"I never can resist a touch of the dramatic." The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is now best remembered for its concluding story in which the great detective appears to plunge to his death into the waters at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, locked in a struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. However, the collection also brings the reader back to the beginnings of Holmes' career, involving a mutiny at sea and a treasure hunt in a Sussex country house, and a first encounter with Holmes' older brother Mycroft, of whom Holmes says, "If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from any armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived". This collection includes some of the detective's greatest cases, such as 'Silver Blaze' and 'The Naval Treaty', and even one case which Holmes fails to solve. Edited with an introduction by Jarlath Killeen, this volume examines Holmes as a safeguard against social breakdown and chaos, as well as an agent of justice and goodness against the forces of evil. It also situates the collection in the growth of life writing in the period, and explores the ways in which Holmes became increasingly 'real' to readers as more details about his personality and biography are revealed in the stories. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Jarlath Killeen studied at Trinity College Dublin, and University College Dublin, writing his doctoral thesis on Catholicism in the work of Oscar Wilde. He has been a lecturer in English literature at University College Dublin, the University of Keele, and Trinity College Dublin, where he took up a position in the School of English in 2006. He has published extensively on Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and British and Irish Gothic literature and culture. Darryl Jones is Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin, where he teaches nineteenth-century literature and popular fiction. He has written and edited many works, including the Oxford World's Classics editions of M. R. James's Collected Ghost Stories (2013), Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic Tales (2018), H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (2017), and The Island of Doctor Moreau (2017).