Sherlock Holmes Short Stories Read Along!

[Bee]

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_St ... %27s_Thumb

Just went ahead and read the next one! So horrifying it needed a ghost or two, imo

Also I'm absolutely dying at the idea of a morning smoke consisting of the remains of the previous day's??

just reminding people that I've already read this one too so feel free to talk about it :)

oooh is that the one that's next?? i love this one but i still gotta reread it

Yes! :)

[InspectorCaracal]

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_St ... %27s_Thumb

Just went ahead and read the next one! So horrifying it needed a ghost or two, imo

Also I'm absolutely dying at the idea of a morning smoke consisting of the remains of the previous day's??

I think my favorite part of the morning smoke bit is this:

... all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece.

like just imagine Holmes after every pipe tapping it out onto the mantlepiece and meticulously gathering all the bits of half-used tobacco in the corner


This is also one of my favorite stories, altho not because of the mystery element - although the bit with the horse was nice - but because of the elements of Excitement and Danger, and because I always love the ones with intelligent and observant clients.

Fun fact: when I first read this story, I had no idea what fuller's earth was, and it was well before the Age of Wikipedia, so as I was unable to look it up, my impressionable young mind drew the completely wrong conclusion from there being a metallic substance on the press and determined that fuller's earth itself was metallic and involved in counterfeiting coinage.

[InspectorCaracal]

Oh yeah, the intro bit on The Engineer's Thumb is also an example of the pretty common "justification" preface, which I always used to just ignore but I enjoy much more now because - well, okay, so this is the bit

Of these the latter may have afforded a finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results.

There's a whole bunch of these, "this is not the most clever of cases but it was very Dramatic and would make for good reading", which is extremely funny because we get later context of Holmes complaining bitterly about how Watson always writes up the sensational and dramatic cases instead of the "instructive" ones, so you know Watson's putting these bits into these stories as a "yes, Holmes, it's another one of these, I know".

[Bee]

Oh yeah, the intro bit on The Engineer's Thumb is also an example of the pretty common "justification" preface, which I always used to just ignore but I enjoy much more now because - well, okay, so this is the bit

Of these the latter may have afforded a finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results.

There's a whole bunch of these, "this is not the most clever of cases but it was very Dramatic and would make for good reading", which is extremely funny because we get later context of Holmes complaining bitterly about how Watson always writes up the sensational and dramatic cases instead of the "instructive" ones, so you know Watson's putting these bits into these stories as a "yes, Holmes, it's another one of these, I know".

tldr they continue to be very very cute

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_St ... %27s_Thumb

Just went ahead and read the next one! So horrifying it needed a ghost or two, imo

Also I'm absolutely dying at the idea of a morning smoke consisting of the remains of the previous day's??

I think my favorite part of the morning smoke bit is this:

... all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece.

like just imagine Holmes after every pipe tapping it out onto the mantlepiece and meticulously gathering all the bits of half-used tobacco in the corner

imagine if he did that in the movies lmfao

This is also one of my favorite stories, altho not because of the mystery element - although the bit with the horse was nice - but because of the elements of Excitement and Danger, and because I always love the ones with intelligent and observant clients.

The bit with the horse was really nice!

Fun fact: when I first read this story, I had no idea what fuller's earth was, and it was well before the Age of Wikipedia, so as I was unable to look it up, my impressionable young mind drew the completely wrong conclusion from there being a metallic substance on the press and determined that fuller's earth itself was metallic and involved in counterfeiting coinage.

oh so like me not knowing until like college that mormons and freemasons are different things lol

[InspectorCaracal]

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_St ... %27s_Thumb

Just went ahead and read the next one! So horrifying it needed a ghost or two, imo

Also I'm absolutely dying at the idea of a morning smoke consisting of the remains of the previous day's??

I think my favorite part of the morning smoke bit is this:

... all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece.

like just imagine Holmes after every pipe tapping it out onto the mantlepiece and meticulously gathering all the bits of half-used tobacco in the corner

imagine if he did that in the movies lmfao

THAT'D BE SO GOOD LMAO

Fun fact: when I first read this story, I had no idea what fuller's earth was, and it was well before the Age of Wikipedia, so as I was unable to look it up, my impressionable young mind drew the completely wrong conclusion from there being a metallic substance on the press and determined that fuller's earth itself was metallic and involved in counterfeiting coinage.

oh so like me not knowing until like college that mormons and freemasons are different things lol

yes, EXACTLY that lol

[Bee]

Who feels up for discussing the next story next week?

[InspectorCaracal]

Who feels up for discussing the next story next week?

me me me

[thiskurt]

Who feels up for discussing the next story next week?

me me me

Where are we at, I think it's The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor?

[Bee]

Who feels up for discussing the next story next week?

me me me

Where are we at, I think it's The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor?

Indeed!

[thiskurt]

Let's start with this week's story. A bride eloping after the wedding is a fun little premise.

THE Lord St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this four-year-old drama.

Gossips is the right word, the London of the Holmes era seems very gossipy, sure these are crimes reported in the newspaper, but the way Watson describes the public perception of these events as they were reported makes me feel like the London public treated the news as the soap opera of its times.

"She brought, I understand, a considerable dowry?"

"A fair dowry. Not more, than is usual in my family."

"And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a fait accompli?"

"I really have made no inquiries on the subject."

"Very naturally not.["]

Money? Why I've never even heard of such a thing. I'm very rich, you see.

“I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination served to turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example.”

I.. don't even understand what finding a trout in the milk could even be evidence of, circumstantial or not.

I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a Minister in far gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes."

Based neo-imperialist take?

"Ah! Watson," said Holmes, smiling, "perhaps you would not be very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of fortune. I think that we may judge Lord St. Simon very mercifully, and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in the same position. Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings."

Awww.