Sherlock The essential Arthur Conan Doyle adventures

Gatiss and Moffat, the cocreators of the hit BBC series Sherlock, have selected their 19 favorite Sherlock Holmes stories for this tie-in collection, ranging from the two early novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, to the late tales "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" and "The Adventure of the Dying Detective." The editors supply no general introduction, only brief introductions to each story ("One of Doyle's dips into gothic horror. Cornwall, madness, Darkest Africa, love, revenge. Lovely"). Of course, there are plenty of Sherlock Holmes collections available, but this one stands out thanks to its jacket depicting actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in their respective roles as Holmes and Watson. The volume is obviously targeted at the many, mostly young fans of the TV show who may have never read Conan Doyle's original texts. It will have fulfilled its purpose admirably if it succeeds in introducing a new generation to one of the world's greatest authors of popular fiction. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Given the free-wheeling approach the television series Sherlock takes to the Sacred Writings, youd expect a selection of the Holmes stories chosen and introduced by producers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat to be equally offbeat. But youd be wrong.The selection itself is unexceptionable: three of the four Holmes novelsA Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and The Hound of the Baskervillesand 16 short storiessix from The Adventures, five from the Memoirs, two from The Return, and three from His Last Bow. With a few exceptions like The Yellow Face and The Dying Detective, the stories are exactly the ones most readers would have chosen themselves, from classics (The Red-Headed League, The Man with the Twisted Lip, Silver Blaze) to overanthologized lesser cases (The Musgrave Ritual, Charles Augustus Milverton, The Dying Detective). Holmes dies in The Final Problem and duly returns to life in The Empty House. And surely no one would cavil at the inclusion, presumably for very different reasons, of A Scandal in Bohemia, A Case of Identity, The Blue Carbuncle, The Speckled Band, The Greek Interpreter, and The Bruce-Partington Plans. What sets this collection apart from the authoritative complete Holmes published by Oxford and Norton is the unfulfilled promise of an introduction that will link the stories to a TV series so inventive that it amounts to a Holmes remix. In lieu of such an introduction, however, the editors offer only tantalizingly brief snippets commenting on each story. (The complete introduction to The Devils Foot reads: One of Doyles dips into gothic horror. Cornwall, madness, Darkest Africa, love, revenge. Lovely.)Yes, its lovely, but since its neither complete nor very interestingly edited, theres no reason to prefer this volume to any of the Holmes collections out there already. Even the print is tiny. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.