The Sign of the Four
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
“When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must be the truth.”
The Sign of the Four is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
When an Englishwoman receives mysterious gifts of pearls and a letter promising to right wrongs done to her, she calls upon Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to investigate. The story is set in 1888. The Sign of the Four has a complex plot involving service in East India Company, India, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a stolen treasure, and a secret pact among four convicts ("the Four" of the title) and two corrupt prison guards. It presents the detective's drug habit and humanizes him in a way that had not been done in A Study in Scarlet. It also introduces Doctor Watson's future wife, Mary Morstan.
The novel first appeared in the February 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine as The Sign of the Four (five-word title), appearing in both London and Philadelphia. The British edition of the magazine originally sold for a shilling, and the American for 25 cents. Surviving copies are now worth several thousand dollars. Different editions over the years have varied between the two forms of the title, with most editions favoring the four-word form. The actual text in the novel nearly always uses "the Sign of the Four" (the five-word form) to describe the symbol in the story, although the four-word form is used twice by Jonathan Small in his narrative at the end of the story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Adaptations of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventures have been mounted in virtually every medium short of nude interpretive dance and have varied widely in quality, but this version of the second Holmes novel is outstanding. Reuniting the creative team that previously adapted The Hound of the Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet, this volume features all of the hallmarks of the original prose. and the visual translation is rich with Victorian period atmosphere. Culbard's animation background is evident in the clean and deceptively simple artwork. The adaptation also does justice to the complicated plot involving a secret born during the Indian Rebellion in 1857.The narrative is also notable in the Holmes oeuvre for featuring Watson confronting Holmes about the detective's cocaine habit (which Holmes claims keeps his mind sharp when his daily life becomes a bore), and the introduction of Mary Morstan, a client who comes to mean a great deal to Dr. Watson. A real treat in every way.
