His Last Bow
Mystery
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes, Book # 8
Feedbooks
1913
eBook
165
English
March 11, 2021 March 17, 2021
Beat the Backlist, Cloak and Dagger, Finishing The Series, The Backlist Reader, Virtual Mount TBR
His Last Bow is a collection of seven Sherlock Holmes stories (eight in American editions) by Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as the title of one of the stories in that collection. Originally published in 1917, it contains the various Holmes stories published between 1908 and 1913, as well as the one-off title story from 1917.
The collection was originally called Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes and did not contain the actual story His Last Bow, which appeared later, after the full-length The Valley of Fear was published. However later editions added it and changed the title. Some recent complete editions have restored the earlier title.
When the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes were published in the USA for the first time, the publishers believed "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" was too scandalous for the American public, since it dealt with the theme of adultery. As a result, this story was not published in the USA until many years later, when it was added to His Last Bow. Even today, most American editions of the canon include it with His Last Bow, while most British editions keep the story in its original place in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
About the book
Short review. Very short.
Eighth and penultimate book (thank God) dedicated to Sherlock Holmes. We are back to a collections of stories that, as you know, is not my forte and, unfortunately, the last one will be one, too (I already plan to take a lifetime to read it).
What I think
I still don’t understand the success of this series, I can’t seem to like it especially the collections of stories that I honestly don’t understand, but maybe it’s me since I don’t like “short stories”. But I must say that reading them one each day, I managed not to get bored while reading. Too bad that I had already read at least two of them. And I still don’t understand Moriarty… at this point I will never understand him.
I know that the book was written 100 years ago and I know that once upon a time, short stories were written to be published in newspapers so I cannot say anything about this method, since it was in a very different period from ours, but I still cannot understand why certain authors (and I’m talking about today) write short stories. Because they don’t give me anything, just frustration because the cases turn into nothing and I think they are missed books. As said, in this case I cannot refer to this fact since publishing was very different then, however I do not find a logical thread in Doyle’s novellas. Maybe it’s also the fact that every publishing house publishes stories how they want, because in different editions I have found the same stories and now I wonder if maybe I lost some novellas of great importance that maybe they made me understand why Moriarty is so important.
In conclusion, yes I’ll read the last one, I’m a masochist I know, but since Kindle unlimited has it, I’ll finish the series. But don’t expect so many stars.
