“You realize this doesn’t happen in the books, don’t you, Holmes?”
Books are wonderful things. They can teach us, inspire us, make us happy, sad, or very, very…aggravated. They take us to places we could never travel in real life, either because we lack the means–or because they do not actually exist. Books are a bridge to the countless people who have gone before us–and our own connection to the descendants we can only imagine. Through print, we reach out with ideas, stories, emotions, in hopes that, with the reader as our collaborator, we can create something meaningful. Yes, books are wonderful things.
But dang, can they be expensive!
Face it, most of us can’t just stop and buy a book just because we need or wish to read it. Landlords frown at that sort of devil-may-care spending. Nor can we count on our local library to have the book we want when we want it.* Fortunately, however, many beneficent folks around the internet realize this, and have digitized hundreds of works no longer bound by copyright. So if you’ve been prevented from reading the original Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, here’s where you can find them online:
Stories:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes–http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes–http://www.gutenberg.org/files/834/834-h/834-h.htm
The Return of Sherlock Holmes–http://www.gutenberg.org/files/108/108-h/1tm08-h.htm
His Last Bow–sherlock-holm.es/stories/pdf/a4/1-sided/lstb.pdf
The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes--http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/c00012.html
Novels:
A Study in Scarlet–http://www.gutenberg.org/files/244/244-h/244-h.htm
The Sign of [the] Four–http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2097
The Hound of the Baskervilles–http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2852
The Valley of Fear–http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3289
If you notice, all but one of these links is from Project Gutenberg, and if you notice further, Project Gutenberg has a “Donate” button; if you have the means and feel so inclined, I’m sure they would be appreciative.
I knew I should have brought a book….
Footnotes:
*Or we may have fines. Lots and lots of fines. Thanks, son.
The Well-Read Sherlockian 