Arthur Conan Doyle
13 books by Arthur Conan Doyle to read free, each with its best passages and lines, and the best quotes from all of them below.
Where to start
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
A famous detective investigates a mysterious and apparently supernatural threat to the heir of a wealthy Dartmoor estate.
59,832 words, about 4 hours
Then
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A Study in Scarlet
The self-declared world’s first consulting detective unravels a mysterious case of murder and revenge.
44,025 words, about 3 hours
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The world’s first consulting detective investigates a variety of intriguing cases in the first Holmes short story collection.
105,269 words, about 7 hours
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The Sign of the Four
An analytical detective is consulted by a young woman who has received a strange communication regarding her long-missing father and a mysterious treasure.
43,718 words, about 3 hours
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The Lost World
A team of scientists and adventurers explores a prehistoric land.
76,320 words, about 5 hours
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The Valley of Fear
The final novel in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series follows the eponymous hero as he investigates a Sussex murder seemingly connected with a secret society.
58,215 words, about 4 hours
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The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The world’s first consulting detective and his companion investigate further crimes and mysteries, culminating in a life-or-death struggle with an evil nemesis.
96,454 words, about 7 hours
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The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The world’s first consulting detective returns to London after having faked his death some years before, and investigates a series of baffling mysteries.
112,768 words, about 8 hours
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His Last Bow
The world’s first consulting detective and his faithful biographer tackle more mysterious cases.
59,605 words, about 4 hours
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The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
The world’s first consulting detective and his companion investigate further crimes and mysteries.
83,189 words, about 6 hours
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The White Company
A young English novice in the Middle Ages embarks on action-packed adventure as he joins a motley band of travelers seeking to join with a free company of archers.
151,315 words, about 11 hours
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The Maracot Deep
A scientific expedition stumbles upon the remnants of Atlantis.
41,715 words, about 3 hours
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Brigadier Gerard Stories
A gallant French cavalryman recounts his adventures in the Napoleonic Wars.
145,849 words, about 10 hours
Arthur Conan Doyle quotes
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.
Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self.
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.
“It was invisible, buried in the mud. I only saw it because I was looking for it.”
Even now, after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind.
No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She would have come.
I am accustomed to have mystery at one end of my cases, but to have it at both ends is too confusing.
It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern.
The task of the pioneer has always been to disprove the thing which has been clearly shown.
It is best to take no notice at these times, and then they put you down as a deaf man.
A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean.
I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.
I am lost without my Boswell.
You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.
But a sportin’ risk, young fellah, that’s the salt of existence.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius
“To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.”
Reading paths
- Detective fiction, from the start How the detective story was invented, one famous case at a time.
- English for learners: Intermediate Eight books for the reader who has the basics, easiest first: folk tales, Wilde, Sherlock Holmes, Dickens and the Panchatantra.