The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 4 Novels and 56 Short Stories

本商品共兩冊，盒裝。內容共含柯南．道爾所著福爾摩斯系列4部小說與56個偵探短篇。
 

夏洛克．福爾摩斯，這位具有清楚頭腦、觀察入微、有著縝密判斷能力的偵探，是一位風度翩翩，極度優雅的英國紳士。和助手華生醫生是一對出生入死的好搭檔。福爾摩斯與華生住在倫敦市貝克街221號B座，他總在倫敦街頭柱著手杖行走，或乘著馬車到處探訪，敏銳的觀察力、縝密的邏輯判斷，就成了福爾摩斯的招牌！

The complete collection of Sherlock Holmes's adventures in crime, including all four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic hero

Volume I includes the early novel A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the eccentric genius of Sherlock Holmes to the world. This baffling murder mystery, with the cryptic word Rache written in blood, first brought Holmes together with Dr. John Watson. Next, The Sign of Four presents Holmes's famous "seven percent solution" and the strange puzzle of Mary Morstan in the quintessential locked-room mystery. Also included are Holmes's feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," "The Musgrave Ritual," and "The Five Orange Pips."

Volume II begins with The Hound of the Baskervilles, a haunting novel of murder on eerie Grimpen Moor, which has rightly earned its reputation as the finest murder mystery ever written. The Valley of Fear matches Holmes against his archenemy, the master of imaginative crime, Professor Moriarty. In addition, the loyal Dr. Watson has faithfully recorded Holmes's exploits from "The Adventure of the Red Circle" to the twelve baffling enigmas from The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes.

Conan Doyle's incomparable tales bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where for more than forty years Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and began to write stories while he was a student. Over his life he produced more than 30 books, 150 short stories, poems, plays, and essays across a wide range of genres. His most famous creation is the detective Sherlock Holmes, who he introduced in his first novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887). This was followed in 1889 by an historical novel, Micah Clarke. In 1893 Conan Doyle published The Final Problem in which he killed off his famous detective so that he could turn his attention more toward historical fiction. However, Holmes was so popular that Conan Doyle eventually relented and published The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1901. The events of the The Hound of the Baskervilles are set before those of The Final Problem, but in 1903 new Sherlock Holmes stories began to appear that revealed that the detective had not died after all. He was finally retired in 1927. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930.

Chapter 1

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

IN THE year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemys country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was despatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air--or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom.