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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Penguin Popular Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £2.00
Buy New: £0.01
You Save: £1.99 (100%)
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 15145
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0140621008
EAN: 9780140621006
ASIN: 0140621008
Publication Date: January 25, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW and IN STOCK - dispatched within 48 hours from the UK
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 A must read April 19, 2006
Ariel (Madrid, Spain)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
What can I write about this book that hasn't been said or written yet? Everybody knows everything about its plot and its characters, so I'll better write about what this book means to me.
I started reading when I was four. When I was a child, my family spent the summer in the country, and in few years I had read all the children's books that we had there. So,when I was seven I decided to explore my father's library: since I wasn't allowed to climb on a ladder (nor did I dare to), I took the first book I reached. Yes, it was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I won't pretend I understood everything I read there, but enough to make me want to read more. With the years I learned to love both Sherlock Holmes and its adventures. And I haven't stopped doing so.
Some may say SH is outdated, victorian, unreal and even a bore (oh, blasphemous rumours!). To me, it opened the doors of the "adult" literature and I will always be grateful for it. And besides, everytime I read a SH story, I enjoy it like the first time. How many books can claim to do so?
 Mind puzzles and corruption in Victorian London February 5, 2003
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Sherlock Holmes stories often read like fiendishly difficult literary MENSA conundrums. Often it is almost impossible for the reader to guess how Holmes will solve his crime riddles and almost always the reader will kick himself/herself when the solution is revealed.
Perhaps the most annoying thing about Conan Doyle's writing is that he often does not reveal to the reader (or to Dr Watson who we see most of the action from) all the clues that Holmes uses to make his conclusions- and some are so utterly preposterous to be believed i.e. Holmes deducing a man is a labourer because the muscles in his right hand are more developed than in his left. This is very different from more modern crime authors such as Agatha Christie who tend to challenge the reader as much as the detective. Perhaps, then, reading Sherlock Holmes must demand some suspension of belief but this doesn't detract from the satisfaction of Holmes solving yet another seemingly impossible crime.
Good fun and also, at times, intellectually stretching. Conan Doyle exercises the reader's facilities to question events in real life whilst simultaneously creating one of the most enjoyable genres and popular characters in English fiction.
A Singular Book December 18, 2000
Andy (aaamack@omantel.net.om) (London, England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
A Singular Book December 15, 2000
Andy (aaamack@omantel.net.om) (London, England)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
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.
Excellent intrigue and perfectly balanced stories October 29, 2000
marco_soave@usa.net (London)
This book is superb not only because of the quality of the stories but also how well and economically written it is. It really transports you into the Victorian world and its values (a world of gentlemen), you can also enjoy the marvel that a new world of wealth bringed by the Industrial Revolution produced on the English people at the time and the pride of a nation which considered itself at the centre of the world. "The casebook" and "The return" are much mediocre books as Conan Doyle's technique to tell stories becomes too repetitive and obvious.
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