Reviews for The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear), Vol. 3

The average rating for The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear), Vol. 3 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-09-18 00:00:00 Jeremy Stegall Since I used to be a fan of the BBC show I thought it would be fun to check out the source material. Well, what can I say? I couldn't have been more wrong. The original Sherlock novels truly suck ass. I cannot put it in a friendlier manner. (I mean, I could ... but I don't want to.) They're so lazily written (like, seriously? I knew Doyle only wanted to make money and never put the time and effort into editing his books, but wow, the plots of these novels are such a fucking mess!) and on top of that, Doyle spews his pro-imperialism propaganda in most of these novels and I'm not here for this shit. A STUDY IN SCARLET - 1 star - (review) THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES - 2,5 stars - (review) THE SIGN OF FOUR - 1 star - (review) THE VALLEY OF FEAR - 1 star - (review) Do I really need to read another story in which violence and corruption always happen outside of England's "green and peaceful land", because Englishmen are known for their goodness and high moral values (*coughs* British imperialism is a thing), and only foreigners are criminals? Absolutely fucking not. In the source material, Sherlock functions as a white knight, persevering the "civilized values" of the British Empire (*coughs* don't forget the slave trade, ya'll) against "barbarity and disorder". Ain't nobody got time for that. The game, my fellow readers, is so not afoot.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-03-01 00:00:00 Don Williams The ultimate in Sherlock Holmes collections. I have collected many different publishing versions of these four novels by Arthur Conan Doyle since my schooldays. This collection contains: A Study in Scarlet (1887) The Sign of Four (1889) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901) The Valley of Fear (1914) This mammoth Norton publication needs to be read and studied at home - just too big to lug around on public transport or whatever. The research involved with the annotations is phenomenal and this along with the illustrations from the original magazines plus book covers and images from the period are just amazing. A must for all Sherlockians!