**** ROTATE **** **** ROTATE **** **** ROTATE **** **** ROTATE ****
Enjoy this? Share it!

190 Works of Arthur Conan Doyle

Search Amazon for related books, downloads and more Arthur Conan Doyle

A Scandal in Bohemia

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his […]

In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog settled down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I doubt whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see the loom of the opposite houses. The first day Holmes had spent in cross-indexing his huge […]

It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. The public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a good deal was […]

The Final Problem

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. In an incoherent and, as I deeply feel, an entirely inadequate fashion, I have endeavored to give some account […]

A Case of Identity

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of […]

The Parasite

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

March 24. —The spring is fairly with us now. Outside my laboratory window the great chestnut-tree is all covered with the big, glutinous, gummy buds, some of which have already begun to break into little green shuttlecocks. As you walk down the lanes you are conscious of the rich, silent forces of nature working all […]

I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed […]

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for […]

Do I know why Tom Donahue is called “Lucky Tom”? Yes, I do; and that is more than one in ten of those who call him so can say. I have knocked about a deal in my time, and seen some strange sights, but none stranger than the way in which Tom gained that sobriquet, […]

It was on a bitterly cold night and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of ’97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss. ‘Come, Watson, come!’ […]

The Brazilian Cat

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It is hard luck on a young fellow to have expensive tastes, great expectations, aristocratic connections, but no actual money in his pocket, and no profession by which he may earn any. The fact was that my father, a good, sanguine, easy-going man, had such confidence in the wealth and benevolence of his bachelor elder […]

The Leather Funnel

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris. His house was that small one, with the iron railings and grass plot in front of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from the Arc de Triomphe. I fancy that it had been there long before the avenue was constructed, for […]

The Beetle-Hunter

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

A curious experience? said the Doctor. Yes, my friends, I have had one very curious experience. I never expect to have another, for it is against all doctrines of chances that two such events would befall any one man in a single lifetime. You may believe me or not, but the thing happened exactly as […]

The Lost Special

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The confession of Herbert de Lernac, now lying under sentence of death at Marseilles, has thrown a light upon one of the most inexplicable crimes of the century–an incident which is, I believe, absolutely unprecedented in the criminal annals of any country: Although there is a reluctance to discuss the matter in official circles, and […]

The Japanned Box

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It WAS a curious thing, said the private tutor; one of those grotesque and whimsical incidents which occur to one as one goes through life. I lost the best situation which I am ever likely to have through it. But I am glad that I went to Thorpe Place, for I gained–well, as I tell […]

There are many who will still bear in mind the singular circumstances which, under the heading of the Rugby Mystery, filled many columns of the daily Press in the spring of the year 1892. Coming as it did at a period of exceptional dullness, it attracted perhaps rather more attention than it deserved, but it […]

The Jew’s Breastplate

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

My particular friend, Ward Mortimer, was one of the best men of his day at everything connected with Oriental archaeology. He had written largely upon the subject, he had lived two years in a tomb at Thebes, while he excavated in the Valley of the Kings, and finally he had created a considerable sensation by […]

The Black Doctor

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Bishop’s Crossing is a small village lying ten miles in a south-westerly direction from Liverpool. Here in the early seventies there settled a doctor named Aloysius Lana. Nothing was known locally either of his antecedents or of the reasons which had prompted him to come to this Lancashire hamlet. Two facts only were certain about […]

Holmes had been seated for some hours in silence with his long, thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly malodorous product. His head was sunk upon his breast, and he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with dull gray plumage and a black […]

“From the point of view of the criminal expert,” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, “London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty.” “I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree with you,” I answered. “Well, well, I must not be selfish,” said he, […]

We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage at Baker Street, but I cannot recollect anything more sudden and startling than the first appearance of Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D., etc. His card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and […]

From the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a very busy man. It is safe to say that there was no public case of any difficulty in which he was not consulted during those eight years, and there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most intricate and extraordinary […]

It is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet it is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, even with the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been impossible to make the facts public, but now the principal person concerned is beyond the reach of […]

I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and physical, than in the year ’95. His increasing fame had brought with it an immense practice, and I should be guilty of an indiscretion if I were even to hint at the identity of some of the illustrious clients who crossed […]

It was in the year ’95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great university towns, and it was during this time that the small but instructive adventure which I am about to relate befell us. It […]

It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to Sherlock Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that was going on at the police headquarters. In return for the news which Lestrade would bring, […]

We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street, but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy February morning, some seven or eight years ago, and gave Mr. Sherlock Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to him, and ran thus: Please await me. […]

When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our work for the year 1894, I confess that it is very difficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most interesting in themselves, and at the same time most conducive to a display of those […]

We had to take a “growler,” for the day looked rather threatening and we agreed that it would be a very bad way of beginning our holiday by getting wet, especially when Fanny was only just coming round from the whooping cough. Holidays were rather scarce with us, and when we took one we generally […]

I had intended “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” to be the last of those exploits of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, which I should ever communicate to the public. This resolution of mine was not due to any lack of material, since I have notes of many hundreds of cases to which I have […]

The Yellow Face

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise’s sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save […]

Silver Blaze

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning. “Go! Where to?” “To Dartmoor; to King’s Pyland.” I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one […]

The Musgrave Ritual

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most […]

The "Gloria Scott"

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“I have some papers here,” said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat one winter’s night on either side of the fire, “which I really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this is the message which […]

Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus’s dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it. The public not unnaturally […]

The Crooked Man

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day’s work had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told me […]

The Reigate Puzzle

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

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 […]

The Resident Patient

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirs with which I have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty which I have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every way answer my purpose. For in those cases in […]

The Old Huntsman

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

There’s a keen and grim old huntsman On a horse as white as snow; Sometimes he is very swift And sometimes he is slow. But he never is at fault, For he always hunts at view And he rides without a halt After you. The huntsman’s name is Death, His horse’s name is Time; He […]

The Naval Treaty

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find them recorded in my notes under the headings of “The Adventure of the Second Stain,” “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” […]

The Greek Interpreter

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early life. This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a […]

The "Slapping Sal."

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was in the days when France’s power was already broken upon the seas, and when more of her three-deckers lay rotting in the Medway than were to be found in Brest harbour. But her frigates and corvettes still scoured the ocean, closely followed ever by those of her rival. At the uttermost ends of […]

In all the great hosts of France there was only one officer towards whom the English of Wellington’s army retained a deep, steady, and unchangeable hatred. There were plunderers among the French, and men of violence, gamblers, duellists, and roues. All these could be forgiven, for others of their kidney were to be found among […]

The Passing

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

It was the hour of dawn, When the heart beats thin and small, The window glimmered grey, Framed in a shadow wall. And in the cold sad light Of the early morningtide, The dear dead girl came back And stood by his bedside. The girl he lost came back: He saw her flowing hair; It […]

(From ‘The White Company’) The franklin he hath gone to roam, The franklin’s maid she bides at home; But she is cold, and coy, and staid, And who may win the franklin’s maid? There came a knight of high renown In bassinet and ciclatoun; On bended knee full long he prayed – He might not […]

The Irish Colonel

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Said the king to the colonel, ‘The complaints are eternal, That you Irish give more trouble Than any other corps.’ Said the colonel to the king, ‘This complaint is no new thing, For your foemen, sire, have made it A hundred times before.’

The Blind Archer

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Little boy Love drew his bow at a chance, Shooting down at the ballroom floor; He hit an old chaperone watching the dance, And oh! but he wounded her sore. ‘Hey, Love, you couldn’t mean that! Hi, Love, what would you be at?’ No word would he say, But he flew on his way, For […]

A Tragedy

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Who’s that walking on the moorland? Who’s that moving on the hill? They are passing ‘mid the bracken, But the shadows grow and blacken And I cannot see them clearly on the hill. Who’s that calling on the moorland? Who’s that crying on the hill? Was it bird or was it human, Was it child, […]

‘ware Holes

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

[”Ware Holes!’ is the expression used in the hunting-field to warn those behind against rabbit-burrows or other suck dangers.] A sportin’ death! My word it was! An’ taken in a sportin’ way. Mind you, I wasn’t there to see; I only tell you what they say. They found that day at Shillinglee, An’ ran ‘im […]

[Lost, with her crew of three hundred boys, on the last day of her voyage, March 23, 1876. She foundered off Portsmouth, from which town many of the boys came.] Up with the royals that top the white spread of her! Press her and dress her, and drive through the foam; The Island’s to port, […]

The Inner Room

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

It is mine–the little chamber, Mine alone. I had it from my forbears Years agone. Yet within its walls I see A most motley company, And they one and all claim me As their own. There’s one who is a soldier Bluff and keen; Single-minded, heavy-fisted, Rude of mien. He would gain a purse or […]

A Hunting Morning

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Put the saddle on the mare, For the wet winds blow; There’s winter in the air, And autumn all below. For the red leaves are flying And the red bracken dying, And the red fox lying Where the oziers grow. Put the bridle on the mare, For my blood runs chill; And my heart, it […]

The Old Gray Fox

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

We started from the Valley Pride, And Farnham way we went. We waited at the cover-side, But never found a scent. Then we tried the withy beds Which grow by Frensham town, And there we found the old gray fox, The same old fox, The game old fox; Yes, there we found the old gray […]

The Farnshire Cup

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Christopher Davis was up upon Mavis And Sammy MacGregor on Flo, Jo Chauncy rode Spider, the rankest outsider, But HE’D make a wooden horse go. There was Robin and Leah and Boadicea, And Chesterfield’s Son of the Sea; And Irish Nuneaton, who never was beaten, They backed her at seven to three. The course was […]

Ten mile in twenty minutes! ‘E done it, sir. That’s true. The big bay ‘orse in the further stall–the one wot’s next to you. I’ve seen some better ‘orses; I’ve seldom seen a wuss, But ‘e ‘olds the bloomin’ record, an’ that’s good enough for us. We knew as it wa’s in ‘im. ‘E’s thoroughbred, […]

The horse is bedded down Where the straw lies deep. The hound is in the kennel; Let the poor hound sleep! And the fox is in the spinney By the run which he is haunting, And I’ll lay an even guinea That a goose or two is wanting When the farmer comes to count them […]

The Dying Whip

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

It came from gettin’ ‘eated, that was ‘ow the thing begun, And ‘ackin’ back to kennels from a ninety-minute run; ‘I guess I’ve copped brownchitis,’ says I to brother Jack, An’ then afore I knowed it I was down upon my back. At night there came a sweatin’ as left me deadly weak, And my […]

Master

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Master went a-hunting, When the leaves were falling; We saw him on the bridle path, We heard him gaily calling. ‘Oh master, master, come you back, For I have dreamed a dream so black!’ A glint of steel from bit and heel, The chestnut cantered faster; A red flash seen amid the green, And so […]

[Being an humble address to Her Majesty’s Naval advisers, who sold Nelson’s old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.] Who says the Nation’s purse is lean, Who fears for claim or bond or debt, When all the glories that have been Are scheduled as a cash asset? If times are black and trade […]

Who carries the gun? A lad from over the Tweed. Then let him go, for well we know He comes of a soldier breed. So drink together to rock and heather, Out where the red deer run, And stand aside for Scotland’s pride – The man that carries the gun! For the Colonel rides before, […]

Sharkey, the abominable Sharkey, was out again. After two years of the Coromandel coast, his black barque of death, The Happy Delivery, was prowling off the Spanish Main, while trader and fisher flew for dear life at the menace of that patched fore-topsail, rising slowly over the violet rim of the tropical sea. As the […]

It’s up and away from our work to-day, For the breeze sweeps over the down; And it’s hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame, And the bracken is bronzing to brown. With the turf ‘neath our tread and the blue overhead, And the song of the lark in the whin; There’s the flag […]

I am speaking, my friends, of days which are long gone by, when I had scarcely begun to build up that fame which has made my name so familiar. Among the thirty officers of the Hussars of Conflans there was nothing to indicate that I was superior in any way to the others. I can […]

Out Of The Running

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was on the North Side of Butser on the long swell of the Hampshire Downs. Beneath, some two miles away, the grey roofs and red houses of Petersfield peeped out from amid the trees which surrounded it. From the crest of the low hills downwards the country ran in low, sweeping curves, as though […]

A Rover Chanty

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

A trader sailed from Stepney town – Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the mainsail! A trader sailed from Stepney town With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown: Ho, the bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback Out upon the Lowland sea! The trader he had a daughter […]

A LEGEND OF THE RING Tom Cribb, Champion of England, having finished his active career by his two famous battles with the terrible Molineux, had settled down into the public house which was known as the Union Arms, at the corner of Panton Street in the Haymarket. Behind the bar of this hostelry there was […]

A Forgotten Tale

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

[The scene of this ancient fight, recorded by Froissart, is still called ‘Altura de los Inglesos.’ Five hundred years later Wellington’s soldiers were fighting on the same ground.] ‘Say, what saw you on the hill, Campesino Garcia?’ ‘I saw my brindled heifer there, A trail of bowmen, spent and bare, And a little man on […]

Pennarby Mine

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Pennarby shaft is dark and steep, Eight foot wide, eight hundred deep. Stout the bucket and tough the cord, Strong as the arm of Winchman Ford. ‘Never look down! Stick to the line!’ That was the saying at Pennarby mine. A stranger came to Pennarby shaft. Lord, to see how the miners laughed! White in […]

A BALLAD OF ’82 The Eastern day was well-nigh o’er When, parched with thirst and travel sore, Two of McPherson’s flanking corps Across the Desert were tramping. They had wandered off from the beaten track And now were wearily harking back, Ever staring round for the signal jack That marked their comrades camping. The one […]

It was a cold, foggy, dreary evening in May. Along the Strand blurred patches of light marked the position of the lamps. The flaring shop windows flickered vaguely with steamy brightness through the thick and heavy atmosphere. The high lines of houses which lead down to the Embankment were all dark and deserted, or illuminated […]

"De Profundis"

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

So long as the oceans are the ligaments which bind together the great broad-cast British Empire, so long will there be a dash of romance in our minds. For the soul is swayed by the waters, as the waters are by the moon, and when the great highways of an empire are along such roads […]

The following narrative was found among the papers of Dr. James Hardcastle, who died of phthisis on February 4th, 1908, at 36, Upper Coventry Flats, South Kensington. Those who knew him best, while refusing to express an opinion upon this particular statement, are unanimous in asserting that he was a man of a sober and […]

The Frontier Line

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

What marks the frontier line? Thou man of India, say! Is it the Himalayas sheer, The rocks and valleys of Cashmere, Or Indus as she seeks the south From Attoch to the fivefold mouth? ‘Not that! Not that!’ Then answer me, I pray! What marks the frontier line? What marks the frontier line? Thou man […]

What of the bow? The bow was made in England: Of true wood, of yew-wood, The wood of English bows; So men who are free Love the old yew-tree And the land where the yew-tree grows. What of the cord? The cord was made in England: A rough cord, a tough cord, A cord that […]

Cremona

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

[The French Army, including a part of the Irish Brigade, under Marshal Villeroy, held the fortified town of Cremona during the winter of 1702. Prince Eugene, with the Imperial Army, surprised it one morning, and, owing to the treachery of a priest, occupied the whole city before the alarm was given. Villeroy was captured, together […]

Said Paul Leroy to Barrow, ‘Though the breach is steep and narrow, If we only gain the summit Then it’s odds we hold the fort. I have ten and you have twenty, And the thirty should be plenty, With Henderson and Henty And McDermott in support.’ Said Barrow to Leroy, ‘It’s a solid job, my […]

The Echo

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

(After Heine) Through the lonely mountain land There rode a cavalier. “Oh ride I to my darling’s arms, Or to the grave so drear?” The Echo answered clear, “The grave so drear.” So onward rode the cavalier And clouded was his brow. “If now my hour be truly come, Ah well, it must be now!” […]

First begin Taking in. Cargo stored, All aboard, Think about Giving out. Empty ship, Useless trip! Never strain Weary brain, Hardly fit, Wait a bit! After rest Comes the best. Sitting still, Let it fill; Never press; Nerve stress Always shows. Nature knows. Critics kind, Never mind! Critics flatter, No matter! Critics curse, None the […]

Being the doggerel Itinerary of a Holiday in September, 1908 To St. Albans’ town we came; Roman Albanus hence the name. Whose shrine commemorates the faith Which led him to a martyr’s death. A high cathedral marks his grave, With noble screen and sculptured nave. From thence to Hatfield lay our way, Where the proud […]

From our youth to our age We have passed each stage In old immemorial order, From primitive days Through flowery ways With love like a hedge as their border. Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy, And we were the king and the queen, When I was a year Short of thirty, my dear, And […]

Night Voices

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Father, father, who is that a-whispering? Who is it who whispers in the wood? You say it is the breeze As it sighs among the trees, But there’s some one who whispers in the wood. Father, father, who is that a-murmuring? Who is it who murmurs in the night? You say it is the roar […]

The Empire

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

1902 They said that it had feet of clay, That its fall was sure and quick. In the flames of yesterday All the clay was burned to brick. When they carved our epitaph And marked us doomed beyond recall, “We are,” we answered, with a laugh, “The Empire that declines to fall.”

A Voyage

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

1909 Breathing the stale and stuffy air Of office or consulting room, Our thoughts will wander back to where We heard the low Atlantic boom, And, creaming underneath our screw, We watched the swirling waters break, Silver filagrees on blue Spreading fan-wise in our wake. Cribbed within the city’s fold, Fettered to our daily round, […]

The Orphanage

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

When, ere the tangled web is reft, The kid-gloved villain scowls and sneers, And hapless innocence is left With no assets save sighs and tears, ‘Tis then, just then, that in there stalks The hero, watchful of her needs; He talks, Great heavens how he talks! But we forgive him, for his deeds. Life is […]

By The North Sea

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Her cheek was wet with North Sea spray, We walked where tide and shingle meet; The long waves rolled from far away To purr in ripples at our feet. And as we walked it seemed to me That three old friends had met that day, The old, old sky, the old, old sea, And love, […]

December’s Snow

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

The bloom is on the May once more, The chestnut buds have burst anew; But, darling, all our springs are o’er, ‘Tis winter still for me and you. We plucked Life’s blossoms long ago What’s left is but December’s snow. But winter has its joys as fair, The gentler joys, aloof, apart; The snow may […]

Masters, I sleep not quiet in my grave, There where they laid me, by the Avon shore, In that some crazy wights have set it forth By arguments most false and fanciful, Analogy and far-drawn inference, That Francis Bacon, Earl of Verulam (A man whom I remember in old days, A learned judge with sly […]

A Woman’s Love

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

I am not blind I understand; I see him loyal, good, and wise, I feel decision in his hand, I read his honour in his eyes. Manliest among men is he With every gift and grace to clothe him; He never loved a girl but me — And I I loathe him! loathe him! The […]

Religio Medici

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

1 God’s own best will bide the test, And God’s own worst will fall; But, best or worst or last or first, He ordereth it all. 2 For all is good, if understood, (Ah, could we understand!) And right and ill are tools of skill Held in His either hand. 3 The harlot and the […]

Man says that He is jealous, Man says that He is wise, Man says that He is watching From His throne beyond the skies. But perchance the arch above us Is one great mirror’s span, And the Figure seen so dimly Is a vast reflected man. If it is love that gave us A thousand […]

Mind And Matter

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Great was his soul and high his aim, He viewed the world, and he could trace A lofty plan to leave his name Immortal ‘mid the human race. But as he planned, and as he worked, The fungus spore within him lurked. Though dark the present and the past, The future seemed a sunlit thing. […]

Bendy’s Sermon

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

[Bendigo, the well-known Nottingham prize fighter, became converted to religion, and preached at revival meetings throughout the country.] You didn’t know of Bendigo! Well, that knocks me out! Who’s your board school teacher? What’s he been about? Chock-a-block with fairy-tales full of useless cram, And never heard o’ Bendigo, the pride of Nottingham! Bendy’s short […]

There’s a banner in our van, And we follow as we can, For at times we scarce can see it, And at times it flutters high. But however it be flown, Still we know it as our own, And we follow, ever follow, Where we see the banner fly. In the struggle and the strife, […]

Hope

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Faith may break on reason, Faith may prove a treason To that highest gift That is granted by Thy grace; But Hope! Ah, let us cherish Some spark that may not perish, Some tiny spark to cheer us, As we wander through the waste! A little lamp beside us, A little lamp to guide us, […]

1902-1909

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

They recruited William Evans From the ploughtail and the spade; Ten years’ service in the Devons Left him smart as they are made. Thirty or a trifle older, Rather over six foot high, Trim of waist and broad of shoulder, Yellow-haired and blue of eye; Short of speech and very solid, Fixed in purpose as […]

The Wanderer

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

With acknowledgment to my friend Sir A. Quiller-Couch. ‘Twas in the shadowy gloaming Of a cold and wet March day, That a wanderer came roaming From countries far away. Scant raiment had he round him, Nor purse, nor worldly gear, Hungry and faint we found him, And bade him welcome here. His weary frame bent […]

(Being a Sequel to “The Groom’s Story” in “Songs of Action”) Not tired of ‘earin’ stories! You’re a nailer, so you are! I thought I should ‘ave choked you off with that ‘ere motor-car. Well, mister, ‘ere’s another; and, mind you, it’s a fact, Though you’ll think perhaps I copped it out o’ some blue […]

The Bay Horse

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Squire wants the bay horse, For it is the best. Squire holds the mortgage; Where’s the interest? Haven’t got the interest, Can’t raise a sou; Shan’t sell the bay horse, Whatever he may do. Did you see the bay horse? Such a one to go! He took a bit of ridin’, When I showed him […]

The Outcasts

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Three women stood by the river’s flood In the gas-lamp’s murky light, A devil watched them on the left, And an angel on the right. The clouds of lead flowed overhead; The leaden stream below; They marvelled much, that outcast three, Why Fate should use them so. Said one: “I have a mother dear, Who […]

The Arab Steed

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

I gave the ‘orse ‘is evenin’ feed, And bedded of ‘im down, And went to ‘ear the sing-song In the bar-room of the Crown, And one young feller spoke a piece As told a kind of tale, About an Arab man wot ‘ad A certain ‘orse for sale. I ‘ave no grudge against the man […]

Peter Wilson, A.R.A., In his small atelier, Studied Continental Schools, Drew by Academic rules. So he made his bid for fame, But no golden answer came, For the fashion of his day Chanced to set the other way, And decadent forms of Art Drew the patrons of the mart. Now this poor reward of merit […]

Empire Builders

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

Captain Temple, D.S.O., With his banjo and retriever. “Rough, I know, on poor old Flo, But, by Jove! I couldn’t leave her.” Niger ribbon on his breast, In his blood the Niger fever, Captain Temple, D.S.O., With his banjo and retriever. Cox of the Politicals, With his cigarette and glasses, Skilled in Pushtoo gutturals, Odd-job […]

A Hymn Of Empire

Story type: Poetry

Read this story.

(Coronation Year, 1911) God save England, blessed by Fate, So old, yet ever young: The acorn isle from which the great Imperial oak has sprung! And God guard Scotland’s kindly soil, The land of stream and glen, The granite mother that has bred A breed of granite men! God save Wales, from Snowdon’s vales To […]

A sword! A sword! Ah, give me a sword! For the world is all to win. Though the way be hard and the door be barred, The strong man enters in. If Chance or Fate still hold the gate, Give me the iron key, And turret high, my plume shall fly, Or you may weep […]

His First Operation

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was the first day of the winter session, and the third year’s man was walking with the first year’s man. Twelve o’clock was just booming out from the Tron Church. “Let me see,” said the third year’s man. “You have never seen an operation?” “Never.” “Then this way, please. This is Rutherford’s historic bar. […]

Behind The Times

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

My first interview with Dr. James Winter was under dramatic circumstances. It occurred at two in the morning in the bedroom of an old country house. I kicked him twice on the white waistcoat and knocked off his gold spectacles, while he with the aid of a female accomplice stifled my angry cries in a […]

A Straggler Of ’15

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was a dull October morning, and heavy, rolling fog-wreaths lay low over the wet grey roofs of the Woolwich houses. Down in the long, brick-lined streets all was sodden and greasy and cheerless. From the high dark buildings of the arsenal came the whirr of many wheels, the thudding of weights, and the buzz […]

The Third Generation

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Scudamore Lane, sloping down riverwards from just behind the Monument, lies at night in the shadow of two black and monstrous walls which loom high above the glimmer of the scattered gas lamps. The footpaths are narrow, and the causeway is paved with rounded cobblestones, so that the endless drays roar along it like breaking […]

A False Start

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“Is Dr. Horace Wilkinson at home?” “I am he. Pray step in.” The visitor looked somewhat astonished at having the door opened to him by the master of the house. “I wanted to have a few words.” The doctor, a pale, nervous young man, dressed in an ultra-professional, long black frock-coat, with a high, white […]

The Curse Of Eve

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Robert Johnson was an essentially commonplace man, with no feature to distinguish him from a million others. He was pale of face, ordinary in looks, neutral in opinions, thirty years of age, and a married man. By trade he was a gentleman’s outfitter in the New North Road, and the competition of business squeezed out […]

A Physiologist’s Wife

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Professor Ainslie Grey had not come down to breakfast at the usual hour. The presentation chiming-clock which stood between the terra-cotta busts of Claude Bernard and of John Hunter upon the dining-room mantelpiece had rung out the half-hour and the three-quarters. Now its golden hand was verging upon the nine, and yet there were no […]

Sweethearts

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It is hard for the general practitioner who sits among his patients both morning and evening, and sees them in their homes between, to steal time for one little daily breath of cleanly air. To win it he must slip early from his bed and walk out between shuttered shops when it is chill but […]

A Question Of Diplomacy

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The Foreign Minister was down with the gout. For a week he had been confined to the house, and he had missed two Cabinet Councils at a time when the pressure upon his department was severe. It is true that he had an excellent undersecretary and an admirable staff, but the Minister was a man […]

The Case Of Lady Sannox

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The relations between Douglas Stone and the notorious Lady Sannox were very well known both among the fashionable circles of which she was a brilliant member, and the scientific bodies which numbered him among their most illustrious confreres. There was naturally, therefore, a very widespread interest when it was announced one morning that the lady […]

A Medical Document

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Medical men are, as a class, very much too busy to take stock of singular situations or dramatic events. Thus it happens that the ablest chronicler of their experiences in our literature was a lawyer. A life spent in watching over death-beds–or over birth-beds which are infinitely more trying–takes something from a man’s sense of […]

Lot No. 249

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Of the dealings of Edward Bellingham with William Monkhouse Lee, and of the cause of the great terror of Abercrombie Smith, it may be that no absolute and final judgment will ever be delivered. It is true that we have the full and clear narrative of Smith himself, and such corroboration as he could look […]

The Los Amigos Fiasco

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

I used to be the leading practitioner of Los Amigos. Of course, everyone has heard of the great electrical generating gear there. The town is wide spread, and there are dozens of little townlets and villages all round, which receive their supply from the same centre, so that the works are on a very large […]

The Doctors Of Hoyland

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Dr. James Ripley was always looked upon as an exceedingly lucky dog by all of the profession who knew him. His father had preceded him in a practice in the village of Hoyland, in the north of Hampshire, and all was ready for him on the very first day that the law allowed him to […]

The Surgeon Talks

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“Men die of the diseases which they have studied most,” remarked the surgeon, snipping off the end of a cigar with all his professional neatness and finish. “It’s as if the morbid condition was an evil creature which, when it found itself closely hunted, flew at the throat of its pursuer. If you worry the […]

The Last Of The Legions

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

I THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS Pontus, the Roman viceroy, sat in the atrium of his palatial villa by the Thames, and he looked with perplexity at the scroll of papyrus which he had just unrolled. Before him stood the messenger who had brought it, a swarthy little Italian, whose black eyes were glazed with […]

The Last Galley

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“Mutato nomine, de te, Britannia, fabula narratur.” It was a spring morning, one hundred and forty-six years before the coming of Christ. The North African coast, with its broad hem of golden sand, its green belt of feathery palm trees, and its background of barren, red-scarped hills, shimmered like a dream country in the opal […]

The Coming Of The Huns

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

In the middle of the fourth century the state of the Christian religion was a scandal and a disgrace. Patient, humble, and long-suffering in adversity, it had become positive, aggressive, and unreasonable with success. Paganism was not yet dead, but it was rapidly sinking, finding its most faithful supporters among the conservative aristocrats of the […]

Through The Veil

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

He was a great shock-headed, freckle-faced Borderer, the lineal descendant of a cattle-thieving clan in Liddesdale. In spite of his ancestry he was as solid and sober a citizen as one would wish to see, a town councillor of Melrose, an elder of the Church, and the chairman of the local branch of the Young […]

The Contest

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

In the year of our Lord 66, the Emperor Nero, being at that time in the twenty-ninth year of his life and the thirteenth of his reign, set sail for Greece with the strangest company and the most singular design that any monarch has ever entertained. With ten galleys he went forth from Puteoli, carrying […]

The First Cargo

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“Ex ovo omnia” When you left Britain with your legion, my dear Crassus, I promised that I would write to you from time to time when a messenger chanced to be going to Rome, and keep you informed as to anything of interest which might occur in this country. Personally, I am very glad that […]

Giant Maximin

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

I: THE COMING OF GIANT MAXIMIN Many are the strange vicissitudes of history. Greatness has often sunk to the dust, and has tempered itself to its new surrounding. Smallness has risen aloft, has flourished for a time, and then has sunk once more. Rich monarchs have become poor monks, brave conquerors have lost their manhood, […]

An Iconoclast

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was daybreak of a March morning in the year of Christ 92. Outside the long Semita Alta was already thronged with people, with buyers and sellers, callers and strollers, for the Romans were so early-rising a people that many a Patrician preferred to see his clients at six in the morning. Such was the […]

The Red Star

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The house of Theodosius, the famous eastern merchant, was in the best part of Constantinople at the Sea Point which is near the church of Saint Demetrius. Here he would entertain in so princely a fashion that even the Emperor Maurice had been known to come privately from the neighbouring Bucoleon palace in order to […]

The Silver Mirror

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Jan. 3.–This affair of White and Wotherspoon’s accounts proves to be a gigantic task. There are twenty thick ledgers to be examined and checked. Who would be a junior partner? However, it is the first big bit of business which has been left entirely in my hands. I must justify it. But it has to […]

A Point Of Contact

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

A curious train of thought is started when one reflects upon those great figures who have trod the stage of this earth, and actually played their parts in the same act, without ever coming face to face, or even knowing of each other’s existence. Baber, the Great Mogul, was, for example, overrunning India at the […]

The Centurion

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

[Being the fragment of a letter from Sulpicius Balbus, Legate of the Tenth Legion, to his uncle, Lucius Piso, in his villa near Baiae, dated The Kalends of the month of Augustus in the year 824 of Rome.] I promised you, my dear uncle, that I would tell you anything of interest concerning the siege […]

My Friend The Murderer

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“Number 481 is no better, doctor,” said the head-warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door. “Confound 481” I responded from behind the pages of the Australian Sketcher. “And 61 says his tubes are paining him. Couldn’t you do anything for him?” “He is a walking drug-shop,” said I. […]

It was nine o’clock at night upon the second of August–the most terrible August in the history of the world. One might have thought already that God’s curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the sultry and stagnant air. The sun had […]

The Green Flag

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

When Jack Conolly, of the Irish Shotgun Brigade, the Rory of the Hills Inner Circle, and the extreme left wing of the Land League, was incontinently shot by Sergeant Murdoch of the constabulary, in a little moonlight frolic near Kanturk, his twin-brother Dennis joined the British Army. The countryside had become too hot for him; […]

Captain Sharkey

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

I HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT’S CAME HOME. When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative […]

The Croxley Master

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

I Mr. Robert Montgomery was seated at his desk, his head upon his hands, in a state of the blackest despondency. Before him was the open ledger with the long columns of Dr. Oldacre’s prescriptions. At his elbow lay the wooden tray with the labels in various partitions, the cork box, the lumps of twisted […]

It was in the days when the German armies had broken their way across France, and when the shattered forces of the young Republic had been swept away to the north of the Aisne and to the south of the Loire. Three broad streams of armed men had rolled slowly but irresistibly from the Rhine, […]

A Shadow Before

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The 15th of July, 1870, found John Worlington Dodds a ruined gamester of the Stock Exchange. Upon the 17th he was a very opulent man. And yet he had effected the change without leaving the penurious little Irish townlet of Dunsloe, which could have been bought outright for a quarter of the sum which he […]

The Striped Chest

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“What do you make of her, Allardyce?” I asked. My second mate was standing beside me upon the poop, with his short, thick legs astretch, for the gale had left a considerable swell behind it, and our two quarter-boats nearly touched the water with every roll. He steadied his glass against the mizzen-shrouds, and he […]

The King Of The Foxes

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was after a hunting dinner, and there were as many scarlet coats as black ones round the table. The conversation over the cigars had turned, therefore, in the direction of horses and horsemen, with reminiscences of phenomenal runs where foxes had led the pack from end to end of a county, and been overtaken […]

There was only the one little feathery clump of dom palms in all that great wilderness of black rocks and orange sand. It stood high on the bank, and below it the brown Nile swirled swiftly towards the Ambigole Cataract, fitting a little frill of foam round each of the boulders which studded its surface. […]

The New Catacomb

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“Look here, Burger,” said Kennedy, “I do wish that you would confide in me.” The two famous students of Roman remains sat together in Kennedy’s comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather […]

It was in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a flood from the great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It […]

There are many folk who knew Alphonse Lacour in his old age. From about the time of the Revolution of ’48 until he died in the second year of the Crimean War he was always to be found in the same corner of the Cafe de Provence, at the end of the Rue St. Honore, […]

[Note: F The term Brigadier is used throughout in its English and not in its French sense.] You do very well, my friends, to treat me with some little reverence, for in honouring me you are honouring both France and yourselves. It is not merely an old, grey-moustached officer whom you see eating his omelette […]

When the Emperor needed an agent he was always very ready to do me the honour of recalling the name of Etienne Gerard, though it occasionally escaped him when rewards were to be distributed. Still, I was a colonel at twenty-eight, and the chief of a brigade at thirty-one, so that I have no reason […]

Here, upon the lapel of my coat, you may see the ribbon of my decoration, but the medal itself I keep in a leathern pouch at home, and I never venture to take it out unless one of the modern peace generals, or some foreigner of distinction who finds himself in our little town, takes […]

Murat was undoubtedly an excellent cavalry officer, but he had too much swagger, which spoils many a good soldier. Lasalle, too, was a very dashing leader, but he ruined himself with wine and folly. Now I, Etienne Gerard, was always totally devoid of swagger, and at the same time I was very abstemious, except, maybe, […]

Massena was a thin, sour little fellow, and after his hunting accident he had only one eye, but when it looked out from under his cocked hat there was not much upon a field of battle which escaped it. He could stand in front of a battalion, and with a single sweep tell you if […]

It has sometimes struck me that some of you, when you have heard me tell these little adventures of mine, may have gone away with the impression that I was conceited. There could not be a greater mistake than this, for I have always observed that really fine soldiers are free from this failing. It […]

The Duke of Tarentum, or Macdonald, as his old comrades prefer to call him, was, as I could perceive, in the vilest of tempers. His grim, Scotch face was like one of those grotesque door-knockers which one sees in the Faubourg St Germain. We heard afterwards that the Emperor had said in jest that he […]

The spring is at hand, my friends. I can see the little green spear-heads breaking out once more upon the chestnut trees, and the cafe tables have all been moved into the sunshine. It is more pleasant to sit there, and yet I do not wish to tell my little stories to the whole town. […]

“But why Turkish?” asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at my boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention. “English,” I answered in some surprise. “I got them at Latimer’s, in Oxford Street.” Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience. “The bath!” […]

Danger!

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

DANGER! BEING THE LOG OF CAPTAIN JOHN SIRIUS It is an amazing thing that the English, who have the reputation of being a practical nation, never saw the danger to which they were exposed. For many years they had been spending nearly a hundred millions a year upon their army and their fleet. Squadrons of […]

A Point Of View

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It was an American journalist who was writing up England–or writing her down as the mood seized him. Sometimes he blamed and sometimes he praised, and the case-hardened old country actually went its way all the time quite oblivious of his approval or of his disfavour–being ready at all times, through some queer mental twist, […]

One Crowded Hour

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

The place was the Eastbourne-Tunbridge road, not very far from the Cross in Hand–a lonely stretch, with a heath running upon either side. The time was half-past eleven upon a Sunday night in the late summer. A motor was passing slowly down the road. It was a long, lean Rolls-Royce, running smoothly with a gentle […]

THE HORROR OF THE HEIGHTS (WHICH INCLUDES THE MANUSCRIPT KNOWN AS THE JOYCE-ARMSTRONG FRAGMENT) The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce- Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have […]

These are few social historians of those days who have not told of the long and fierce struggle between those two famous bucks, Sir Charles Tregellis and Lord Barrymore, for the Lordship of the Kingdom of St. James, a struggle which divided the whole of fashionable London into two opposing camps. It has been chronicled […]

I–HOW THE WOMAN CAME TO KIRKBY-MALHOUSE Bleak and wind-swept is the little town of Kirkby-Malhouse, harsh and forbidding are the fells upon which it stands. It stretches in a single line of grey-stone, slate-roofed houses, dotted down the furze-clad slope of the rolling moor. In this lonely and secluded village, I, James Upperton, found myself […]

Borrowed Scenes

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

“It cannot be done. People really would not stand it. I know because I have tried.”– Extract from an unpublished paper upon George Borrow and his writings . Yes, I tried and my experience may interest other people. You must imagine, then, that I am soaked in George Borrow, especially in his Lavengro and his […]

How It Happened

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

She was a writing medium. This is what she wrote:– I can remember some things upon that evening most distinctly, and others are like some vague, broken dreams. That is what makes it so difficult to tell a connected story. I have no idea now what it was that had taken me to London and […]

The circumstances, so far as they were known to the public, concerning the death of the beautiful Miss Ena Garnier, and the fact that Captain John Fowler, the accused officer, had refused to defend himself on the occasion of the proceedings at the police-court, had roused very general interest. This was increased by the statement […]

Three Of Them

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

I–A CHAT ABOUT CHILDREN, SNAKES, AND ZEBUS These little sketches are called “Three of Them,” but there are really five, on and off the stage. There is Daddy, a lumpish person with some gift for playing Indian games when he is in the mood. He is then known as “The Great Chief of the Leatherskin […]

In all the great hosts of France there was only one officer toward whom the English of Wellington’s Army retained a deep, steady, and unchangeable hatred. There were plunderers among the French, and men of violence, gamblers, duellists, and roues. All these could be forgiven, for others of their kidney were to be found among […]

It was the old Brigadier who was talking in the cafe. I have seen a great many cities, my friends. I would not dare to tell you how many I have entered as a conqueror with eight hundred of my little fighting devils clanking and jingling behind me. The cavalry were in front of the […]

Have I ever told you, my friends, the circumstances connected with my joining the Hussars of Conflans at the time of the siege of Saragossa and the very remarkable exploit which I performed in connection with the taking of that city? No? Then you have indeed something still to learn. I will tell it to […]

I have told you, my friends, how we held the English shut up for six months, from October, 1810, to March, 1811, within their lines of Torres Vedras. It was during this time that I hunted the fox in their company, and showed them that amidst all their sportsmen there was not one who could […]

I have told you, my friends, how I triumphed over the English at the fox-hunt when I pursued the animal so fiercely that even the herd of trained dogs was unable to keep up, and alone with my own hand I put him to the sword. Perhaps I have said too much of the matter, […]

I will tell you no more stories, my dear friends. It is said that man is like the hare, which runs in a circle and comes back to die at the point from which it started. Gascony has been calling to me of late. I see the blue Garonne winding among the vineyards and the […]

I. THE STORY OF THE FOREST INN Of all the great battles in which I had the honour of drawing my sword for the Emperor and for France there was not one which was lost. At Waterloo, although, in a sense, I was present, I was unable to fight, and the enemy was victorious. It […]

I would have a stronger wine to-night, my friends, a wine of Burgundy rather than of Bordeaux. It is that my heart, my old soldier heart, is heavy within me. It is a strange thing, this age which creeps upon one. One does not know, one does not understand; the spirit is ever the same, […]

Of all the sciences which have puzzled the sons of men, none had such an attraction for the learned Professor von Baumgarten as those which relate to psychology and the ill-defined relations between mind and matter. A celebrated anatomist, a profound chemist, and one of the first physiologists in Europe, it was a relief for […]

The Man From Archangel

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

On the fourth day of March, in the year 1867, being at that time in my five-and-twentieth year, I wrote down the following words in my note-book–the result of much mental perturbation and conflict:– “The solar system, amidst a countless number of other systems as large as itself, rolls ever silently through space in the […]

That Little Square Box

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

All aboard?” said the captain. “All aboard, sir!” said the mate. “Then stand by to let her go.” It was nine o’clock on a Wednesday morning. The good ship Spartan was lying off Boston Quay with her cargo under hatches, her passengers shipped, and everything prepared for a start. The warning whistle had been sounded […]

John Huxford’s Hiatus

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Strange it is and wonderful to mark how upon this planet of ours the smallest and most insignificant of events set a train of consequences in motion which act and react until their final results are portentous and incalculable. Set a force rolling, however small; and who can say where it shall end, or what […]

A Literary Mosaic

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to share my views. It is true that private friends have sometimes, after listening to my effusions, gone the length of […]

John Barrington Cowles

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

It might seem rash of me to say that I ascribe the death of my poor friend, John Barrington Cowles, to any preternatural agency. I am aware that in the present state of public feeling a chain of evidence would require to be strong indeed before the possibility of such a conclusion could be admitted. […]

He was known in the Gulch as the Reverend Elias B. Hopkins, but it was generally understood that the title was an honorary one, extorted by his many eminent qualities, and not borne out by any legal claim which he could adduce. “The Parson” was another of his sobriquets, which was sufficiently distinctive in a […]

The Ring Of Thoth

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

Mr. John Vansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147-A Gower Street, was a man whose energy of purpose and clearness of thought might have placed him in the very first rank of scientific observers. He was the victim, however, of a universal ambition which prompted him to aim at distinction in many subjects rather than preeminence in […]

We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way: “Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be glad […]

The Five Orange Pips

Story type: Literature

Read this story.

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, […]

Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George’s, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey’s description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco […]

I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at […]

Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his notice–that of Mr. Hatherley’s thumb, and that of Colonel Warburton’s madness. Of these the latter may have afforded a finer […]

[Being an extract from the singular journal of JOHN M`ALISTER RAY, student of medicine.] September 11th.–Lat. 81 degrees 40′ N.; long. 2 degrees E. Still lying-to amid enormous ice fields. The one which stretches away to the north of us, and to which our ice-anchor is attached, cannot be smaller than an English county. To […]

In the month of December in the year 1873, the British ship Dei Gratia steered into Gibraltar, having in tow the derelict brigantine Marie Celeste, which had been picked up in latitude 38 degrees 40′, longitude 17 degrees 15′ W. There were several circumstances in connection with the condition and appearance of this abandoned vessel […]

The Lord St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this four-year-old drama. As I have reason to believe, however, that […]

“Holmes,” said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, “here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone.” My friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over […]

“To the man who loves art for its own sake,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, “it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this […]

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and […]