Stories from the Archive of Dr. Watson

A few years ago, among the family documents of the Balmorals, several bundles of papers from Dr. Watson’s archive were discovered—the most interesting and important part of it. It consisted of letters and telegrams from Sherlock Holmes to the doctor for all the years of their acquaintance, as well as more than forty notebooks and 17 hefty volumes of the doctor’s notes, and even a collection of stories—retyped on a Remington and already prepared for publication.

Judging by everything, the stories were written by the doctor in the early 1920s, after his return from the army.

The existence of the notes had been known earlier: the doctor repeatedly mentioned them in his stories, and sometimes even quoted excerpts, as, for example, in the story about the hound of the Baskervilles. Now, however, the opportunity has arisen to read them in full and to determine the exact chronology of Holmes’s investigations; restore details omitted by the doctor, the original names changed by him; learn the circumstances of those cases that, in the stories, are mentioned only in passing about Sherlock Holmes—and even cases that were previously completely unknown. One might ask how much interest such a publication of these notes will present for the many fans of the great detective!