The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle

115 chapters · about 48 h

Get it in Sphinx

Coming soon to iPhone and Android. Join the waitlist to hear when Sphinx opens.

Join the waitlist
Your phone

We'll only email you about Sphinx; you can ask us to remove you any time.

The opening

Chapter 1 MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT

MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

In THE YEAR 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in teaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

The whole book is in the Sphinx app.

About this edition

The words
The author's text, copied word for word.
Left out
  • Page numbers and running heads from the printed pages, in 9 places
  • A speck on the scan's cover page, read as “A Cuan ee”
  • The Internet Archive's notice (“Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2026”) (2 blocks)
  • The printed half title (“THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES”)
  • The title page and opening pages before chapter 1, in 2 places
  • Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers, in 3 places
  • A frontispiece picture read as characters by the OCR (29 blocks)
  • Other material that isn't the author's, in 5 places
  • End pages of the scan: a picture and specks read as characters (9 blocks)
  • A speck read as “2 23” after the last item of Watson's list
  • Printed ornaments and dividers, in 27 places
  • A speck read as “—”
  • A speck read as “122” between “the account of it ran in this way:” and the quoted report
  • A picture read as characters by the OCR: the plan of the Foreign Office rooms (its labels) (2 blocks)
  • A picture read as characters by the OCR: a line of dancing men (a drawing) (7 blocks)
  • A picture read as characters by the OCR: Holmes's map of the neighbourhood of the school (its labels) (2 blocks)
  • Pictures and their captions
  • The book's title line printed over the dedication (“Tae Hounp or THE BASKERVILLES”)
  • A preface, foreword or afterword, in 2 places