The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Each year on the anniversary of her father’s mysterious disappearance ten years ago, Miss Mary Morstan has been receiving pearls, she knows not why or from whom. This time, her anonymous benefactor wanted to meet. In the letter, he promised to reveal the mystery and to “right the wrongs” against her. “If you distrust me,” he wrote, “bring two friends.” She brought Holmes and Watson. The ensuing investigation turns up a wronged woman, a stolen hoard of Indian treasure, a wooden-legged ruffian, a helpful dog, and a love affair.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859—1930) was born of Irish parentage in Edinburgh, educated at Stonyhurst and in Germany, and studied medicine at Edinburgh. Initial poverty as a young practitioner at Southsea and as an oculist in London coaxed him into authorship. His debut was a story in Chambers’s Journal (1879), and his first book introduced that prototype of the modern detective in fiction, the super-observant, deductive Sherlock Holmes. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were serialized in The Strand magazine (1891-98). Tiring of his detective over time, Doyle attempted to exterminate him in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894), but the clamor of his admirers forced him to resurrect Holmes for several further volumes (1903); his popularity has waned little since.

Conan Doyle set greater stock by his historical romances such as Micah Clarke (1887), The White Company (1890), Brigadier Gerard (1896) and Sir Nigel (1906) which have greater literary merit. Doyle being a keen boxer himself, Rodney Stone (1896) is one of his best novels. The Lost World (1912) and The Poison Belt (1913) are essays into the pseudo-scientifically fantastic.

He served as a physician in the South African war (1899-1902), and his pamphlet, The War in South Africa (1902), correcting enemy propaganda and justifying Britain’s action, earned him a knighthood in 1902. Later in life he became intensely interested in the occult and wrote six volumes on spiritualism, including a History of Spiritualism (1926).

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The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle