The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Oxford World’s Classics (2025)
The twelve stories that made him famous, and the place most people should start.
Holmes was made in the short story, in The Strand Magazine, so start with the twelve that did it.
You want to find out what the fuss is about, in one paperback, starting where the readers of The Strand started.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the first collection exactly as Conan Doyle published it — “A Scandal in Bohemia”, “The Red-Headed League”, “The Speckled Band” and the rest.
Changes: only the frame around it: Catherine Wynne’s introduction reads the stories through Conan Doyle’s medical training, with revised notes and a chronology.
Whose story is it?
Holmes’s, seen by a Watson who is still astonished by him.
How much time does it ask?
368 pages, twelve stories. Each one is a sitting.
Oxford World’s Classics, second edition, 9 October 2025 — introduction by Catherine Wynne.
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon · Read free — Project Gutenberg · Ebook — Kobo · Kindle — Amazon
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby · Find at your library — WorldCat
Common questions
Where should I start reading Sherlock Holmes?
With The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: twelve short stories, including A Scandal in Bohemia and The Speckled Band, each readable in a sitting. If you would rather have one complete novel, start with The Hound of the Baskervilles. Either is free at Project Gutenberg; Oxford World's Classics prints both with introductions and notes.
More versions: The Complete Novels and Stories, Bantam Classics (two volumes) · The Hound of the Baskervilles, Oxford World’s Classics (2023) · The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, ed. Leslie S. Klinger