Before You Begin

Before you begin.

A pipe, a violin, a fog-bound cab clattering toward Baker Street — and a knock at the door that begins another impossible case. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes gathers twelve of the most perfect detective stories ever written: the woman who outwitted Holmes, the red-headed man paid to copy an encyclopaedia, the deadly thing that came in the night at Stoke Moran, and more. Each is a small, gleaming puzzle, narrated by the ever-loyal Dr Watson and solved by the coldest, keenest reasoning machine in literature.

First collected in 1892 from the pages of The Strand Magazine, these tales made Sherlock Holmes the most famous detective who never lived, and set the template for every mystery since. What endures is not only the puzzle but the partnership: the cold, hawk-nosed reasoner and his warm, loyal chronicler, the disguises and the deductions, the hansom cabs rattling through the fog.

This illustrated edition opens the twelve cases into a gallery of plates — the cast and their portraits, the map of Holmes's London and the scenes of his cases, the great scenes themselves, and six case plates you unlock as you read, each recalling a famous adventure without giving away its solution. Turn the page and step into the gas-lit world that follows. The game is afoot.