The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (Last Bow) - 4 starsMaybe I am just strange but I always enjoy stories that either "speak" to me or at least "surprise" me.

The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" has become one of the most quoted and iconic aspects of the character. However, although Holmes often observes that his conclusions are "elementary", and occasionally calls Watson "my dear Watson", the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" is never uttered in any of the sixty stories by Conan Doyle. [176] One of the nearest approximations of the phrase appears in " The Adventure of the Crooked Man" (1893) when Holmes explains a deduction: "'Excellent!' I cried. 'Elementary,' said he." [177] [178] When Conan Doyle started writing about the private detective, Holmes was a self-proclaimed anomaly, something that didn’t really exist in our world or at any point in history. Klinger, Leslie (1999). "Lost in Lassus: The Missing Monograph". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016 . Retrieved 27 December 2019. Quigley, Michael J. "Mycroft Holmes". The Official Conan Doyle Estate Ltd . Retrieved 27 December 2019.

The Holmes & Hudson Series". Martin Davies. Archived from the original on 10 September 2019 . Retrieved 26 December 2019.

Continuing to enthral millions in film and TV adaptations, Arthur Conan Doyle's creation has inspired readers and writers of crime stories for well over a century. Join their ranks with this collection. Schwartz, Roy (20 May 2022). "Opinion: The fictional character who changed the science of solving crime". CNN . Retrieved 21 May 2022. Holmes displays a strong aptitude for acting and disguise. In several stories (" The Sign of Four", " The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", " The Man with the Twisted Lip", " The Adventure of the Empty House" and " A Scandal in Bohemia"), to gather evidence undercover, he uses disguises so convincing that Watson fails to recognise him. In others (" The Adventure of the Dying Detective" and " A Scandal in Bohemia"), Holmes feigns injury or illness to incriminate the guilty. In the latter story, Watson says, "The stage lost a fine actor... when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime." [133]In 2012, Guinness World Records listed Holmes as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television history, with more than 75 actors playing the part in over 250 productions. [3] Gangelhoff, Bonnie (15 September 2017). "A small Oklahoma town finds community through public art". Southwest Art . Retrieved 6 August 2020. Shapiro, Fred R. (2021). The New Yale Book of Quotations. Yale University Press. p.226. ISBN 978-0-300-20597-8.

Although he is now referred to as "Conan Doyle", the origin of this compound surname (if that is how he meant it to be understood) is uncertain. His baptism record in the registry of St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh gives 'Arthur Ignatius Conan' as his Christian name, and simply 'Doyle' as his surname. It also names Michael Conan as his godfather. The Mystery of Baritsu". The Bartitsu Society. Archived from the original on 30 November 2018 . Retrieved 27 December 2019. Though the stories always refer to Holmes's intellectual detection method as " deduction", Holmes primarily relies on abduction: inferring an explanation for observed details. [115] [116] [117] "From a drop of water," he writes, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other." [118] However, Holmes does employ deductive reasoning as well. The detective's guiding principle, as he says in The Sign of Four, is: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." [119]Sansom, Ian (27 October 2011). "The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz – review". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 31 December 2019. After confirming Watson's assessment of the wound, Holmes makes it clear to their opponent that the man would not have left the room alive if he genuinely had killed Watson. [31] Practice Looking more closely, except for the novellas, A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear, the unadapted, weaker episodes could be found in the last three volumes of the Holmes’ books.

Though never claimed by any serious critic to be a Doyle work, this parody is listed here due to a popular misconception that this was written by Doyle for his friend, J. M. Barrie (of Peter Pan fame). (Perhaps contributing to this misconception is the fact that the story appears for the first time only in a work of Doyle's, and all subsequent printings are from that source.) In fact, this story was written by Barrie for Doyle following a period of the two of them working together on a play, Jane Annie. The story itself involves Doyle and Barrie visiting Holmes, with Doyle killing Holmes due to his irritating intelligence (which perhaps reflects Doyle's killing off of the character in " The Adventure of the Final Problem"). Conan Doyle fathered five children. Two with his first wife—Mary Louise (28 January 1889 – 12 June 1976), and Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, known as Kingsley (15 November 1892 – 28 October 1918). With his second wife he had three children—Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 – 9 March 1955), second husband in 1936 of Georgian Princess Nina Mdivani (circa 1910 – 19 February 1987; former sister-in-law of Barbara Hutton); Adrian Malcolm (19 November 1910–3 June 1970) and Jean Lena Annette (21 December 1912–18 November 1997). I proceeded to read all of the unadapted stories and did not remember a one of them and found some of them quite terrible. I can say, unreservedly, nothing was lost in not adapting them.The detective is particularly skilled in the analysis of trace evidence and other physical evidence, including latent prints (such as footprints, hoof prints, and shoe and tire impressions) to identify actions at a crime scene, [123] using tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals, [124] utilizing handwriting analysis and graphology, [125] comparing typewritten letters to expose a fraud, [126] using gunpowder residue to expose two murderers, [127] and analyzing small pieces of human remains to expose two murders. [128] Because of the small scale of much of his evidence, the detective often uses a magnifying glass at the scene and an optical microscope at his Baker Street lodgings. He uses analytical chemistry for blood residue analysis and toxicology to detect poisons; Holmes's home chemistry laboratory is mentioned in " The Naval Treaty". [129] Ballistics feature in "The Adventure of the Empty House" when spent bullets are recovered to be matched with a suspected murder weapon, a practice which became regular police procedure only some fifteen years after the story was published. [130] Until Watson's arrival at Baker Street, Holmes largely worked alone, only occasionally employing agents from the city's underclass. These agents included a variety of informants, such as Langdale Pike, a "human book of reference upon all matters of social scandal", [135] and Shinwell Johnson, who acted as Holmes's "agent in the huge criminal underworld of London". [136] The best known of Holmes's agents are a group of street children he called "the Baker Street Irregulars". [137] [138] Combat British Army (Adams) Mark III, the type probably carried by Watson Pistols Santander: who was Abbey's most famous customer?". The Telegraph. 27 May 2009. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 . Retrieved 18 February 2020. Laura J. Snyder has examined Holmes's methods in the context of mid- to late-19th-century criminology, demonstrating that, while sometimes in advance of what official investigative departments were formally using at the time, they were based upon existing methods and techniques. For example, fingerprints were proposed to be distinct in Conan Doyle's day, and while Holmes used a thumbprint to solve a crime in " The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" (generally held to be set in 1895), the story was published in 1903, two years after Scotland Yard's fingerprint bureau opened. [122] [131] Though the effect of the Holmes stories on the development of forensic science has thus often been overstated, Holmes inspired future generations of forensic scientists to think scientifically and analytically. [132] Disguises