and the sometimes unbelievable (in a good way) issues within the plots are absolutely amazing.