The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Three years after Sherlock Holmes seemed to fall to his death at the Reichenbach Falls, a strange old bookseller visits Dr Watson, and Holmes stands before him, alive. 'The Adventure of the Empty House', which explains his survival and traps the dangerous Colonel Moran, opens this collection of thirteen stories. Among the others are the cipher of 'The Dancing Men', the hunt for a stolen bust in 'The Six Napoleons', the blackmailer of 'Charles Augustus Milverton', the kidnapping of 'The Priory School' and the state secret of 'The Second Stain'.

Arthur Conan Doyle had killed Holmes off in 1893 to devote himself to other writing, but public demand, and generous offers from magazines, brought him back; the stories appeared in 1903 and 1904. They are among the most polished in the series. The fall at Reichenbach is told in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was born in Edinburgh, trained as a doctor and wrote stories while waiting for patients at his practice in Southsea. Sherlock Holmes, modelled partly on his old teacher Joseph Bell, who could diagnose a patient's life at a glance, first appeared in 1887 and soon made Doyle one of the best-paid writers in the world.

He grew tired of his detective, killed him off in 1893 and was forced by his readers to bring him back. Doyle also wrote historical novels, the adventure The Lost World and campaigns for wrongly convicted men. Start with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles.