The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Summary

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collects the second series of Holmes stories published in The Strand Magazine from December 1892 to December 1893, ending with the tale in which Doyle tried to kill his detective. This Gutenberg text contains twelve stories. 'Silver Blaze' concerns a missing racehorse and a murdered trainer on Dartmoor, and contains the famous 'curious incident of the dog in the night-time': the dog did nothing, and that silence tells Holmes the thief was someone the dog knew. 'The Cardboard Box', about a parcel containing two severed ears, is a grim tale of jealousy and drink, which Doyle left out of many early editions. 'The Yellow Face' is unusual because Holmes is wrong, and the solution, a mother hiding her child of mixed race from her second husband, ends with the husband's generous embrace of the girl. 'The Stockbroker's Clerk' and 'The Reigate Squires' are puzzles of impersonation and forged evidence. 'The Gloria Scott' and 'The Musgrave Ritual' are early cases Holmes tells Watson himself, one about a mutiny on a convict ship and the other about an old family riddle that leads to the lost crown of Charles I. 'The Crooked Man' and 'The Resident Patient' turn on old betrayals catching up with their authors. 'The Greek Interpreter' introduces Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older and even cleverer brother, who rarely leaves the Diogenes Club. 'The Naval Treaty' follows a stolen diplomatic document and includes Holmes's meditation on a rose as evidence of Providence. Finally 'The Final Problem' brings on Professor James Moriarty, 'the Napoleon of crime', and ends with Holmes and Moriarty apparently falling to their deaths together at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, leaving Watson to mourn the best and wisest man he had ever known. Readers were so dismayed that Doyle was forced, years later, to bring Holmes back. The stories show the series at its most varied: comic, tragic, domestic and international, with the friendship at the center growing deeper.

Top Lessons

• Learning from silence

  The dog that did nothing reminds us that what is missing can matter as much as what is present.

• Admitting error

  In The Yellow Face Holmes misjudges the case and asks Watson to whisper Norbury whenever he grows overconfident.

• Self-sacrifice

  In The Final Problem Holmes is willing to give his life to rid the world of Moriarty.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Watson practises medicine in Paddington during these stories; The Naval Treaty describes a long brain fever after a shock; The Resident Patient involves a physician and a feigned catalepsy.

• The Naval Treaty

  Percy Phelps lies nine weeks with brain fever after losing the treaty.