The Sherlock Holmes canon, authored by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, contains 4 novels and 56 short stories. The short stories are grouped in 5 collections. Doyle generally excelled at the short story format. He once explained that it took as much effort to concoct the plot of a short story as it did a novel.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collects the first 12 Sherlock Holmes short stories into 1 volume. These tales were originally published serially in The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The Adventures was published in book form in 1892. Here are the 12 stories in this collection:
A Scandal in Bohemia
The Red-Headed League
A Case of Identity
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
The Five Orange Pips
The Man with the Twisted Lip
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is the second collection of Holmes short stories, originally published in 1894 in The Strand Magazine. This collection features the death of Sherlock Holmes in the story “The Final Problem.”
Silver Blaze
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
The Adventure of the Yellow Face
The Stockbroker’s Clerk
The Gloria Scott
The Musgrave Ritual
The Adventure of the Reigate Squire
The Adventure of the Crooked Man
The Resident Patient
The Greek Interpreter
The Naval Treaty
The Final Problem
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is the collected short-story adventures published after the Holmes' return from the dead. It appeared in 1905. The stories in this volume include the following:
The Adventure of the Empty House
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
The Adventure of the Priory School
The Adventure of Black Peter
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
The Adventure of the Three Students
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
The Adventure of the Second Stain
His Last Bow
Originally published in 1917 during World War I, His Last Bow collects into one volume the Sherlock Holmes stories published between 1908 and 1913, plus the title story, “His Last Bow,” which was published in 1917. The American edition of this collection had an additional tale, “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box,” which had been suppressed years before.
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
The Adventure of the Red Circle
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
The Adventure of the Dying Detective
The Disappearance of Lady Francis Carfax
The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
His Last Bow
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
The last volume of Sherlock Holmes adventures, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, was published in 1927. It collects the final 12 short stories, which Arthur Conan Doyle sporadically wrote over the last decade of his life. Here are the final adventures of Sherlock Holmes:
The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
The Problem of Thor Bridge
The Adventure of the Creeping Man
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
The Adventure of the Three Gables
The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane
The Adventure of the Retired Colourman
The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place
