Winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Best Biographical Work, this is "an excellent biography of the man who created Sherlock Holmes" (David Walton, The New York Times Book Review) This fresh, compelling biography examines the extraordinary life and strange contrasts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the struggling provincial doctor who became the most popular storyteller of his age. From his youthful exploits aboard a whaling ship to his often stormy friendships with such figures as Harry Houdini and George Bernard Shaw, Conan Doyle lived a life as gripping as one of his adventures. Exhaustively researched and elegantly written, Daniel Stashower's Teller of Tales sets aside many myths and misconceptions to present a vivid portrait of the man behind the legend of Baker Street, with a particular emphasis on the Psychic Crusade that dominated his final years--the work that Conan Doyle himself felt to be "the most important thing in the world."

Curated new collections. The fascination with Conan Doyle’s enigmatic anti-hero Sherlock Holmes, and his pompous narrator Dr Watson, has barely subsided over the years. Inspiring a long line of detective stories and Whodunnits, Holmes is a constant feature on TV, and movie screens, with new audio and radio shows joining the frenzy. The Holmes tales have earned their place amongst the most influential of popular fantasy, crime and gothic stories.

Since his first appearance in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam presents all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyle’s classic hero--a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmes’s adventures in crime! 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 chilling “ The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the baffling riddle of “The Musgrave Ritual,” and the ingeniously plotted “The Five Orange Pips,” tales that bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.

The house of Theodosius, the famous eastern merchant, was in the best part of Constantinople at the Sea Point which is near the church of Saint Demetrius. Here he would entertain in so princely a fashion that even the Emperor Maurice had been known to come privately from the neighbouring Bucoleon palace in order to join in the revelry. On the night in question, however, which was the fourth of November in the year of our Lord 630, his numerous guests had retired early, and there remained only two intimates, both of them successful merchants like himself, who sat with him over their wine on the marble verandah of his house, whence on the one side they could see the lights of the shipping in the Sea of Marmora, and on the other the beacons which marked out the course of the Bosphorus. Immediately at their feet lay a narrow strait of water, with the low, dark loom of the Asiatic hills beyond. A thin haze hid the heavens, but away to the south a single great red star burned sullenly in the darkness.

Famed Victorian-era sleuth outwits a variety of unprincipled villains in "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-headed League," "The Final Problem," "The Adventure of the Empty House," and two other tales.

This enthralling collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures comprises the first two volumes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories - The Adventures and The Memoirs. The Adventures was originally published in 1892 and included twelve stories that had appeared in Strand magazine over the previous year. The Memoirs followed suit in 1894, completing the collection of Strand short stories up to that point. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes contains four of Conan Doyle's own all-time favourite Holmes mysteries, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Red-Headed League, A Scandal in Bohemia and The Five Orange Pips. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes has another three of Conan Doyle's favourites in The Adventure of the Reigate Squire, The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual and The Adventure of the Final Problem. It is in The Final Problem, of course, that Dr Watson sadly reports the death of Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls near Meiringen in Switzerland. Holmes's titantic struggle with his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty, had seen them both apparently plunge over a sheer drop, although Watson never actually finds Holmes's body. This was Conan Doyle's attempt to bring an end to Holmes's adventures, but he was to be resurrected by popular demand eight years later. The Memoirs also includes The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, in which Holmes's brother, Mycroft, appears for the first time and The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, in which Holmes describes to Watson his very first case.