'The Best of Sherlock Holmes' is a collection of twenty of the very best tales from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fifty-six short stories featuring the arch sleuth. Basing his selection around the author's own twelve personal favourites, David Stuart Davies has added a further eight sparkling stories to Conan Doyle's 'Baker Street Dozen', creating a unique volume which distils the pure essence of the world's most famous detective. Within these pages the reader will encounter the greatest collection of villains and the weirdest and most puzzling mysteries ever seen in print. And there at the centre, in a London swathed in eddies of fog and illuminated by gaslight, is to be found the remarkable character of Sherlock Holmes and his staunch companion, Doctor John H. Watson. Few will be able to resist this invitation to step aboard the waiting hansom cab and rattle off along cobbled streets into unimagined dangers and intrigues. AUTHOR: Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, (22 May 1859 7 July 1930) was an author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction, stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.