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    Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story: With Original Illustrations by Sidney Paget
    Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story: With Original Illustrations by Sidney Paget
    Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story: With Original Illustrations by Sidney Paget
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story: With Original Illustrations by Sidney Paget

    By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sidney Paget

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    About this ebook

    Set in the vast and rugged moorland of Dartmoor, this gripping short story follows Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as they attempt to discover the truth behind the disappearance of a phenomenal racehorse, Silver Blaze.

    When the prize-winning racehorse Silver Blaze goes missing the night before a big race, the stakes are high. The owner is offering a large reward for the horse's safe return, and the pressure is mounting. Working with his trusted companion, Doctor Watson, Sherlock Holmes heads to the Devonshire moors to investigate and discover the truth. As they delve deeper into the case, they face a series of challenges and obstacles that test their skills and ingenuity. From the elusive motives of the horse's owner to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance, the case is full of twists and turns.

    A masterful combination of mystery, suspense, and intrigue, ‘Silver Blaze’ is a classic example of detective fiction that keeps readers guessing until the very end. First published in 1893, this new edition features a specially commissioned introduction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMar 31, 2016
    ISBN9781473369399
    Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story: With Original Illustrations by Sidney Paget
    Author

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish writer and physician, most famous for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes and long-suffering sidekick Dr Watson. Conan Doyle was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.

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    Reviews for Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story

    4/5

    18 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      What little experience I have with horses helped me to appreciate this one more that I might have otherwise.
    • 4/5
      In this short story, Sherlock Holmes investigates the disappearance of a race horse and the murder of his trainer. The police have arrested a man for the murder, but Sherlock’s investigation points in an entirely different direction. He pieces together clues, including “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”, to find Silver Blaze and determine who murdered the trainer. It’s a well-constructed mystery. It’s easy to see how the seemingly trivial clues fit together once Holmes explains it, but nearly impossible to see before the explanation is given.

    Book preview

    Silver Blaze - A Sherlock Holmes Short Story - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    1.png

    SILVER BLAZE

    A SHERLOCK HOLMES

    SHORT STORY

    By

    ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

    With Original Illustrations by

    SIDNEY PAGET

    First published in 1893

    Copyright © 2023 Detective Fiction Classics

    This edition is published by Detective Fiction Classics,

    an imprint of Read & Co.

    This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

    way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available

    from the British Library.

    Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

    For more information visit

    www.readandcobooks.co.uk

    Contents

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    THE LEGACY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

    An Introduction

    SILVER BLAZE

    A Sherlock Holmes Short Story

    SOME PERSONALIA ABOUT MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

    An Article by Arthur Conan Doyle

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1859 to Charles and Mary Doyle. He was the eldest of nine siblings, seven of whom reached adulthood. His mother was effectively a single parent for the majority of his childhood due to his father’s struggle with alcoholism. In 1864, the family were separated, and Conan Doyle lived with a family friend for three years. When he was reunited with his parents and siblings, they lived in three squalid tenement flats. With the support of his extended family, he was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in England at the age of nine before moving to Austria at 16 to complete his education. Despite attending Catholic schools, he later rejected the faith and described himself as agnostic.

    Between 1876 and 1881, Conan Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. While studying, he began writing short stories. His first piece, ‘The Mystery of Sasassa Valley’ (1879), was published in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal before he was 20. He also met the man who would later become the inspiration for his remarkable character Sherlock Holmes. Doctor Joseph Bell was a highly observant man whose powerful skills of deduction influenced the fictional detective’s unparalleled attention to detail.

    Graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery in 1881, Conan Doyle went on to work onboard the SS Mayumba as the ship’s surgeon. He then completed his Doctor of Medicine degree and moved to Plymouth to practice medicine in 1882. Settling in Southsea, he opened an independent medical practice and began writing in between seeing patients. It was here that he fell in love with Louisa Hawkins, and the pair married in 1885. They went on to have two children, Mary Louise (1889–1976) and Arthur Alleyne Kingsley (1892–1918).

    After several unsuccessful attempts to get his fiction published, Conan Doyle’s first significant work, A Study in Scarlet, was printed in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887. The novel is the first instalment in the Sherlock Holmes series and introduces the detective and his loyal confidant, Doctor John Watson. When he began to write short Holmes stories for The Strand Magazine in 1891, his writing career took off, and he abandoned his medical practices.

    The Sherlock Holmes stories were a commercial triumph, garnering an international following. Despite being one of the best-paid authors of the time, Conan Doyle wanted to write less of the detective’s adventures so he could focus on the work he truly enjoyed: historical fiction. He attempted to end Holmes’ narrative on multiple occasions, but both the fans and the publishers demanded more. The beloved character features in a total of 56 short stories and four novels, including Conan Doyle’s magnum opus, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902).

    Aside from his fiction, Conan Doyle was also a passionate political campaigner. A pamphlet he published in 1902 defending the United Kingdom’s much-criticised role in the Boer War is seen as a major contributor to his receiving of a knighthood later that same year.

    Since rejecting his Catholic upbringing, the author turned to mystic spiritualism. He developed a close friendship with the American escape artist Harry Houdini before the two had a public falling out in 1922 when the magician publicly declared his disbelief in spiritualism.

    Conan Doyle’s first wife passed away in 1906 after battling tuberculosis. The following year, he married his close friend, Jean Elizabeth Leckie, who shared his spiritual interests and was a self-proclaimed psychic medium. They had three children together, Denis Percy Stewart (1909–1955), Adrian Malcolm (1910–1970), and Jean Lena Annette (1912–1997).

    In the last years of his life, Conan Doyle dedicated most of his time to preaching the spiritualist movement. Travelling Australia, Northern America, and Europe, he gave a series of lectures on the subject. In 1925, he opened The Physic Bookshop dedicated to spiritualism in London. Having published the final volume of Holmes stories in 1927, Conan Doyle

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