The Sign of the Four

Description

As a dense yellow fog swirls through London, Sherlock Holmes sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman, whose father vanished ten years before. The ensuing investigation involves a wronged woman, stolen Indian treasure, a helpful dog, and a love affair.

• A classic mystery involving a wronged woman, a stolen hoard of Indian treasure, a wooden-legged ruffian, a helpful dog, and a love affair
• A new edition of the second novel to feature Sherlock Holmes, in which almost all the elements now associated with the detective - a foggy and labyrinthine London, the emphasis on science, the drug use - are already present
• A pacy plot embedded in nineteenth-century cultural debates about imperialism, urbanization, scientific advance, and changing gender roles

New to this edition

• New critical notes elucidate the contemporary scientific and criminological contexts
• The updated bibliography encompasses the substantial expansion of Doyle studies in recent years
• A new introduction explores the novel's historical and literary context and contemporary developments in literary form

About the Author(s)

Arthur Conan Doyle

Edited by Prof Caroline Reitz, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Prof Darryl Jones, Professor of English, Trinity College Dublin

Caroline Reitz is Associate Professor of English literature at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York Graduate Center. She specializes in Victorian literature and culture as well as contemporary female detective fiction and is co-editor of Dickens Studies Annual. She is the author of Detecting the Nation: Fictions of Detection and the Imperial Venture (2004) and numerous journal articles and chapters.

Darryl Jones (General Editor) is Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin, where he teaches nineteenth-century literature and popular fiction. He is the author or editor of ten books, including the Oxford World Classics editions of M. R. James's Collected Ghost Stories, Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic Tales, H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds and The Island of Doctor Moreau, as well as Horror: A Very Short Introduction.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
Chronology
The Sign of the Four
Explanatory Notes