The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes facts for kids
Dust-jacket illustration of the first edition of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
|
|
| Author | Arthur Conan Doyle |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Sherlock Holmes |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | John Murray |
|
Publication date
|
1927 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 320 |
| Preceded by | His Last Bow |
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is the final set of twelve (out of a total of fifty-six) Sherlock Holmes short stories by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.
Title of collection
The first British edition of the collection, published by John Murray, and the first American edition, published by George H. Doran Co., were both published in June 1927. However, they had slightly different titles. The title of the British collection was The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (hyphenated "Case-Book"), whereas the title of the American edition was The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes ("Case Book" as two words).
Further confusing the issue of the title, some later publishers released the collection under the title The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes ("Casebook" as a single word).
Contents
The first edition of The Case-Book, published by John Murray in 1927, does not present the stories in the order in which they were published:
| Chapter | Story | First publication | Refs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Magazine(s) | |||
| 1 | "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" | 8 November 1924 | Collier's | |
| 2 | "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" | 16 October 1926 | Liberty | |
| 3 | "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" | October 1921 | The Strand Magazine | |
| 4 | "The Adventure of the Three Gables" | 18 September 1926 | Liberty | |
| 5 | "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" | January 1924 | The Strand Magazine Hearst's International |
|
| 6 | "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" | 25 October 1924 | Collier's | |
| 7 | "The Problem of Thor Bridge" | February–March 1922 | The Strand Magazine Hearst's International |
|
| 8 | "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" | March 1923 | The Strand Magazine Hearst's International |
|
| 9 | "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" | 27 November 1926 | Liberty | |
| 10 | "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" | 22 January 1927 | Liberty | |
| 11 | "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" | 5 March 1927 | Liberty | |
| 12 | "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman" | 18 December 1926 | Liberty | |
Copyright history and challenges
In the United States, two of the short stories from The Case-Book, "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" and "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place", were the last two Sherlock Holmes works by Doyle still protected by copyright. They entered the public domain on 1 January 2023, the year after the 95th anniversary of the stories' publication. The copyrights expired on 1 January 1981 in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. In the United Kingdom, its copyright was later revived in 1995, expiring again on 1 January 2001.
The Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. claimed they held the American copyrights. The company had a web page setting out its views about other claimants to those rights.
In 2013, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois handed down a ruling about copyright protection, not for the stories themselves, but for the characters of Holmes and Watson. The defendant in the case was Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. The plaintiff was well-known Sherlockian editor, and Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, Leslie S. Klinger. In the case of Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., the court ruled that the Holmes and Watson characters as described in the "story elements" that stem from most of the stories—those published before 1924—are in the public domain.
Adaptations
Some series have featured adaptations of all the stories in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, including the radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1930–1936) and the later radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939–1950). All but two of the stories in the collection were dramatised for radio as part of the BBC Sherlock Holmes 1952–1969 radio series.
The stories in the collection, except "The Blanched Soldier", "The Lion's Mane", and "The Retired Colourman", were adapted into episodes of the Granada television series (1984–1994). "The Mazarin Stone" and "The Three Garridebs" were combined for one episode, and elements of "The Veiled Lodger" were incorporated into the Granada adaptation of "The Noble Bachelor". The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes was adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 1994–1995 as part of the Sherlock Holmes 1989–1998 radio series. All the stories in the collection were adapted as episodes of the radio series The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2005–2016). Other adaptations of stories within the collection have also been produced.
