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"Hound of the Baskervilles" (terrific, but read "Sign of Four" if you are only going to read one Holmes novel).


Absolutely. HOUND gets the lion's share of the limelight (possibly due to the film versions and its horror-ific overtones), but SIGN OF THE FOUR is the best of Doyle's four Holmes novels, and one of the better Holmes tales. With both Doyle and the writers who came after him, Holmes seems to shine the brightest in the short story format, compared to the novels.

I recently found an oversized paperback (about the same size as the Leonard Wolfe editions of DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, JEKYLL & HYDE and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) of Bram Stoker's THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS. This uses the original edition of the book, not the later edition in which Stoker revised the ending. (Although the more familiar ending is included as an appendix.)