Although longer narratives like The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four are justly admired, most Sherlock Holmes aficionados would agree that their hero is seen to his best advantage in the short stories. First published in The Strand magazine, and then collected in five volumes, the stories show the supremely rational detective, accompanied by his dependable sidekick Dr Watson, in single-minded pursuit of the truth behind a succession of seemingly insoluble mysteries. The first collection, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, includes many fine tales, including such well-known ones as 'The Red-Headed League' and 'The Adventure of the Speckled Band', but the best of all the volumes is The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, eleven stories in which the detective's eccentric genius is brilliantly and variously displayed. 'The Gloria Scott' and 'The Musgrave Ritual' both have a younger Holmes, in the days before he met Watson, showing early signs of the startling deductive powers which were to make him famous. In 'Silver Blaze', a trip out of London to Dartmoor (later scene of his encounter with the hellish Baskerville hound) finds him investigating the bizarre disappearance of a champion racehorse and the apparent murder of its trainer. 'The Greek Interpreter' introduces Watson, and readers, to Holmes's even smarter brother Mycroft. The volume reaches its conclusion with 'The Final Problem', the story in which Doyle famously tried to rid himself of his own creation by pitting Holmes against the 'Napoleon of Crime', Professor Moriarty, and apparently sending them both plummeting to their deaths over the Reichenbach Falls. As everyone knows, Holmes fans refused to accept his death and Doyle was later obliged to restore him to life and involve him in further adventures but the great detective was never quite the same after Reichenbach. There were occasional great stories still to come but none of the later collections matched the quality to be found on every page of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

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