Complete Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh. He went to Stonyhurst school and then studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where one of his professors provided the model for his most famous creation. He began publishing stories in 1879 and his first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887. Holmes soon became an enormously popular figure and Doyle went on to write many stories and novels about him. He also published historical fiction, plays, essays and poems on a wide variety of subjects. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on 7 July 1930.

"Arthur Conan Doyle is unique in simultaneously bringing the curtain down on an era and raising one on another, ushering in a genre of writing that, while imitated and expanded, has never been surpassed" -- Stephen Fry "Sherlock Holmes is the very foundation stone of the edifice that is crime fiction" The Times "I read these stories when I was a child and discussed them endlessly with my grandfather: one of my earliest literary memories. I know all the solutions off by heart now but it doesn't matter because the brilliance of the stories lies in the relationship between Holmes and Watson, which is both funny and touching" -- Jonathan Coe Sunday Express "Now, as in his lifetime, cab drivers, statesmen, academics, and raggedy-arsed children sit spellbound at his feet -proof, if proof were needed, that Doyle's modesty of language conceals a profound tolerance of the human complexity... No wonder, then, if the pairing of Holmes and Watson has triggered more imitators than any other duo in literature. Contemporary cop dramas draw on them repeatedly" -- John Le Carre The Times "Too much Holmes is no more likely than too much foie gras and no less desirable... Will delight his fans" -- Oliver Marre Observer