Sherlock: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [Paperback]

The hit BBC seriesSherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, offers a fresh, contemporary take on the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and has helped introduce a whole new generation of fans to the legendary detective. In this new edition of Conan Doyle's first collection of short stories,Sherlockco-creator Mark Gatiss explains how these gripping tales inspired and influenced the new series.

Sherlock: The Adventurescontains twelve short stories first published inThe Strandmagazine between 1891 and 1892 and then published as a collection in October 1892. It includes some of Conan Doyle's best tales of murder and mystery, such as 'The Adventures of the Speckled Band', in which the strange last words of a dying woman 'It was the band, the speckled band!' and an inexplicable whistling in the night are the only clues Sherlock Holmes has to prevent another murder; and 'The Five Orange Pips', in which an untimely death and the discovery of the letter containing five orange pips lead to a cross-Atlantic conspiracy.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. He trained as a doctor at Edinburgh University and it was during this time that he witnessed methods of diagnosis that would later inspire Sherlock Holmes' astonishing methods of deduction.A Study in Scarletwas Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel, published in 1887, but it wasThe Sign of Four, published in 1890, that catapulted him to worldwide fame.

From 1891 he wrote short stories about the immortal detective forThe Strandmagazine. He attempted to kill off Sherlock Holmes in 1893, inThe Final Problem, but was forced to revive him after thousands of complaints. Conan Doyle died in 1930 having written two more Sherlock Holmes novels,The Hound of the BaskervillesandThe Valley of Fear, both serialized inThe Strand, and a total of 56 short stories. Not only the master of popular crime fiction, he also wrote thlƒ½