Let's Bust a Recap : Sherlock Holmes

Welcome one and all to the third week of August in the Year of Our Lord 2023 which will otherwise be known on this blog as "The Week We Try to Clear the To Be Blogged Stack of Books Read in 2022". We're close, y'all. So close. And in an effort to accomplish our goal, today I'll be talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first two short story collections featuring everyone's favorite sleuth: Sherlock Holmes. 

Way back in 2021, I picked up Conan Doyle's first novel in which old Sherlock appeared, and devoured it in about a day. A few weeks later, his second novel met the same fate. Shortly after that, I began on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, confident that I would finish it and also The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes before 2021 was through. 

...and then stalled for nearly a year. What can I say? I swing for the fence. It turns out, I have a lovely habit when it comes to short stories of reading one or two, and then forgetting the rest of the collection for months on end. This bears no reflection on the stories themselves, just on my personal attention span. Sherlock Holmes' short stories are so individual in nature and each one is so satisfyingly wrapped up that there is no narrative drive to continue reading them until you're finished. (At least not for me anyway.) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were a rip-roaring good time. I just managed to stretch these twelve short stories from July of 2021 to April of 2022. In this collection, we get our first introduction to the enigmatic Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Bohemia". She's one of the only people to ever outsmart Holmes, and she's so clever about it that it makes this story one of Conan Doyle's personal top twelve. I hope we see more of her. His other stories cover a range of bizarre stories involving the KKK, a bank robbery, and even a goose with a precious jewel stuffed down its throat. Of the twenty-three short stories I've read so far, this collection contained my two personal favorites; number one being the horrifyingly creepy "The Speckled Band", and number two being the delightfully hilarious "The Red-Headed League". Coincidentally, in doing a little research for this post, I discovered that these are also Conan Doyle's two favorite stories out of all the Holmes mysteries that he wrote. Cheers to that! I also really liked "The Man With the Twisted Lip" from this collection.

I did a little better with the next set, starting them in April and finishing them in October of the same year. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is Conan Doyle's second collection of short stories about Sherlock (eleven of them this time) and the one that was meant to end the character for good. When "The Final Problem" was first published in The Strand Magazine in December of 1893, the public outcry was so severe that The Strand almost went out of business. Conan Doyle was eventually convinced to resurrect the beloved character and went on to write two more novels and thirty-three more short stories about him. 

In this collection, we get to read about Holmes' very first case in "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott", one of the uncommon instances where we hear the case from Holmes' perspective as he recounts it to Dr. Watson. We also are introduced to Holmes' brother Mycroft in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", in which we learn that Mycroft is even smarter than Holmes' but is too lazy to actually pursue detective work. And of course, we also meet Sherlock's famous nemesis Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem" in which Sherlock presumably goes over a cliff taking Moriarty with him to their deaths. 

The cases in this collection had a more melancholy feel to them, and my favorite was easily "The Adventure of the Yellow Face" which was heartbreaking but had a beautiful ending. From this collection, Conan Doyle ranks two of the stories in his personal top twelve: "The Final Problem" and "The Musgrave Ritual". 

If you start with the novels (which I did), you're already aware of Sherlock's general disdain for law enforcement or, really, authority of any kind, but in reading these first two collections of short stories, it was interesting to see Sherlock's personal sense of justice. There were multiple stories wherein Sherlock doesn't actually out the culprit for reasons he deems worthy, whether it's because he thinks they'll pay for their crimes in other ways due to the life choices they've made, or that they're old and about to die anyway, or even because he is certain that it will bring them too much embarrassment to try anything underhanded again...or that they're too chicken. 

All in all the stories are so fun to read purely because of how absolutely bizarre the cases and how ingeniously Sherlock manages to solve them. The economy of language Conan Doyle employs in writing them make them quick reads, easily ingested in a single sitting. I remember toting my large, hardcover copy with me to work so I could squeeze in a story here and there on my breaks. I definitely would recommend reading at least one short story spotlighting the brilliant mind of Sherlock Holmes: once you start, you won't want to stop. And here's my personal suggestion to you: since these stories don't need to be read in any particular order to enjoy them, start with one of my favorites and let me know what you think!