The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I have a dim memory of reading this book when I was younger, but since then I’ve seen Sherlock Holmes in countless adaptations: movies, TV shows, comics, video games, and more. Some good, some bad.

And so, I was afraid that these stories would stick to a formula: someone brings Holmes a case; he impresses everyone by noticing impossible details and drawing strained conclusions; insults Watson for not being preternaturally observant; insults Inspector Lestrade for being an idiot; notices that one of the ashes in the fireplace is actually not only from tobacco, but produced by Javanese cigars, and thus the murderer must be blah-de-blah yadda yadda lock ‘em up, the end.

So I was glad to see that they don’t. There’s a good amount of variety: Holmes shows up the police (of course); Holmes falls in love; the mystery is not a crime; a locked-door murder outdoors; and more.

Of course, like a lot of Victorian writing, some parts have not aged well. There’s a good amount of sexism, though thankfully no racism that I noticed. It’s easy enough for a modern reader to write off these flaws as the stories being a product of their time.