Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Unabridged)

A hugely entertaining and totally absorbing book which covers a further twelve of Sherlock Holmes' investigations originally published in The Strand magazine.
Holmes adventures are to me fascinating, revealing as they do the dark underbelly of Victorian society and many of them would create lurid headlines were they to actually occur today, even Holmes himself is not free from scandal when he is revealed by Watson to be of all things, a cocaine addict in A Scandal in Bohemia.
From his battle of the sexes with the resourceful adventuress Miss Irene Adler in, A Scandal in Bohemia, to his foiling of the criminal intentions of the "fourth smartest man in London" in the truly bizarre and at times comical, The Red-Headed League, Holmes is called upon to use his extraordinary powers of deduction and his ability to observe when others merely see, in a battle of wits against as varied and as determined a bunch of criminals as ever stepped outside the law.
The cases themselves are sometimes dangerous (The Speckled Band), sometimes cruel (A Case of Identity) but as often as not downright baffling - to you and me !
The famous quotes are all in there as well, such as the one beloved of Agent Mulder in The X Files from The Beryl Coronet when Holmes reveals "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." or his expanation in The Red Headed League that "..the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling.." Or how about his musing to Watson at the start of A Case of Identity, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
If you want to be diverted from the cares and worries of life, if you want to lose track of time, if you want to face the challenge of trying to help solve the unsolvable and be immersed into a book which, just a little, shows the flip-side of Victorian values, then The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is for you. Read and enjoy.

Conan-Doyle was a prolific writer, but will best be known for his character "Sherlock Holmes". Even over 100 years after they were written, the stories of the great detective are as popular as ever.

This is a collection of Conan-Doyle's short stories about Holmes and each individual story is a cracking good read in its own right. I own a copy of the original in hard back and wanted to compare the ebook version to see if it varied at all. The e-book version is well done, although there are a few non-standard characters (mostly accented letters) that don't get rendered correctly. The illustrations are also missing which is a pity.

This is a good book to download as a first e-book for use with the Kindle. Suitable for teenagers and above, this is one that you will want to keep available.

It may seem strange to do so, but i am tempted to compare this book to coming home on a frosty evening to a comfortable chair infront of a roaring log fire.

I was prompted to read this book by a review elsewhere, and i'm seriously glad i took the time to do so. A collection of 12 stories revolving around the iconic Sherlock Holmes and his trusted friend Watson, short and easily digestible in one sitting each.

The stories each have a uniqueness, some are rip roaring shockers, others will keep you guessing right up until the end, all of which though, are written in a style that is all to easy to indulge in time and time again.

Its no wonder this book is still in print well over 100 years after it was first published, as the writing is more appealing and enjoyable than lots of modern equivilents. I urge you to buy this, get hooked and then spend hours telling your friends about Holmes and his wild adventures with society and its grimy underbelly.

I love Sherlock Holmes, so a free edition on my Kindle seemed too good to be true.

Sadly there were formatting issues that ruined my enjoyment.

The British pound sign (�) for example, did not survive the conversion and was replaced by meaningless characters and values and given this happened frequently it ruined the flow of Conan Doyle's writing.

Yes, it's free. But it's a Kindle version of a published classic that has stood the test of time. It's demeaning to see classics reproduced in shoddy fashion like this.

A hugely entertaining and totally absorbing book which covers a further twelve of Sherlock Holmes' investigations originally published in The Strand magazine. Holmes adventures are to me fascinating, revealing as they do the dark underbelly of late Victorian society and many of them would create lurid headlines were they to actually occur today; even Holmes himself is not free from scandal when he is revealed by Watson to be a cocaine addict in, 'A Scandal in Bohemia'.
From his battle of the sexes with the resourceful adventuress Miss Irene Adler in, 'A Scandal in Bohemia', to his foiling of the criminal intentions of the "fourth smartest man in London" in the truly bizarre and at times comical, 'The Red-Headed League', Holmes is called upon to use his extraordinary powers of deduction and his ability to observe when others merely see, in a battle of wits against as varied and as determined a bunch of criminals as ever stepped outside the law. The cases themselves are sometimes dangerous (The Speckled Band), sometimes cruel (A Case of Identity) but as often as not downright baffling - to you and me !
The famous quotes are all in there as well, such as the one beloved of Agent Mulder from The X Files in 'The Beryl Coronet' when Holmes reveals "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." or his expanation in 'The Red Headed League'that "..the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling.." Or how about his musing to Watson at the start of 'A Case of Identity', "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
If you want to be diverted from the cares and worries of life, if you want to lose track of time, if you want to face the challenge of trying to help solve the unsolvable and be immersed into a book which, just a little, shows the flip-side of Victorian values, then 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' will suffice, read and enjoy.

The London of the 1880's in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson flourished, had fog and horse-drawn Hansom Cabs - a vehicle invented in Bristol, I believe. Everything is so different from the London of today that it is almost another world. The stories of observation, logic and reasoning, however, will live for ever; either in old-fashioned paper books or in the state-of-the-art Kindle machines. It is a pity, however, that Kindle cannot render � (the pound sign) or é (e-acute) correctly.

I guess I shouldn't complain too much--it is a free book, and of course Holmes stands the test of time--but there's something slightly amiss with formatting of this book. Unfortunately pretty much any text that includes a "funny" character such as pound signs (�) or accented letters (e.g. cause célèbre) will come out a bit garbled. They're infrequent, and you can make out what's meant, but it would be nice it it were fixed, especially since so many people seem to be downloading it.

An excellent collection of stories, my introduction to the works of Sir Conan Doyle and eventually the reason I purchased my Kindle. Certainly couldn't complain at the price

This is a fantastic collection of Holmes stories. Reproduced well on the kindle, this is a fantastic introduction to someone who has never read them and a great way to get reaquainted if you have. I thoroughly enjoyed reading through these and best of all they are free!

A very good edition of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" with a lovely introduction by "Sherlock" co-creator Mark Gatiss.

These are the first set of short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, and to my mind the best, the first three in the collection are "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League", and "A Case of Identity" and are the best examples of short stories in detective fiction. The rest of the stories are also brilliant: "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", "The Five Orange Pips", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor", "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" and "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches".

There appears to be a typo in the heading of the pages for "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", where it is called "The Adventure of the Speckled HEN" -- could be a collectors item :-)

If you haven't read any Sherlock Holmes stories before, this is the perfect place to start.