BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
First Published 1927
PREFACE
I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may becomelike one of those popular tenors who, havingoutlived their time, are still tempted to makerepeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences.This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh,material or imaginary. One likes to think thatthere is some fantastic limbo for the children ofimagination, some strange, impossible place wherethe beaux of Fielding may still make love to thebelles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes still maystrut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise alaugh, and Thackeray's worldlings continue to carryon their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in somehumble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and hisWatson may for a time find a place, while some moreastute sleuth with some even less astute comrademay fill the stage which they have vacated.
His career has been a long one—though it ispossible to exaggerate it; decrepit gentlemen whoapproach me and declare that his adventures formedthe reading of their boyhood do not meet the responsefrom me which they seem to expect. One is notanxious to have one's personal dates handled sounkindly. As a matter of cold fact Holmes made hisdébut in A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of Four,two small booklets which appeared between 1887 and1889. It was in 1891 that "A Scandal in Bohemia,"the first of the long series of short stories, appearedin The Strand Magazine. The public seemedappreciative and desirous of more, so that from that date,thirty-six years ago, they have been produced in abroken series which now contains no fewer thanfifty-six stories, republished in The Adventures, TheMemoirs, The Return, and His Last Bow, and thereremain these twelve published during the last fewyears which are here produced under the title ofThe Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. He began hisadventures in the very heart of the later VictorianEra, carried it through the all-too-short reign ofEdward, and has managed to hold his own littleniche even in these feverish days. Thus it would betrue to say that those who first read of him as youngmen have lived to see their own grown-up childrenfollowing the same adventures in the same magazine.It is a striking example of the patience and loyaltyof the British public.
I had fully determined at the conclusion of TheMemoirs to bring Holmes to an end, as I felt thatmy literary energies should not be directed too muchinto one channel. That pale, clear-cut face andloose-limbed figure were taking up an undue shareof my imagination. I did the deed, but, fortunately,no coroner had pronounced upon the remains, andso, after a long interval, it was not difficult for me torespond to the flattering demand and to explain myrash act away. I have never regretted it, for I havenot in actual practice found that these lightersketches have prevented me from exploring andfinding my limitations in such varied branches ofliterature as history, poetry, historical novels,psychic research, and the drama. Had Holmesnever existed I could not have done more, thoughhe may perhaps have stood a little in the way of therecognition of my more serious literary work.
And so, reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes!I thank you for your past constancy, and can buthope that some return has been made in the shapeof that distraction from the worries of life andstimulating change of thought which can only be