Conclusion

Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty plunged over the Reichenbach Falls in The Final Problem (FINA), the twenty-sixth story. What we read about the post-Reichenbach Holmes is that he had “never been the same man afterwards” (Stashower 1999, 443). Actually the very first story written after Holmes and Moriarty went over the falls was The Hound of the Baskervilles (HOUN). It is the most famous Holmes tale, and it is always rated as the very best one too. The next three stories, The Empty House (EMPT), The Norwood Builder (NORW), and The Dancing Men (DANC) are all rated fairly well. So Conan Doyle gets to the halfway point quite strongly (DANC is the thirtieth story). But soon the quality drops off. The fifty-six Holmes short stories have been rated several times (Bigelow 1993, 130–138). It is revealing to compare the first thirty stories with the last thirty. Here are the results from the 1959 ratings done by readers of The Baker Street Journal. Eight of the ten stories on the “best” list are from the first half of the Canon. Only two later stories make the list. The “worst” list is just the reverse. Nine of the ten stories are from the second half; eight of the tales on the worst list are from the last twelve stories that Conan Doyle wrote, between 1921 and 1927. Even Conan Doyle himself agreed with this. In 1927, he listed his twelve favorite short stories and later added his next seven. Conan Doyle’s list has fifteen early stories and four late ones. . . . Arthur Conan Doyle’s Favorite Holmes Short Stories SPEC (10), REDH (4), DANC (30), FINA (26), SCAN (3), EMPT (28), FIVE (7), SECO (40), DEVI (43), PRIO (32), MUSG (20), REIG (21), SILV (15), BRUC (42), CROO (22), TWIS (8), GREE (24), RESI (23), NAVA (25) . . . When the four long stories are included, not much changes. Generally HOUN displaces The Speckled Band (SPEC) as number one. But the later stories still fare poorly. One of the second-half tales that is always rated high is The Bruce Partington Plans (BRUC).