This is a collection of five short stories: "The Sign of the Four", "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Ring of Thoth", "A Case of Identity", and "The Surgeon of Gaster Fell". The title is slightly misleading because two of the five stories do not involve Sherlock Holmes at all.

"The Ring of Thoth" is a story of Sosra, an Egyptian from the reign of "Tuthmosis", 1600 BCE. He discovered a way to live forever and regretted it. It is strangely narrated by Mr John Vansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147-A Gower Street, an Egyptologist.

"The Surgeon of Gaster Fell" is a strange and pointless story about a madman and his family living on Gaster Fell. It too is narrated by a man who happens upon their tragedy but is only tangentially involved in it.

I wonder if these strange narrative devices were popular at the time or just peculiar to ACD.

"The Sign of the Four" was the second of ACD's Sherlock Holmes mysteries. In it Holmes' address is given as 222 b Baker Street not 221b as it is generally known. In "A Scandal in Bohemia" Holmes landlady is Mrs Turner not the more well known Mrs Hudson.

"A Scandal in Bohemia" and "A Case of Identity" are short stories that were included in the original collection "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". They both take place after Watson has married and no longer lives with Holmes.

There is a remarkable similarity between the apartment of Thaddeus Sholto in "The Sign of the Four" and the study of James Upperton in "The Surgeon of Gaster Fell". It makes me wonder where ACD saw that room.

Sherlock frequently quotes things in other languages with no translation. I'm rather glad that authors don't do that anymore.

‘Le mauvais goût, mené au crime.’
Bad taste leads to crime’.
~Stendhal

"Il n'y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!"
"There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit."
~from "Les Maximes" by Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucald.

'Wir sind gewohnt das die Menschen verhoehnen was sie nicht verstehen.'
"We are used to seeing that Man despises what he doesn't comprehend." or
"We are accustomed to people who scoff at that which they do not understand."
~from Goethe's "Faust", Part I.

"Schade, dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf, denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff."
"Alas, that Nature made only one man of you, when there was material enough for a good man and a rogue."
~Goethe

There are many strange spelling and unfamiliar words in these old stories: clew for clue, hindoo for hindu, vagabone for vagabond, creasote for creosote, hookak for hookah.

This is a strange collection of worthwhile stories by a beloved author. ( )