Since Doyle created the immortal Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson, no other mystery writer has come close to eclipsing him as the standard bearer in crime fiction. A brilliant London-based “consulting detective,” Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess and renowned for his skillful use of astute observation, deductive reasoning, and inference to solve difficult cases. This collection includes twelve of Holmes’ most famous cases: “A Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Red-Headed League,” “A Case of Identity,” “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” “The Five Orange Pips,” “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” “The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb,” “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor,” “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet,” and “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a writer and physician most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, the first scientific detective, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. Before becoming a writer, he attended the University of Edinburgh to train as a physician, and it was from his teacher, Joseph Bell, that he learned much of what would inspire Holmes’s skills of deduction. He also wrote science fiction stories, historical novels, plays, romances, poetry, and nonfiction. After his son Kingsley died in the first World War, he became a convert to spiritualism and a social reformer who used his investigative skills to prove the innocence of individuals.
Ralph Cosham, a narrator with dozens of fine performances of British classics including The Wind in the Willows and The Time Machine, also records as Geoffrey Howard, whose long audiography of titles includes works by C.S. Lewis. Ralph, as Cosham or Howard, has performed more than 100 audiobooks while keeping an active stage career in regional theater. Changing careers from British journalist to actor in the 1970s, Ralph has been recording for nearly 15 years.