Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle

Publisher Marketing: 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 cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer-excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory. I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion. Review Citations: Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/1995 pg. 539 (EAN 9780899663852, Library Binding) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/1995 pg. 184 (EAN 9780899663852, Library Binding) Kliatt 01/01/2004 pg. 40 (EAN 9789626342800, Compact Disc) Library Journal 01/01/2004 pg. 183 (EAN 9789626342800, Compact Disc) Library Journal 12/01/1993 (EAN 9780192123299, Boxed Set) Booklist 09/15/1992 pg. 137 (EAN 9780688107826, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1992 (EAN 9780688107826, Hardcover) Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/2009 pg. 1063 (EAN 9780688107826, Hardcover) School Library Journal 08/04/2000 (EAN 9789626341704, Compact Disc) School Library Journal 08/04/2000 (EAN 9789626346709, Analog Audio Cassette) Library Journal 09/15/2000 (EAN 9789626346709, Analog Audio Cassette) School Library Journal 03/01/1999 (EAN 9781569945032, Analog Audio Cassette) Library Journal 05/01/2010 pg. 44 (EAN 9781400145171, Compact Disc) Contributor Bio:  Doyle, Arthur Conan Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish physician and prolific writer most renowned for his ingenious Sherlock Holmes detective stories A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. His collected body of work includes science fiction stories, historical novels, plays, romances, poetry, and nonfiction. Conan Doyle was knighted by King Edward VII in 1902 after writing a widely acclaimed pamphlet defending the British position in the Boer War.