7In 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle decided to murder Sherlock Holmes, the most famous detective of all time. The sweeping success of the novels and stories published by The Strand Magazine did not allow him to focus on his historical novels. Thus, he wrote "The Final Problem", which closes this volume, with the intention of concluding this narrative cycle. Readers did not forgive him, and Doyle was forced to resurrect his already immortal character. The 12 stories collected in this volume form a diptych with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and contain many of the best moments of the so-called "Holmesian canon".