ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930)
Although best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle's work includes science fiction, historical romance and books on warfare and spiritualism. Born in Edinburgh, he qualified as a doctor and practised in Southsea before turning to writing as a means of supplementing his income. The first Sherlock Homes novel appeared in 1887 and the fictional detective soon brought fame and fortune - though Doyle always maintained his historical romances held more worth. His personal interests were far ranging: he was a strong advocate of a tunnel between England and France, of inflatable life jackets and, in one unfortunate incident, of a (faked) photograph of fairies. But it was for a paper justifying Britain's involvement in the Boer War - where he had served as a physician - that he received his knighthood. Influenced by
Edgar Allan Poe, Doyle's work often demonstrates a similar contrasting of the rational and the imaginative.
A woman dies at night in a locked room, crying out in pain: 'It was the band! The speckled band!'. Holmes investigates.
- Length: 28 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
A man arrives at Dr Watson's house with a severed thumb - an injury which apparently occurred in the most unusual circumstances.
- Length: 23 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
Holmes investigates when the Californian bride-to-be of Lord St. Simon goes missing just before the wedding.
- Length: 23 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
Holmes helps a banker from whom some expensive gems, taken as security on a loan to an important client, have been stolen.
- Length: 27 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
A young lady asks Holmes' advice as to whether she should accept an excellent appointment as a governess even though it comes with an unusual condition attached.
- Length: 27 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
A Christmas mystery for detective Sherlock Holmes beginning with a lost hat and an abandoned goose.
- Length: 23 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
Holmes investigates the case of a fiancee who disappeared on the day of the wedding.
- Length: 19 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
When Mr. Charles McCarthy is shot in a wood near Boscombe Pool, all (circumstantial) evidence appears to point at his son. But Holmes has doubts.
- Length: 25 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
When a popular local doctor is murdered, the angry brother of his ex-fiance seems the obvious suspect - until the doctor's uknown past begins to reveal itself.
- Length: 19 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
A job advert with a bizarre set of requirements leads a young entomologist off on a mysterious adventure.
- Length: 18 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
A hard-up young man receives a timely invitation to visit a mysterious, wealthy cousin at his country retreat - a bizzare menagerie of birds, reptiles and a man-eating black puma.
- Length: 21 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime, Fiction
Holmes investigates the murder of a popular and apparently happily married Colonel.
- Length: 19 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
A case which leaves a Lady of notoriously loose morals in a nunnery and her lover - a brilliant physician - in a vegetative state.
- Length: 12 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime, Fiction, Horror
Holmes reveals the existence of a single organiser behind half the crime in London - an evil genius named Professor Moriarty - and soon finds himself in mortal danger.
- Length: 19 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime
Holmes investigates a case that begins when a young man finds his uncle terrified by five orange pips he receives in the mail.
- Length: 20 pages
- Age Rating: PG
- Genre: Crime