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Rating: 
Summary: Second-best of the Sherlock Holmes short story collections!
Review: Although he also wrote several novels featuring the world's greatest fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, it was especially in his short stories that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle perfected the Holmes formula. "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (published in 1905) is the third of the five collections of Holmes short stories. Along with the second collection ("The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes"), "Return" is generally regarded as inferior to the superlative first collection ("The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), but easily better than the last two in the series ("His Last Bow" and "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes"). After Doyle had apparently killed Holmes in the last story of "Memoirs" (The Final Problem), the popular outcry which followed the disappearance of the legendary detective eventually led Doyle to resurrect his character in the first story of this new collection (The Empty House). But with "Return", Doyle perhaps even surpassed the earlier effort of "Memoirs", with excellent stories such as The Empty House, The Dancing Men, The Prioriy School, and the Six Napoleons, and other favorites like The Norwood Builder, Charles Augustus Milverton, The Golden Pince-Nez, and The Second Stain. In my view, fans of "Adventures" will find that the dozen stories of "Return" are a great second choice, and not much far behind the brilliance of the first collection.
Here's a list of the stories in this collection (with the better stories marked with stars):
**The Empty House, 1903 - One of the top ten stories, the presumed dead Holmes is "resurrected" to solve the murder of Ronald Adair, a card player. More interesting than this mystery, however, is the mystery of the account of Holmes own escape from death.
*The Norwood Builder, 1903 - John Hector McFarlane is arrested for allegedly murdering Jonas Oldacre, who has just included McFarlane in his will, and it is up to Holmes to prove McFarlane's innocence and expose the events as a plan by Oldacre for revenge.
**The Dancing Men, 1903 - A top ten favorite, as Sherlock Holmes needs to decode the threatening notes with mysterious symbols of dancing men received by Hilton Cubitt's wife.
The Solitary Cyclist, 1903 - The mystery surrounding Violet Smith, who is regularly pursued by a strange cyclist, perhaps one of the various lovers who is after her hand in marriage.
**The Priory School, 1904 - The only son of the Duke of Holdernesse is abducted from his private school, and Holmes uncovers what really happened to the boy, as well as the missing German schoolmaster.
Black Peter, 1904 - The seaman Captain Peter Carey, known as Black Peter, was a nasty man, but who harpooned him to the wall of his outhouse and why?
*Charles Augustus Milverton, 1904 - Charles Augustus Milverton is a reputed blackmailer who specializes in "selling" sensitive letters which reveal the dark secrets of the upper class - but he meets his match with Holmes who is enlisted by Lady Eva Blackwell shortly before her marriage to the Earl of Dovercourt.
**The Six Napoleons, 1904 - In this top ten favorite, Holmes uncovers the perplexing mystery of why various busts of Napoleon are being strangely smashed, apparently the result of a lunatic with an obsession against Napoleon, but actually linked to a jewel theft.
The Three Students, 1904 - Which of the three students was guilty of stealing a copy of the important Greek exam from Professor Hilton Soames' office?
*The Golden Pince-Nez, 1904 - A very good story, as Holmes unravels the murder of Professor Coram's secretary Willoughby Smith, and links it to Coram's Russian wife and his Russian past.
The Missing Three-Quarter, 1904 - Holmes is enlisted to solve the strange disappearance of football star Godfrey Staunton the day before a critical game.
The Abbey Grange, 1904 - Who murdered the wealthy alcoholic tyrant Sir Eustace Brackenstall? It takes Holmes to discover the involvement of a mysterious seaman.
*The Second Stain, 1904 - Two important statesmen enlist Holmes' aid to discover the whereabouts of a stolen document that could result in a war in Europe. Is it coincidental that the theft occurred around the same time as the violent death of the nobleman Eduardo Lucas? With the help of a stain beneath a carpet, Holmes puts all the pieces of the puzzle together.
- GODLY GADFLY
Rating: 
Summary: Wordsworth Classics--a facsimile edition
Review: As an Englishman. resident in the United States, what do I miss most? The BBC. As a little boy I looked forward to all the broadcast plays every week. The BBC cast performed about 6 hours of radio plays every week. They still do, haven't you also noticed the number of TV plays broadcast by A and E? Most of them originate in the United Kingdom, Hornblower, ETC.. Now we can enjoy the performances by means of these Bantam Double Day releases. Very well done, by a very experienced cast, you can let your imagination run riot as you picture the various scenes in your mind. These are the classic stories by Sir Arther Conan Doyle. They have been around for 100 years or so, and time has not diminished their appeal. On this Audio Book you have 4 stories, each about 45 minutes long. If you haven't heard these before, then I don't wish to spoil the story line. If you know the stories then you will not be disappointed. Each story is presented in the time period of around the 1900's, you can almost smell the gas lighting, not to mention the foggy november weather, the horses, and so on. Order these from Amazon, and search for more of the BBC plays, they are great.
Rating:
Summary: Mystery, Mystery, Mystery, the Original Mysteries.
Review: As an Englishman. resident in the United States, what do I miss most? The BBC. As a little boy I looked forward to all the broadcast plays every week. The BBC cast performed about 6 hours of radio plays every week. They still do, haven't you also noticed the number of TV plays broadcast by A and E? Most of them originate in the United Kingdom, Hornblower, ETC.. Now we can enjoy the performances by means of these Bantam Double Day releases. Very well done, by a very experienced cast, you can let your imagination run riot as you picture the various scenes in your mind. These are the classic stories by Sir Arther Conan Doyle. They have been around for 100 years or so, and time has not diminished their appeal. On this Audio Book you have 4 stories, each about 45 minutes long. If you haven't heard these before, then I don't wish to spoil the story line. If you know the stories then you will not be disappointed. Each story is presented in the time period of around the 1900's, you can almost smell the gas lighting, not to mention the foggy november weather, the horses, and so on. Order these from Amazon, and search for more of the BBC plays, they are great.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been better.
Review: Some of this book was cool but there was a huge feeling of d??vu as I progressed through these stories. It's no secret that Conan Doyle brought Holmes back to life only by popular demand and not because he felt anything special for the character. As a result, these stories and mostly uninspired and are basically retreads of stories that have come before them. Plus there are some parts that really bug me? How does Holmes make a living? Never once does he actually charge these people for his services. Where does his cash come from? And for that matter where does Watson get his money from? He says at the start he sold his practice to shack up with Holmes so if he is not a GP then what is he? A mere observer to the Mysteries? And what of his wife Mary Morstan? Does he not live with her any more? According to this he lives with Holmes? What is going on? If Conan Doyle were really serious about these stories then elements such as these would have been stronger and characters would be more fleshed out. The introduction of a new character in Inspector Stanley Hopkins is practically useless as he is just a generic police officer. The long and unrealistic monologues aren't so abundant here but the stories always seem to get off to a slow start. A couple of them are cool and interesting but never seem to generate an atmosphere or give any chance for Holmes or Watson to evolve. Conan Doyle only wrote these stories because his readers wanted them. Not because he felt they needed to be told. He felt totally indifferent about Sherlock Holmes and these generally poor stories only prove that.
Rating:
Summary: Wordsworth Classics--a facsimile edition
Review: The soft-cover Wordsworth Classics edition of The Return of Sherlock Holmes reproduces The Hound of the Baskervilles and the short stories that make up The Return of Sherlock Holmes as they originally appeared in the Strand. It also contains the interesting, though poorly reproduced, illustrations that accompanied the stories. Because a page of the magazine is reduced to the size of a trade paperback page, typeface is very small.
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