Classics Review: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is the fourth outing for the famed detective, a great installment with definite high points, but for me just not quite as irresistible as the classics in the preceding The Adventures of. The legend of Holmes grows, however, as we meet his smarter, older brother Mycroft (with a definite physical resemblance to Nero Wolfe), and we encounter Holmes' archenemy, Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime. But disappointing in that the Baker Street Irregulars fail to appear and Mrs. Hudson makes but a single entrance in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Still we learn more about Holmes as a person and he is still the center of it all, even acknowledging his mistakes and flaws and more human than at first. Conan Doyle's writing has grown since the earlier books and he's added more variety to his formula. Of course it doesn't really matter, at this point I have to read everything featuring Mr. Holmes. It's well known that Doyle had tired of his crowning creation (as did Agatha Christie with hers). The final story of this collection is the crucial confrontation of Holmes and Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes was followed some eight years later by The Hound of the Baskervilles. [4½★]
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