I loved reading the book so much, I keep reading it over and over again.

It is surprising how funny Conan Doyle could be sometimes. Brigadier Gerard is a wonderfully conceited, rather dim-witted but brave and generous-hearted cavalry officer in Napoleon's Army. His adventures are a delight to read.

. . . London flooded? This exciting disaster novel, written in 1976 before the Thames Barrier was built, explores what could happen! Flood co-ordinator Derek Thompson tries to warn the authorities and the public after hearing reports of freak tides and storms in the North Sea, but do they listen? Yes, you've guessed it, the authorities dally over evacuation plans. And to top it all, the US President is due to pay London a visit and Thompson's wife becomes trapped in the Underground as the floods strike in cataclysmic fashion. A barge strikes a hospital, a power station explodes and industrial areas burn out of control threatening people trapped in high-rise housing. Who will live and who will die? A shame this was not made into a movie! Although us UK readers no longer have to fear such a disaster taking place because of the barrier, this novel is still worth reading for excitement and spectacle value.

British artist Richard Doyle (1824-1883), the son of a portrait painter and caricaturist, may be best remembered by some as the creator of the cover design for Punch, which was used for over a century. He also illustrated a number of children's books and created beguiling paintings of fairies, the wee folk. It is the latter that is used to illustrate this lovely keepsake volume.

Doyle's paintings are imaginative and incandescent, luminous illustrations of fairies astride snails, perched on a beetle or relaxing on a verdant hillock. Each illustration perfectly accompanies a poem, such as a tiny one sipping from a cowslip's bell in Shakespeare's "Ariel's Song" or fairies engaged in a tug-of-war with a grasshopper in "An Explanation of the Grasshopper" by Vachel Lindsay.

Other poets represented include John Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats, and Langton Hughes.

The pairing of art and poetry is superb, thoughtfully conceived and executed. This slim volume deserves a place in everyone's library.

- Gail Cooke

Jack the Giant Killer requires good reading skills but tells the story of Jack, an intrepid boy who sets out to kill giants. Draftsman/author Doyle's watercolors have been enlarged for this edition, and text given greater legibility: the result is a beautiful Victorian classic easily accessible to modern audiences.

Mr. Doyle doesn't mince words here. An excellent account of the unfair treatment of men in today's society. A great work and a classic book for the men's rights movement.

Date Smart! is a fun to read, practical guide to dating and relationships. It is packed full of usable tips and strategies. The format of the book, which is broken down into sections, makes it easy to read and allows for easy access to information you want to go back to later. I especially liked the "15-Minute Find", which is a strategy for deciding whether or not someone is worth pursuing as a potential date. Mr. Coleman and Mr. Doyle have written a book that should be read by all single people who are seeking positive, fulfilling relationships.

This is a wonderful book for singles to read! I gained a lot of knowledge about the dating world. It's light,fun and easy reading. I laughed about finding out if you are a good kisser or a bad kisser. The book is humorous and witty....yet very educational. It gives a concise picture of the dating scene and how to be successful in landing the right mate forever. I now have the direction after reading this book, I am well prepared to find the love of my life!Timing without action is nothing! I'm glad I took the TIME to read this book, now I can take ACTION! :)

When I bought Date Smart! and started reading it I honestly didn't believe that simply reading a book would help me. I've been through countless dead-end relationships and naively thought it was due to bad luck. I had practically given up on dating altogether! But, the book simply and logically explained how to spot a "bad pick", it defined what a healthy relationship really is, and even how to maintain one once you find it. I learned how and why I kept choosing the wrong people to date After reading Date Smart! I feel I now have the knowledge and confidence to enable me to find the right person and maintain a healthy, happy relationship.

The soft-cover Wordsworth Classics edition of The Return of Sherlock Holmes reproduces The Hound of the Baskervilles and the short stories that make up The Return of Sherlock Holmes as they originally appeared in the Strand. It also contains the interesting, though poorly reproduced, illustrations that accompanied the stories. Because a page of the magazine is reduced to the size of a trade paperback page, typeface is very small.

As an Englishman. resident in the United States, what do I miss most? The BBC. As a little boy I looked forward to all the broadcast plays every week. The BBC cast performed about 6 hours of radio plays every week. They still do, haven't you also noticed the number of TV plays broadcast by A and E? Most of them originate in the United Kingdom, Hornblower, ETC.. Now we can enjoy the performances by means of these Bantam Double Day releases. Very well done, by a very experienced cast, you can let your imagination run riot as you picture the various scenes in your mind. These are the classic stories by Sir Arther Conan Doyle. They have been around for 100 years or so, and time has not diminished their appeal. On this Audio Book you have 4 stories, each about 45 minutes long. If you haven't heard these before, then I don't wish to spoil the story line. If you know the stories then you will not be disappointed. Each story is presented in the time period of around the 1900's, you can almost smell the gas lighting, not to mention the foggy november weather, the horses, and so on. Order these from Amazon, and search for more of the BBC plays, they are great.

This is a faithful reprinting of the greatest mystery book(s) ever written. It is well written, powerful, captivating, and puts the Hardy Boys to shame. Holmes solves mysteries in a believable (if difficult) fashion that never fails to grip someone from start to finish. The stories are so well written, in fact, that when Sherlock Holmes "died" fans responded by rioting in the streets of London. The Queen insisted that Conan Doyle bring back his famous character, and so here he is. While we might not be willing to riot in the streets if Holmes died today, we can still feel loyalty towards the famous character, and the legacy that Conan Doyle left behind in these books.

I rate this book 4 stars because it reel you in on a hook and it will not let go until you have read the whole thing. Its a keeper any person thats read it would say. It on the egde, exciting, and most of all it is very clever. Did I tell you that it is also Adventurous.

The book is about two main people. One is the great Sherlock Holmes and his ever faithful Dr. Watson. They go on Adventures together and make there murder look like a fool for even thing to fool the great team.

A quick example from the book is a evil uncle and two women in the house that the woman own. One day one woman was found dead and the local law enforcement had no clue until the great team of Sherlock and Watson were on the case. ...
That is just one of the many stories told. So if you want a fast pace book. Read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Did you know that Holmes never, ever said "Elementary, my dear Watson" in any of the sixty stories Arthur Conan Doyle wrote?

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were initially published in "The Strand" magazine as a series of 24 short stories. These stories saw publication between 1891 and 1893. When they were published in book form, the first twelve were published as "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and the last twelve were called "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes." Today, when we speak of the original "Adventures," we usually refer to the first twelve Holmes short stories. These twelve stories include some of the best of Holmes: "The Speckled Band," "The Red Headed League," "A Scandal in Bohemia." Doyle continued his Holmes saga with other collections of short stories: "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," "Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes," "His Last Bow," and finally "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes." Almost every Holmes short story bears the title "The Adventure of . . ." One of my favorite Holmes stories is "The Problem of Thor Bridge." Not only is it a very good yarn, it is a "Problem" and not an "Adventure!" Although Conan Doyle ran out of Holmes stories, the public did not run out of its appetite for new Holmes stories, and production of pastiches continues to this day.

To me, the most satisfying way to relive the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, both original and pastiche adventures, is through the medium of audiotaped radio plays. There are at least four collections of adventures currently available. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," a publication of BBC shows starring Clive Merrison, reprises the original twelve adventures. This is probably the best radio collection of adventures. National Public Radio has published four "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" consisting of four one hour productions starring various actors as Holmes. The quality is uneven. "Smithsonian Historical Performances: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" has twelve stories, four of which are original. Edith Meiser wrote the pastiches, and John Stanley starred as a rather disagreeable Holmes. Some stories are very good; others are woeful. Simon and Schuster publishes a series of six "New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Each collection has eight Holmes stories. Of the pastiches, these are the best. Nigel Bruce stars as a loveable, bumbling Watson, and Basil Rathbone portrays the archetypical Holmes. Anthony Boucher and Dennis Green wrote the scripts and did a very good job. Holmesaholics will also want to listen to "More New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," published by the Brilliance Corporation, and starring Tom Conway as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. These stories are on the whole better than the Smithsonian Historical Performances, but not as good as the Rathbone/Bruce "New Adventures." They also have the drawback of being published as individual cassettes. The avid collector can run to some expense getting all of these.

Holmes survived Conan Doyle's attempt on his life at the Reichenbach Falls; he has survived his creator 80 years without showing any signs of loss of vitality. The latest (and quite enjoyable) addition to the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the BBC Television series starring Jeremy Brett.

Richard Lancelyn Green has examined nearly a century's worth of Holmesian pastiches and collected some of the very best in this book. Stories date from 1920 through the 1980's.

Many pastiches try to parody or reinvent the originals, but theses stories affectionately recapture the flavor and tone of the canon.

In this volume Richard Lancelyn Green has assembled some of the best of the noncanonical Holmes short stories as of 1986. I personally think _The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes_ by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr is a slightly better collection overall, but this one comes close.

Adrian Conan Doyle is represented here as well, the adventure of "Arnsworth Castle" being simply a republication of "The Red Widow" from _Exploits_. (I disagree with the reviewer who thought the story was a "complete failure," but I also disagree with anthologist Green that it is the strongest of the younger Doyle's Holmes pastiches.)

The highlight of the collection is undoubtedly Denis O. Smith's "The Purple Hand." This is the first of Smith's Holmes tales (of which another -- "The Silver Buckle" -- appears in _The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures_); in general they are among the best pastiches in the short-story genre. (Smith has published them in three volumes under the title _The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes_.)

Other high points include "The Tired Captain" and "The Green Empress," based on two unrecorded cases mentioned by Watson in the first paragraph of "The Naval Treaty." The latter of the two cases requires a brief explanation.

"The Green Empress" is the new title of the tale mentioned in a review below under the name "The Second Stain." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course, wrote a story of that title as well, but the version he published does not match the description in "The Naval Treaty." Some Sherlockians (according to Green) also claim to find a reference to another "Second Stain" case in "The Yellow Face," though I do not happen to know the foundation of this claim. There would thus appear to have been at least two and perhaps three Holmes cases catalogued by Watson under the same name.

F.P. Cellie's tale fills in the details of the one mentioned in "The Naval Treaty." In 1967 it won a contest in South Africa under its original title of "The Second Stain," and its title has been altered for publication in the present volume. End of explanation.

Another highlight: this volume is the only one currently in print -- so far as I know -- in which Vincent Starrett's classic "The Unique _Hamlet_" is collected. In my own view this pastiche is somewhat overrated (being among other things ludicrously easy to solve), but at any rate it's a good one to have; at least it was one of the first, having been privately published in 1920.

And another point which may be of interest to Amazon shoppers: the larger and more recent collection _The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures_, edited by Michael Ashley (and with a foreword by Green), does not include _any_ overlap with the present volume. Owners of one may therefore feel safe in purchasing the other.

I've just finished this and am amazed by how much I enjoyed it - I'd bought it expecting to hate it but not so. It's very patchy but no more so than Conan Doyle's original stories, and the only really terrible bit is one effort by his son Adrian which is a complete failure, although a very involved thing about Scotland (which left me wondering, why couldn't he have just put the brooch in his pocket? - you'll know what I mean when you've read it) tries the patience rather. Best are the 'Purple Hand' and 'Second Stain' stories, both of which the man himself would have been very proud of, but all are honourable additions to the mythos, hugely enjoyable and very sensitive to the much-loved originals.

I had it as a text book in my high school and hated it. I had to locate this book today to explain to my 9 year old how we always dont get to read interesting books, more so for class assignments. I know any number of kids who get turned off by Dickens just because they had a tyrannical teacher stuff it down, rather up their brainstems in junior high school. One is asked to read a book in so called dear time, got to read it and follow the party line to get the grades and move on. If you want to teach your child how to read for pleasure, this is not the book to start with.

If you like beautiful and euphonious prose, and think it worthwhile for your children to hear a story in which greed, cruelty and dishonesty are ultimately defeated by truth, purity, and kindness... well, buy this book for them. Read it aloud and revel in it.

I must have read this book when I was 7 or 8. When my familiy moved, I searched in vain for the book to re-read, but it must have been lost in the move. I discovered it on a friend's shelf a few weeks ago, and re-read it. What joy! I always thought of this as the story where a bad guy steals Holy Water, but it is much more than this. The young hero has two dreadful brothers. He takes their abuse, and repays them with kindness, rescuing them from their own greed. Ruskin's descriptions of the country side are dramatic and vivid. One warning: Some might be disturbed by the references to the brothers' drunken behavior.