Why does a burglar keep smashing statues of Napoleon? What is the speckled band? And who is the mysterious Irene Adler? Join Sherlock Holmes and his trusted friend Dr. Watson as they unravel the truth behind these cases and many more.
Presents twelve of Holmes and Watson's best-known cases, including "The Speckled Band," "The Red-Headed League," The Five Orange Pips," "The Copper Beeches," and "A Scandal in Bohemia."
From the strange case of 'The Red-Headed League' to the extraordinary tale of 'The Engineer's Thumb', Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr Watson grapple with treachery, murder, and ingenious crimes of all kinds. But no case is too challening for the immortal detective's unique power of deduction.
“Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognize him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter.” Set against the foggy mysterious backdrops of London and the English countryside, these are the first twelve stories every published to feature the infamous Detective Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Doctor Watson. They first appeared as stories in the Strand magazine and feature some of his most famous and enjoyable cases, including “A Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” and “The Red-headed League.” HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom 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 emotions, 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 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 introduce 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 disturbing 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.