Arthur Conan Doyle
Spine number 01
A Study in Scarlet
An army doctor seeking affordable London rooms meets a man whose peculiar interests turn out to have a professional purpose. Watson’s curiosity about Holmes becomes part of their first shared investigation, beginning with a body in an empty house. Written in Southsea in 1886, the novel appeared in Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887 and as a book the following year.
1887 · book · Fiction
Spine number 02
The Mystery of Cloomber
A retired general turns a house on the Scottish coast into a guarded retreat, to the bewilderment of his neighbours. A young law student’s interest in the family makes the old soldier’s fear increasingly difficult to dismiss. First serialised in 1888, the novel combines local gossip and an earnest witness’s account with supernatural suspense.
1888 · book · Fiction
Spine number 03
Micah Clarke
Micah Clarke grows up with his father’s fierce Puritan convictions before setting out during Monmouth’s rebellion against James II in 1685. A childhood friend and a boastful soldier of fortune give him competing examples of how to meet the world. Told as an older man’s recollections to his grandchildren, this historical adventure mixes religious argument with the practical demands of life on the road.
1889 · book · Fiction
Spine number 04
The Firm of Girdlestone
A London trading firm conceals financial trouble behind a reputation for respectability. Its partners' efforts to escape their difficulties draw a young heiress into danger. The novel was serialised in 1889–1890 before its book publication in 1890.
1889–1890 · book · Fiction
Spine number 05
The Sign of the Four
Mary Morstan brings Holmes a strange history: a missing father, a succession of pearls sent anonymously and an invitation to a meeting. Watson accompanies an inquiry through a London of guarded houses and unfamiliar callers. The novel first appeared in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in February 1890 and was issued as a book that year.
1890 · book · Fiction
Spine number 06
The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales
An Arctic captain, an Egyptian mystery and other encounters with danger bring together some of Doyle's early short fiction. The collection moves between adventure, the supernatural and unsettling experiences at the edges of ordinary life.
1890 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 07
The White Company
Alleyne Edricson, raised in a Hampshire abbey, goes out into fourteenth-century England and then to the wars in France and Spain with a company of English bowmen. The novel watches squires, archers and knights under Sir Nigel Loring as campaign, plunder and honour pull in different directions. Serialised in The Cornhill Magazine through 1891 and issued as a three-volume novel that October, it was the historical work Doyle long ranked above Holmes.
1891 · book · Fiction
Spine number 08
The Doings of Raffles Haw
A man of extraordinary wealth settles near a struggling family and begins using his fortune to transform the lives around him. The source of his money adds a scientific mystery to a story about generosity, dependence and ambition.
1891 · book · Fiction
Spine number 09
Beyond the City
Neighbours in a small suburban community find their assumptions about marriage, independence and money unsettled by one another. The story first appeared in the Christmas number of Good Words in 1891 and was issued as a book in 1892.
1891 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 10
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A king fears the use of a compromising photograph, a red-haired pawnbroker receives an extraordinary offer of employment, and other visitors bring their difficulties to Baker Street. These twelve stories give Holmes and Watson cases ranging from domestic anxieties to threats of violence. First published in the Strand Magazine in 1891–1892, they were collected by George Newnes in 1892 with Sidney Paget’s illustrations.
1892 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 11
The Great Shadow
A narrator looks back on a youth overshadowed by the Napoleonic wars. Rivalries and a mysterious arrival bring the conflicts of Europe into the lives of families on the Anglo-Scottish border.
1892 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 12
The Refugees
A French Huguenot and an American visitor are drawn into the dangers of Louis XIV's court. Their story moves from religious persecution in France towards the settlements and wilderness of North America.
1893 · book · Fiction
Spine number 13
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
A missing racehorse, a stolen naval treaty and recollections of Holmes’s earlier life broaden the view of the detective and his work. The collection includes encounters with his brother Mycroft as well as familiar exchanges with Watson. The English volume appeared in December 1893, dated 1894, and omitted The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, which had appeared in the magazine.
1893 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 14
The Stark Munro Letters
A young doctor describes his struggle to establish a practice and work out his beliefs in letters to a friend. Professional uncertainty and a difficult friendship shape a novel that draws on Doyle's early medical life.
1894–1895 · book · Fiction
Spine number 15
Round the Red Lamp
Doctors, students and patients supply stories that range from professional comedy to exhaustion and loss. Drawing on the world of medical practice, Doyle follows the human pressures behind diagnosis and treatment.
1894 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 16
The Parasite
A scientist agrees to investigate the powers of a woman who practises mesmerism. His confidence in detached observation is tested when he begins to doubt his control over his own behaviour.
1894 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 17
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
Etienne Gerard, a French hussar in Napoleon's service, recounts missions, medals and escapes that never quite go as he understands them. The comedy lies in the gap between his courage and his self-regard. The stories first appeared in the Strand Magazine from 1894 and were collected by Newnes in 1896.
1896 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 18
Rodney Stone
A young man is introduced to the fashionable and sporting world of Regency England. Bare-knuckle boxing, family histories and the reputations of gentlemen meet in a historical novel told through his recollections.
1896 · book · Fiction
Spine number 19
Uncle Bernac
A young French exile returns to his homeland during Napoleon's preparations to invade England. His uncle's invitation draws him into a world of divided loyalties, military ambition and personal danger.
1897 · book · Fiction
Spine number 20
The Tragedy of the Korosko
European and American tourists travelling in Egypt are seized during an excursion into the desert. Their captivity becomes a test of conviction and endurance in a novel shaped by the imperial politics of its time.
1897–1898 · book · Fiction
Spine number 21
A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus
Frank and Maude begin married life with affection and limited means. Their conversations and domestic adventures make an episodic novel about the adjustments, anxieties and pleasures of a shared household.
1899 · book · Fiction
Spine number 22
The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport
Soldiers, sportsmen and adventurers encounter situations that test their courage and judgment. The collection brings together tales of campaigning and competition, including Doyle's boxing story The Croxley Master.
1900 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 23
The Great Boer War
Doyle recounts the campaigns of the South African War from a position sympathetic to the British cause. First published while the conflict was continuing, the history was revised and expanded as further events unfolded.
1900 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 24
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dr Mortimer brings Holmes a family legend, a recent death and fears for the heir to a remote Devon estate. Dartmoor’s isolation makes the setting an active presence in a mystery told through Watson’s observations. The novel appeared in the Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902 and as a book in 1902, returning to Holmes after a long gap in publication.
1901–1902 · book · Fiction
Spine number 25
The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct
A short polemical history, written after Doyle served as a volunteer doctor at the Langman Field Hospital in Bloemfontein. He answers European criticism of Britain's role in the South African war, including the camps and the treatment of civilians. Widely translated, the pamphlet was the work he believed had earned his knighthood in 1902.
1902 · pamphlet · Non-fiction
Spine number 26
The Adventures of Gerard
Etienne Gerard returns with further accounts of service in Napoleon's army. His confidence in his courage and importance carries him through missions and reversals whose comic implications he does not always recognise.
1903 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 27
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Thirteen cases bring Holmes and Watson into schools, suburban houses and the private affairs of people with reputations to protect. Missing persons, strange messages and apparently ordinary objects give the detective fresh occasions to test explanations against observation. The stories appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1903–1904 and were collected in 1905.
1905 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 28
Sir Nigel
A prequel to The White Company, following young Nigel Loring from a reduced Hampshire manor into the early campaigns of the Hundred Years' War. He seeks to win his spurs and restore his house's standing among knights, outlaws and the English army in France. Serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1905–1906 and published by Smith, Elder in 1906.
1905–1906 · book · Fiction
Spine number 29
Through the Magic Door
Doyle takes the reader along his bookshelves, discussing the writers and volumes that have mattered to him. Literary criticism becomes a personal account of companionship through reading.
1907 · essay · Non-fiction
Spine number 30
Round the Fire Stories
Disappearances, strange evidence and hidden histories furnish tales intended for an evening's storytelling. The collection includes The Lost Special and The Story of the Man with the Watches, mysteries outside the named Holmes canon.
1908 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 31
The Crime of the Congo
Doyle assembles testimony and reports about violence and exploitation under the Congo Free State. The book argues for international action against a system that he presents as organised abuse rather than isolated misconduct.
1909 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 32
The Last Galley
Brief visions of past civilisations sit alongside tales of adventure and suspense. The historical pieces imagine people caught at moments of change, from the ancient Mediterranean to later European history.
1911 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 33
The Lost World
Journalist Edward Malone seeks an adventure and finds Professor Challenger, whose claims about a South American plateau provoke scientific disbelief. Their expedition brings sharply different temperaments together around the possibility that prehistoric life survives beyond the known map. The novel combines exploration with argumentative comedy and was serialised in the Strand Magazine from April to November 1912, with book publication the same year.
1912 · book · Fiction
Spine number 34
The Case of Oscar Slater
Doyle examines the evidence used to convict Oscar Slater of murder in Glasgow. He challenges the identification and handling of the case in a work of public advocacy concerned with a possible miscarriage of justice.
1912 · pamphlet · Non-fiction
Spine number 35
The Poison Belt
Professor Challenger summons his former companions and tells them to bring oxygen. From a room in his country house they confront the possibility of a catastrophe extending far beyond their own lives.
1913 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 36
The Valley of Fear
A coded warning draws Holmes and Watson to a moated Sussex house, where the evidence seems to resist a straightforward account. Conan Doyle gives the investigation the scale of a novel, making room for the lives and pressures behind the immediate puzzle. The story was serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1914–1915 and published as a book in 1915.
1914–1915 · book · Fiction
Spine number 37
His Last Bow
Eight Holmes stories, including The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, first published in 1893, and seven later cases culminating in the title story's wartime espionage. John Murray published the collection in 1917. This eight-story edition places The Cardboard Box here rather than in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
1917 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 38
The New Revelation
Doyle sets out his reasons for accepting spiritualism and considers its implications for religion and life after death. The book presents his convictions and interpretation of reported evidence, rather than a scientific consensus.
1918 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 39
Danger! and Other Stories
The title story imagines a submarine campaign against Britain, while the surrounding tales move through war, sport and unusual encounters. The collection gathers shorter fiction written across different parts of Doyle's career.
1918 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 40
The Coming of the Fairies
Doyle argues for the authenticity of photographs said to show fairies, bringing together correspondence and interpretations of the images. The book records his support for the Cottingley claims, which were later exposed as a photographic deception.
1922 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 41
Tales of Terror and Mystery
Doyle groups stories of fear and unexplained events alongside puzzles that invite investigation. The collection includes earlier material, so its contents overlap other volumes rather than forming an entirely new sequence of tales.
1922 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 42
Memories and Adventures
Doyle's autobiography, from an Edinburgh childhood and medical training through the Holmes years, the South African war, public campaigns and his turn to spiritualism. He writes as a man explaining his own life rather than as the detective's creator only. Serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1923–1924 and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1924.
1923–1924 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 43
The Land of Mist
Edward Malone and Enid Challenger investigate spiritualist meetings and claims of communication with the dead. The novel brings characters from the Challenger adventures into a story shaped by Doyle's later religious convictions.
1925–1926 · book · Fiction
Spine number 44
The History of Spiritualism
Doyle traces the people, movements and reported phenomena that he regarded as the development of modern spiritualism. Published in two volumes, the history is written by an advocate of the beliefs it describes.
1926 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 45
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
The final collection brings together twelve cases, including stories narrated by Holmes himself. Unsettling clients and dangerous households often give these tales a darker atmosphere than the early Baker Street adventures. John Murray collected the stories in 1927, bringing the published Holmes series to its close.
1927 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 46
The Maracot Deep
A deep-sea expedition descends into the Atlantic and encounters a world beyond its expectations. The adventure first appeared in serial form, with further material added before its 1929 publication in The Maracot Deep and Other Stories.
1927–1929 · book · Fiction
Spine number 47
When the World Screamed
Professor Challenger undertakes a drilling experiment designed to test his extraordinary theory about the Earth. Engineers and observers become participants in a project whose scale matches its inventor's self-confidence.
1928 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 48
The Disintegration Machine
Challenger and Malone visit an inventor who claims to have built a machine that can dissolve and reassemble matter. A demonstration places scientific curiosity in conflict with the uses to which such power might be put.
1929 · short story · Fiction
Conan Doyle offers several kinds of adventure, from the close observation of a London detective to expeditions into the unknown. Start by meeting Holmes and Watson, then choose between individual cases, a sustained mystery and a journey beyond Baker Street.
Where to begin
Start here
A Study in Scarlet
Begin here if you want to meet Holmes as Watson does, before the detective’s habits have become familiar. Their first conversations offer a particularly enjoyable introduction to the partnership, though the novel’s structure is more expansive than that of the later short cases.
In the collection About 2 hr 53 min at 250 words/min
For shorter reading sessions
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
These twelve cases let you try the Holmes-and-Watson partnership one story at a time. Choose this collection if you enjoy a puzzling arrival at Baker Street, a trail of small observations and the pleasure of seeing an apparently ordinary detail acquire significance.
Not yet in our collection
For adventure beyond Holmes
The Lost World
Join Professor Challenger’s expedition to a South American plateau for a different side of Conan Doyle. Scientific argument, competing personalities and encounters with prehistoric life make this a choice for readers drawn to exploration and physical adventure.
Not yet in our collection
For historical adventure
The White Company
Choose this for a longer journey with bowmen, knights and a young scholar discovering life beyond the abbey. The companions’ boasts and arguments give the medieval campaigning a sociable humour, while their different notions of honour keep the adventure in motion.
In the collection About 10 hr 1 min at 250 words/min
Read next
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Once you know the partnership, try a longer mystery steeped in atmosphere. A family legend and the isolation of Dartmoor put pressure on Holmes’s methods, while Watson’s observations give you a close view of a place where fear is part of the puzzle.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1887
A Study in Scarlet
book
An army doctor seeking affordable London rooms meets a man whose peculiar interests turn out to have a professional purpose. Watson’s curiosity about Holmes becomes part of their first shared investigation, beginning with a body in an empty house. Written in Southsea in 1886, the novel appeared in Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887 and as a book the following year.
In the collection
Published 1888
The Mystery of Cloomber
book
A retired general turns a house on the Scottish coast into a guarded retreat, to the bewilderment of his neighbours. A young law student’s interest in the family makes the old soldier’s fear increasingly difficult to dismiss. First serialised in 1888, the novel combines local gossip and an earnest witness’s account with supernatural suspense.
In the collection
Published 1889
Micah Clarke
book
Micah Clarke grows up with his father’s fierce Puritan convictions before setting out during Monmouth’s rebellion against James II in 1685. A childhood friend and a boastful soldier of fortune give him competing examples of how to meet the world. Told as an older man’s recollections to his grandchildren, this historical adventure mixes religious argument with the practical demands of life on the road.
In the collection
Published 1889–1890
The Firm of Girdlestone
book
A London trading firm conceals financial trouble behind a reputation for respectability. Its partners' efforts to escape their difficulties draw a young heiress into danger. The novel was serialised in 1889–1890 before its book publication in 1890.
In the collection
Published 1890
The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales
collection
An Arctic captain, an Egyptian mystery and other encounters with danger bring together some of Doyle's early short fiction. The collection moves between adventure, the supernatural and unsettling experiences at the edges of ordinary life.
In the collection
Published 1890
The Sign of the Four
book
Mary Morstan brings Holmes a strange history: a missing father, a succession of pearls sent anonymously and an invitation to a meeting. Watson accompanies an inquiry through a London of guarded houses and unfamiliar callers. The novel first appeared in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in February 1890 and was issued as a book that year.
In the collection
Published 1891
Beyond the City
novella
Neighbours in a small suburban community find their assumptions about marriage, independence and money unsettled by one another. The story first appeared in the Christmas number of Good Words in 1891 and was issued as a book in 1892.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1891
The Doings of Raffles Haw
book
A man of extraordinary wealth settles near a struggling family and begins using his fortune to transform the lives around him. The source of his money adds a scientific mystery to a story about generosity, dependence and ambition.
In the collection
Published 1891
The White Company
book
Alleyne Edricson, raised in a Hampshire abbey, goes out into fourteenth-century England and then to the wars in France and Spain with a company of English bowmen. The novel watches squires, archers and knights under Sir Nigel Loring as campaign, plunder and honour pull in different directions. Serialised in The Cornhill Magazine through 1891 and issued as a three-volume novel that October, it was the historical work Doyle long ranked above Holmes.
In the collection
Published 1892
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
collection
A king fears the use of a compromising photograph, a red-haired pawnbroker receives an extraordinary offer of employment, and other visitors bring their difficulties to Baker Street. These twelve stories give Holmes and Watson cases ranging from domestic anxieties to threats of violence. First published in the Strand Magazine in 1891–1892, they were collected by George Newnes in 1892 with Sidney Paget’s illustrations.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1892
The Great Shadow
novella
A narrator looks back on a youth overshadowed by the Napoleonic wars. Rivalries and a mysterious arrival bring the conflicts of Europe into the lives of families on the Anglo-Scottish border.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1893
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
collection
A missing racehorse, a stolen naval treaty and recollections of Holmes’s earlier life broaden the view of the detective and his work. The collection includes encounters with his brother Mycroft as well as familiar exchanges with Watson. The English volume appeared in December 1893, dated 1894, and omitted The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, which had appeared in the magazine.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1893
The Refugees
book
A French Huguenot and an American visitor are drawn into the dangers of Louis XIV's court. Their story moves from religious persecution in France towards the settlements and wilderness of North America.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1894
Round the Red Lamp
collection
Doctors, students and patients supply stories that range from professional comedy to exhaustion and loss. Drawing on the world of medical practice, Doyle follows the human pressures behind diagnosis and treatment.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1894
The Parasite
novella
A scientist agrees to investigate the powers of a woman who practises mesmerism. His confidence in detached observation is tested when he begins to doubt his control over his own behaviour.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1894–1895
The Stark Munro Letters
book
A young doctor describes his struggle to establish a practice and work out his beliefs in letters to a friend. Professional uncertainty and a difficult friendship shape a novel that draws on Doyle's early medical life.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1896
Rodney Stone
book
A young man is introduced to the fashionable and sporting world of Regency England. Bare-knuckle boxing, family histories and the reputations of gentlemen meet in a historical novel told through his recollections.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1896
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
collection
Etienne Gerard, a French hussar in Napoleon's service, recounts missions, medals and escapes that never quite go as he understands them. The comedy lies in the gap between his courage and his self-regard. The stories first appeared in the Strand Magazine from 1894 and were collected by Newnes in 1896.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1897–1898
The Tragedy of the Korosko
book
European and American tourists travelling in Egypt are seized during an excursion into the desert. Their captivity becomes a test of conviction and endurance in a novel shaped by the imperial politics of its time.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1897
Uncle Bernac
book
A young French exile returns to his homeland during Napoleon's preparations to invade England. His uncle's invitation draws him into a world of divided loyalties, military ambition and personal danger.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1899
A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus
book
Frank and Maude begin married life with affection and limited means. Their conversations and domestic adventures make an episodic novel about the adjustments, anxieties and pleasures of a shared household.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1900
The Great Boer War
book
Doyle recounts the campaigns of the South African War from a position sympathetic to the British cause. First published while the conflict was continuing, the history was revised and expanded as further events unfolded.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1900
The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport
collection
Soldiers, sportsmen and adventurers encounter situations that test their courage and judgment. The collection brings together tales of campaigning and competition, including Doyle's boxing story The Croxley Master.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1901–1902
The Hound of the Baskervilles
book
Dr Mortimer brings Holmes a family legend, a recent death and fears for the heir to a remote Devon estate. Dartmoor’s isolation makes the setting an active presence in a mystery told through Watson’s observations. The novel appeared in the Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902 and as a book in 1902, returning to Holmes after a long gap in publication.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1902
The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct
pamphlet
A short polemical history, written after Doyle served as a volunteer doctor at the Langman Field Hospital in Bloemfontein. He answers European criticism of Britain's role in the South African war, including the camps and the treatment of civilians. Widely translated, the pamphlet was the work he believed had earned his knighthood in 1902.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1903
The Adventures of Gerard
collection
Etienne Gerard returns with further accounts of service in Napoleon's army. His confidence in his courage and importance carries him through missions and reversals whose comic implications he does not always recognise.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1905–1906
Sir Nigel
book
A prequel to The White Company, following young Nigel Loring from a reduced Hampshire manor into the early campaigns of the Hundred Years' War. He seeks to win his spurs and restore his house's standing among knights, outlaws and the English army in France. Serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1905–1906 and published by Smith, Elder in 1906.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1905
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
collection
Thirteen cases bring Holmes and Watson into schools, suburban houses and the private affairs of people with reputations to protect. Missing persons, strange messages and apparently ordinary objects give the detective fresh occasions to test explanations against observation. The stories appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1903–1904 and were collected in 1905.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1907
Through the Magic Door
essay
Doyle takes the reader along his bookshelves, discussing the writers and volumes that have mattered to him. Literary criticism becomes a personal account of companionship through reading.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1908
Round the Fire Stories
collection
Disappearances, strange evidence and hidden histories furnish tales intended for an evening's storytelling. The collection includes The Lost Special and The Story of the Man with the Watches, mysteries outside the named Holmes canon.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1909
The Crime of the Congo
book
Doyle assembles testimony and reports about violence and exploitation under the Congo Free State. The book argues for international action against a system that he presents as organised abuse rather than isolated misconduct.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1911
The Last Galley
collection
Brief visions of past civilisations sit alongside tales of adventure and suspense. The historical pieces imagine people caught at moments of change, from the ancient Mediterranean to later European history.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1912
The Case of Oscar Slater
pamphlet
Doyle examines the evidence used to convict Oscar Slater of murder in Glasgow. He challenges the identification and handling of the case in a work of public advocacy concerned with a possible miscarriage of justice.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1912
The Lost World
book
Journalist Edward Malone seeks an adventure and finds Professor Challenger, whose claims about a South American plateau provoke scientific disbelief. Their expedition brings sharply different temperaments together around the possibility that prehistoric life survives beyond the known map. The novel combines exploration with argumentative comedy and was serialised in the Strand Magazine from April to November 1912, with book publication the same year.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1913
The Poison Belt
novella
Professor Challenger summons his former companions and tells them to bring oxygen. From a room in his country house they confront the possibility of a catastrophe extending far beyond their own lives.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1914–1915
The Valley of Fear
book
A coded warning draws Holmes and Watson to a moated Sussex house, where the evidence seems to resist a straightforward account. Conan Doyle gives the investigation the scale of a novel, making room for the lives and pressures behind the immediate puzzle. The story was serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1914–1915 and published as a book in 1915.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1917
His Last Bow
collection
Eight Holmes stories, including The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, first published in 1893, and seven later cases culminating in the title story's wartime espionage. John Murray published the collection in 1917. This eight-story edition places The Cardboard Box here rather than in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1918
Danger! and Other Stories
collection
The title story imagines a submarine campaign against Britain, while the surrounding tales move through war, sport and unusual encounters. The collection gathers shorter fiction written across different parts of Doyle's career.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1918
The New Revelation
book
Doyle sets out his reasons for accepting spiritualism and considers its implications for religion and life after death. The book presents his convictions and interpretation of reported evidence, rather than a scientific consensus.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1922
Tales of Terror and Mystery
collection
Doyle groups stories of fear and unexplained events alongside puzzles that invite investigation. The collection includes earlier material, so its contents overlap other volumes rather than forming an entirely new sequence of tales.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1922
The Coming of the Fairies
book
Doyle argues for the authenticity of photographs said to show fairies, bringing together correspondence and interpretations of the images. The book records his support for the Cottingley claims, which were later exposed as a photographic deception.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1923–1924
Memories and Adventures
book
Doyle's autobiography, from an Edinburgh childhood and medical training through the Holmes years, the South African war, public campaigns and his turn to spiritualism. He writes as a man explaining his own life rather than as the detective's creator only. Serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1923–1924 and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1924.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1925–1926
The Land of Mist
book
Edward Malone and Enid Challenger investigate spiritualist meetings and claims of communication with the dead. The novel brings characters from the Challenger adventures into a story shaped by Doyle's later religious convictions.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1926
The History of Spiritualism
book
Doyle traces the people, movements and reported phenomena that he regarded as the development of modern spiritualism. Published in two volumes, the history is written by an advocate of the beliefs it describes.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1927
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
collection
The final collection brings together twelve cases, including stories narrated by Holmes himself. Unsettling clients and dangerous households often give these tales a darker atmosphere than the early Baker Street adventures. John Murray collected the stories in 1927, bringing the published Holmes series to its close.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1927–1929
The Maracot Deep
book
A deep-sea expedition descends into the Atlantic and encounters a world beyond its expectations. The adventure first appeared in serial form, with further material added before its 1929 publication in The Maracot Deep and Other Stories.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1928
When the World Screamed
short story
Professor Challenger undertakes a drilling experiment designed to test his extraordinary theory about the Earth. Engineers and observers become participants in a project whose scale matches its inventor's self-confidence.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1929
The Disintegration Machine
short story
Challenger and Malone visit an inventor who claims to have built a machine that can dissolve and reassemble matter. A demonstration places scientific curiosity in conflict with the uses to which such power might be put.
Not yet in our collection
Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer and physician whose fiction ranges from detective stories to historical adventure, medical tales and the supernatural. Born in Edinburgh in 1859, he studied medicine at the city’s university from 1876 to 1881. He later credited his teacher Joseph Bell’s close observation of patients as an influence on Sherlock Holmes. After work as a ship’s doctor, he established a medical practice in Southsea, where he also developed his writing career.
A Study in Scarlet introduced Holmes and Dr Watson in 1887. The short stories that began appearing in the Strand Magazine in 1891 brought the partnership a much larger readership: Holmes’s striking deductions were accompanied by Watson’s curiosity, loyalty and occasional exasperation. Doyle continued writing about them, with interruptions, until 1927, while also pursuing historical novels such as Micah Clarke and The White Company. The boastful Brigadier Gerard and, in The Lost World, the argumentative Professor Challenger show how readily his adventures make room for comedy as well as danger.
Doyle’s public life also produced a substantial body of nonfiction. He served as a volunteer doctor in South Africa in 1900, defended Britain’s conduct of the war and was knighted in 1902. He campaigned over the convictions of George Edalji and Oscar Slater and wrote against abuses in the Congo. In later years, spiritualism became a major commitment, expressed in books and international lecture tours advocating communication with the dead. These writings record convictions he held alongside his interest in evidence and investigation. He died at Crowborough in Sussex in 1930.