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seanquistador 's review for:
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4)
by Arthur Conan Doyle
The last collection of Holmes stories, prior to his resurrection, culminating in the fatal final confrontation with Moriarty.
A worthwhile collection of works, made moreso with the insight provided by Lucy Worsley's Holmes vs. Doyle, which served as an interesting biography of Doyle and how his experiences would influence the changing nature of Holmes, as well as the contradiction between Doyle and his meticulous, scientific-minded character.
These stories, as were those before, are told from Watson's perspective as he recaps his adventures with Holmes, not all of which are resolved successfully, both before and after he had separated from the premises at 221B Baker Street.
Interestingly, there is no indication at any point that the stories are building toward a final confrontation. While many of the stories refer to one another and none are necessarily chronological, this final story must have come as a shock to readers because there doesn't seem to be anything that presaged a final confrontation with a mysterious, disgraced professor, leader of a criminal syndicate, and purported "Napoleon of crime." While Holmes says he has spotted the threads of Moriarty's interference before, Doyle seems to have pulled him completely out of his hat to suit the dramatic occasion. Watson excuses this failure to mention Moriarty before as deliberately avoiding speaking about it, two years having passed since Holmes presumably went over the falls, and he only now brings it up to refute the claims of those who would defend Moriarty's character.
The final story is shockingly brief, considering the sheer weight time has given the character of Moriarty. He takes up a massive amount of space in the world of Sherlock Holmes, but in print he appears in just this one story, which is far shorter than the longest story in the collection and scarcely longer than the shortest.
I'm excited to move to the next story, the notorious and, according to Worsley, unexpectedly supernatural and gothic,The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the first Holmes story I ever read, long, long ago.
A worthwhile collection of works, made moreso with the insight provided by Lucy Worsley's Holmes vs. Doyle, which served as an interesting biography of Doyle and how his experiences would influence the changing nature of Holmes, as well as the contradiction between Doyle and his meticulous, scientific-minded character.
These stories, as were those before, are told from Watson's perspective as he recaps his adventures with Holmes, not all of which are resolved successfully, both before and after he had separated from the premises at 221B Baker Street.
Interestingly, there is no indication at any point that the stories are building toward a final confrontation. While many of the stories refer to one another and none are necessarily chronological, this final story must have come as a shock to readers because there doesn't seem to be anything that presaged a final confrontation with a mysterious, disgraced professor, leader of a criminal syndicate, and purported "Napoleon of crime." While Holmes says he has spotted the threads of Moriarty's interference before, Doyle seems to have pulled him completely out of his hat to suit the dramatic occasion. Watson excuses this failure to mention Moriarty before as deliberately avoiding speaking about it, two years having passed since Holmes presumably went over the falls, and he only now brings it up to refute the claims of those who would defend Moriarty's character.
The final story is shockingly brief, considering the sheer weight time has given the character of Moriarty. He takes up a massive amount of space in the world of Sherlock Holmes, but in print he appears in just this one story, which is far shorter than the longest story in the collection and scarcely longer than the shortest.
I'm excited to move to the next story, the notorious and, according to Worsley, unexpectedly supernatural and gothic,The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the first Holmes story I ever read, long, long ago.