In 2026 I plan to read all the Conan Doyle “Sherlock Holmes” works – 56 short stories and 4 novels (here’s why and how). If you haven’t already read it, Michael Green’s “undiscovered letter” from John Watson is fricking hilarious. I may also read various Holmes homages/pastiches etc. Who knows? (btw I’d recommend theSeven Per Cent Solution, by Nicholas Meyer where Watson has to trick Holmes into going to Vienna to be treated by Sigmund Freud).
In February my target is to read all (or at very least most) of the 12 stories in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Published: June 1893
Wikipedia here
Online here
Review: I would recommend this, with reservations. Nice to see rich white men as unambiguous bad’uns, and also to devious trickster Holmes. But the reliance on graphology was embarrassing (what next, phrenology?)
Best sentence(s):
It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of ’87. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with politics and finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches. They led, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem which gave my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the many with which he waged his life-long battle against crime.
******
“Oh, it is as well to test everything. Our inspection was not wasted.
*****
The son, on the other hand, had dropped all that jaunty, dashing style which had characterized him, and the ferocity of a dangerous wild beast gleamed in his dark eyes and distorted his handsome features. The Inspector said nothing, but, stepping to the door, he blew his whistle. Two of his constables came at the call
*****
“On the contrary,” answered the Colonel, warmly, “I consider it the greatest privilege to have been permitted to study your methods of working. I confess that they quite surpass my expectations, and that I am utterly unable to account for your result. I have not yet seen the vestige of a clue.”
*****
“It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.”
*****
As it is, I feel that young man’s grip on my throat now, and the father has twisted my wrist round in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that I must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from absolute security to complete despair made them perfectly desperate.
*****
Words I didn’t know:
Cooke, Catherine, Cattleya M. Concepcion, Joshua Counts Cumby, Ross E. Davies, A. Dean, Clifford Goldfarb, Peter Jacoby et al. “The Reigate Puzzle: A Lawyerly Annotated Edition.” Green Bag Almanac & Reader (2016): 108-167.
Boucher, A., & Perkins, R. (2020). The case of Sherlock Holmes and linguistic analysis. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 63(1), 77-98.
marchudson.net 
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