The Return of Sherlock Holmes

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.