The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes contains Conan Doyle's last twelve stories about his great fictional detective. Compared with earlier collections these tales are darker, exploring such themes as treachery, mutilation and the terrible consequences of infidelity, and containing such gothic touches as a blood-sucking vampire and crypts at midnight.
With an Afterword by David Stuart Davies, a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and an authority on Sherlock Holmes. He has written the Afterwords for all the Collector's Library Holmes volumes.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859. He trained to be a doctor at Edinburgh University and eventually set up a medical practice in Southsea. During the quiet periods between patients, he turned his hand to writing, producing historical novels such as Micah Clarke and adventure yarns including The Lost World, as well as four novels and fifty-six stories involving his most celebrated creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Doyle was knighted in 1902. In later life he devoted much of his time to his belief in Spiritualism, using his writing and celebrity as a means of providing funds to support activities in this field. He died in 1930.