TO MY WIFE THIS MEMORIAL OF A JOURNEY WHICH HER HELP AND PRESENCE CHANGED FROM A DUTY TO A PLEASURE. A. C. D. July 18/21. This is an account of the wanderings of a spiritualist, geographical and speculative. Should the reader have no interest in psychic things—if indeed any human being can be so foolish... Read More

In "The New Revelation" the first dawn of the coming change has been described. In "The Vital Message" the sun has risen higher, and one sees more clearly and broadly what our new relations with the Unseen may be. As I look into the future of the human race I am reminded of how once,... Read More

When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, others were absorbed into the... Read More

The Title story of this volume was written about eighteen months before the outbreak of the war, and was intended to direct public attention to the great danger which threatened this country. It is a matter of history how fully this warning has been justified and how, even down to the smallest details, the prediction... Read More

To all the brave men and women, humble or learned, who have the moral courage during seventy years to face ridicule or worldly disadvantage in order to testify to an all-important truth. March, 1918 Many more philosophic minds than mine have thought over the religious side of this subject and many more scientific brains have... Read More

“I am inclined to think—” said I. “I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently. I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I’ll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. “Really, Holmes,” said I severely, “you are a little trying at times.” He was too much absorbed... Read More

These essays, upon different phases of the wonderful world-drama which has made our lifetime memorable, would be unworthy of republication were it not that at such a time every smallest thing which may help to clear up a doubt, to elucidate the justice of our cause, or to accentuate the desperate need of national effort,... Read More

The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his... Read More

It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events are still clear in my mind, I should set them down with that exactness of detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I am overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact that it should be our little group of the... Read More

It was in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a flood from the great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It... Read More

Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that both the injunction for restraint and the libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being satisfied that no criticism or comment in this book is meant in an offensive spirit, has guaranteed that he will place no impediment to its publication and... Read More

I have written “Impressions and Tales” upon the title-page of this volume, because I have included within the same cover two styles of work which present an essential difference. The second half of the collection consists of eight stories, which explain themselves. The first half is made up of a series of pictures of the... Read More

TO MY FRIEND MAJOR-GENERAL A. W. DRAYSON AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF MY ADMIRATION FOR HIS GREAT AND AS YET UNRECOGNISED SERVICES TO ASTRONOMY This little Volume IS DEDICATED For the use of some of the following Tales I am indebted to the courtesy of the Proprietors of “Cornhill,” “Temple Bar,” “Belgravia,” “London Society,” “Cassell’s,”... Read More

There are many of us in England who consider the crime which has been wrought in the Congo lands by King Leopold of Belgium and his followers to be the greatest which has ever been known in human annals. Personally I am strongly of that opinion. There have been great expropriations like that of the... Read More

In a previous volume, “The Green Flag,” I have assembled a number of my stories which deal with warfare or with sport. In the present collection those have been brought together which are concerned with the grotesque and with the terrible—such tales as might well be read “round the fire” upon a winter’s night. This... Read More

Dame History is so austere a lady that if one, has been so ill-advised as to take a liberty with her, one should hasten to make amends by repentance and confession. Events have been transposed to the extent of some few months in this narrative in order to preserve the continuity and evenness of the... Read More

I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into... Read More

When Jack Conolly, of the Irish Shotgun Brigade, the Rory of the Hills Inner Circle, and the extreme left wing of the Land League, was incontinently shot by Sergeant Murdoch of the constabulary, in a little moonlight frolic near Kanturk, his twin-brother Dennis joined the British Army. The countryside had become too hot for him;... Read More

It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. The public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a good deal was... Read More

I hope that some readers may possibly be interested in these little tales of the Napoleonic soldiers to the extent of following them up to the springs from which they flow. The age was rich in military material, some of it the most human and the most picturesque that I have ever read. Setting aside... Read More

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece... Read More

For some reason, which may be either arrogance or apathy, the British are very slow to state their case to the world. At present the reasons for our actions and the methods which we have used are set forth in many Blue-books, tracts, and leaflets, but have never, so far as I know, been collected... Read More

During the course of the war some sixteen Editions of this work have appeared, each of which was, I hope, a little more full and accurate than that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however, that the absolute mistakes made have been few in number, and that I have never had occasion to reverse,... Read More

TO MRS. MAUDE CROSSE Dear Maude,—All the little two-oared boats which put out into the great ocean have need of some chart which will show them how to lay their course. Each starts full of happiness and confidence, and yet we know how many founder, for it is no easy voyage, and there are rocks... Read More

The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard in the papers of the fate of the passengers of the Korosko. In these days of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice... Read More

You do very well, my friends, to treat me with some little reverence, for in honouring me you are honouring both France and yourselves. It is not merely an old, grey-moustached officer whom you see eating his omelette or draining his glass, but it is a fragment of history. In me you see one of... Read More

I dare say that I had already read my uncle's letter a hundred times, and I am sure that I knew it by heart. None the less I took it out of my pocket, and, sitting on the side of the lugger, I went over it again with as much attention as if it were... Read More

Amongst the books to which I am indebted for my material in my endeavour to draw various phases of life and character in England at the beginning of the century, I would particularly mention Ashton’s “Dawn of the Nineteenth Century;” Gronow’s “Reminiscences;” Fitzgerald’s “Life and Times of George IV.;” Jesse’s “Life of Brummell;” “Boxiana;” “Pugilistica;”... Read More

“I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning. “Go! Where to?” “To Dartmoor; to King’s Pyland.” I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one... Read More

[Being an extract from a long and animated correspondence with a friend in America.] I quite recognise the force of your objection that an invalid or a woman in weak health would get no good from stories which attempt to treat some features of medical life with a certain amount of realism. If you deal... Read More

It was the sort of window which was common in Paris about the end of the seventeenth century. It was high, mullioned, with a broad transom across the centre, and above the middle of the transom a tiny coat of arms—three caltrops gules upon a field argent—let into the diamond-paned glass. Outside there projected a... Read More

“If you please, mum,” said the voice of a domestic from somewhere round the angle of the door, “number three is moving in.” Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either side of a table, sprang to their feet with ejaculations of interest, and rushed to the window of the sitting-room. “Take care, Monica... Read More

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his... Read More

It is strange to me, Jock Calder of West Inch, to feel that though now, in the very centre of the nineteenth century, I am but five-and-fifty years of age, and though it is only once in a week perhaps that my wife can pluck out a little grey bristle from over my ear, yet... Read More

“I’m afraid that he won’t come,” said Laura McIntyre, in a disconsolate voice. “Why not?” “Oh, look at the weather; it is something too awful.” As she spoke a whirl of snow beat with a muffled patter against the cosy red-curtained window, while a long blast of wind shrieked and whistled through the branches of... Read More

Broadhurst's store was closed, but the little back room looked very comfortable that night. The fire cast a ruddy glow on ceiling and walls, reflecting itself cheerily on the polished flasks and shot-guns which adorned them. Yet a gloom rested on the two men who sat at either side of the hearth, which neither the... Read More

The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays... Read More

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred... Read More

TO MY OLD FRIEND PROFESSOR WILLIAM K. BURTON, OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY, TOKYO, WHO FIRST ENCOURAGED ME, YEARS AGO, TO PROCEED WITH THIS LITTLE STORY, I DESIRE AFFECTIONATELY TO DEDICATE IT. THE AUTHOR. I cannot let this small romance go to press without prefacing it with a word of cordial thanks to Mr. P. G.... Read More

I John Fothergill West, student of law in the University of St. Andrews, have endeavoured in the ensuing pages to lay my statement before the public in a concise and business-like fashion. It is not my wish to achieve literary success, nor have I any desire by the graces of my style, or by the... Read More

It may be, my dear grandchildren, that at one time or another I have told you nearly all the incidents which have occurred during my adventurous life. To your father and to your mother, at least, I know that none of them are unfamiliar. Yet when I consider that time wears on, and that a... Read More

(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.) 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... Read More