The Best of Sherlock Holmes

The Best Of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I always love Sherlock Holmes stories. In this book of Woodsworth Classics edition I enjoyed the collection of twenty best cases of Sherlock Holmes along with an introduction by David Stuart Davies, the editor. Davies’ long essay talks about many things behind the success of Sherlock Holmes, how the cases in this edition selected, and discuss about plus and minus of every case.

It was a delight for me to read the story of a very long journey in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author, wrote Holmes stories from time to time, tried to draw public’s attention by publishing them in novel form and then as a serial in magazine column. It was really a long journey before Holmes finally won the readers’ heart and gained a tremendous success. Well, I recommend to read this long journey story for those who love writing. It was not only a learning about hard work, totality, consistency, and heart will in writing, but it was also an interesting story about the creative process in writing.

It was an interesting creative process, for example, how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle inspired by Dr. Bell of Edinburgh, when he was educated at a school of medical thought. This Dr. Bell prided himself about his remarkable power of observation: that when he looked at a patient he could tell not only their disease but very often their occupation and place of residence. Doyle tried to apply this power of observation into a detective story, in which the detective would treat crime as Dr. Bell treated disease and where science would take the place of chance.

The important point of Sherlock Holmes creative process was the factor combination of character, plot, and point of view. It was this combination of so unique a character, so delicate a plot, and a well-chosen point of view, I think, that made Sherlock Holmes have its own strong character. All of these factor were well-prepared by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in creating this classical detective story: he had reasons in every choice he made. Scientific element Doyle put on his narration was another thing to which I admired.

Well, in a brief summary: I love Sherlock Holmes ^^

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