|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
The Sign of the Four (1890), also called The Sign of Four, is the
second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle. Doyle wrote four novels and 56 stories starring the
fictional detective.
The story is set in 1888. The Sign of the Four has a complex plot
involving service in East India Company, India, the Indian
Rebellion of 1857, a stolen treasure, and a secret pact among four
convicts ("the Four" of the title) and two corrupt prison guards.
It presents the detective's drug habit and humanizes him in a way
that had not been done in the preceding novel A Study in Scarlet
(1887). It also introduces Doctor Watson's future wife, Mary
Morstan.
A Study in Scarlet is a detective mystery novel written by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, introducing his new characters, consulting
detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend and chronicler Dr John
Watson, who later became two of the most famous literary characters
in detective fiction.
Conan Doyle wrote the story in 1886, and it was published the next
year. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes to
Doctor Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the
story's murder investigation as his study in scarlet There's the
scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of
life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose
every inch of it.
The story, and its main characters, attracted little public
interest when it first appeared. Only 11 complete copies of
Beeton's Christmas Annual 1887 are known to exist now and they have
considerable value. Although Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories
featuring Holmes, A Study in Scarlet is one of only four
full-length novels in the original canon. The novel was followed by
The Sign of the Four, published in 1890. A Study in Scarlet was the
first work of fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as an
investigative tool.
Reception]
Reviewer Alex Baker noted that By later standards of detective
fiction, 'A Study in Scarlet' violates a cardinal rule: there is no
way for intelligent readers to work out the solution for the
mystery by themselves. The very first time that the reader hears of
Jefferson Hope is when Holmes arrests him as the murderer. Nor is
any previous hint given of Drebber and Stangerson's Mormon
background. However, at the time when it was written, this rule did
not yet exist, and detective fiction in general was taking its very
first steps (to which this book greatly contributed)
|
You may like...
Amok
Sebastian Fitzek
Paperback
R463
R306
Discovery Miles 3 060
|