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: December 1893
Wikipedia here
Online here
Review: I would recommend this. – it has a nice sense of foreboding and tension. Sure, I can see where this guy is coming from
Does anybody else feel like The Final Problem is really undeserving of its reputation? The when I started reading the series I couldn’t wait to get to that particular story. I knew Moriarty only appeared in one story, but it was such an iconic one that I figured it was filled to the brim with some epic game of cat and mouse and battles of wits etc but nope; just a train ride and a letter. Was I a victim of my own expectations or does anyone else feel it’s one of the weaker stories?
But also this reply
Part of the interesting thing about the Holmes series and fandom is that the fandom fills in a LOT. The stories are often vague (Watson is unreliable narrator, etc), and then you have stories where I don’t think a lot of effort or thought was put into them. The character of Moriarty is another example of this. But the Sherlock Holmes character was that good that the fans just took the idea of a worthy foe and ran with it, creating the Moriarty most people think of today. Honestly, canon is canon but how we view the characters is just as heavily influenced by over a century of fandom too. It’s one of the things that fascinates me about the series.
Best sentence(s):
there have been only three accounts in the public press: that in the Journal de Geneve on May 6th, 1891, the Reuter’s despatch in the English papers on May 7th,
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During the winter of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that he had been engaged by the French government upon a matter of supreme importance, and I received two notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered that his stay in France was likely to be a long one. It was with some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of April 24th. It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.
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“I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
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But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.
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For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws it shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts — forgery cases, robberies, murders — I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.
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He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.
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You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill. But at last he made a trip — only a little, little trip — but it was more than he could afford when I was so close upon him.
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“‘You crossed my patch on the 4th of January,’ said he. ‘On the 23d you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.’
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“‘Danger is part of my trade,’ I remarked.
“‘That is not danger,’ said he. ‘It is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.’
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. His soft, precise fashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could not produce.
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a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my feet. I called the police and had the place examined. There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to some repairs, and they would have me believe that the wind had toppled over one of these. Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing.
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Holmes tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into the grate.
“I might have known it!” he groaned. “He has escaped!”
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Once, I remember, as we passed over the Gemmi, and walked along the border of the melancholy Daubensee, a large rock which had been dislodged from the ridge upon our right clattered down and roared into the lake behind us. In an instant Holmes had raced up on to the ridge, and, standing upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every direction. It was in vain that our guide assured him that a fall of stones was a common chance in the spring-time at that spot. He said nothing, but he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the fulfillment of that which he had expected.
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The air of London is the sweeter for my presence.
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It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house.
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The appeal was one which could not be ignored. It was impossible to refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying in a strange land.
marchudson.net 
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