The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

(Book Report)

As a detective, Sherlock Holmes is widely known to the world. And even,

Holmes becomes a synonym for the brilliant detective in our daily life. Meanwhile, the creator of this attractive character, Arthur Conan Doyle, was also the teller of all the cases that Holmes was involved in. This teller of tales, who lived a respectable life based on his own persistence of chivalry seemed something of an enigma to his friends and to the public. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and opened a clinic in Portsmouth. Actually, he was a Medicine Doctor, and not

unsuccessful, but he preferred writing, and even gave up his medicine career. Before he decided to write a detective story in 1886, he had sold a few short stories.

In 1887, Conan Doyle finished his first significant work, A Study in Scarlet. It was the first time that the super-observant, deductive Sherlock Holmes and his

good-natured question-raising friend Dr. Watson were introduced to the world. And concurrently, Baker Street, where all the detection cases were associated with, and where the talented detective was said to live were known to the public. Conan Doyle produced a great deal of creative works throughout his magnificent life, including historical novels, science fiction stories, romances, plays, poetry and non-fiction. In all, Holmes appeared in fifty-six of his short stories and four of his novels. However, after The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was serialized in Strand Magazine, this great author became tired of his popular creation, and tried to kill off his hero in the fight against the main opponent, Professor Moriarty. But finally under the pressure from Holmes enthusiasts, Conan Doyle was compelled to revive him in 1903.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was written in1892. And it was consisted

of twelve short stories, which were named as ‘Scandal in Bohemia’’ The

Red-headed League”” A Case of Identity”” The Boscombe Valley Mystery”” The Five Orange Pips”” The Man with the Twisted Lip”” The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”” The Adventure of the Speckled Band”” The Adventure of the

Engineer's Thumb”” The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”” The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”” The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”. And all of the stories took place after Dr. Watson had gotten married and moved away from Baker Street. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes began with the story named “The Scandal in

Bohemia”. In this story, Dr. Watson pictured us a bachelor’s life in a detailed way. He described Holmes’s singular lifestyle of old books, the violin and cocaine, and his extraordinary powers of deduction and disguise as well. “The Scandal in Bohemia” was the story of how Holmes and Dr. Watson tried their best to get a photograph and compromising letters from the opera singer, named Irene Adler. And then, in “The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb”, while working for the secretive Colonel Stark, Holmes had to deal with the events that had led a hydraulic engineer to have his thumb chopped off. Next, in “The Five Orange Pips”, he exposed the plan that Ku Klux Klan members plotted to retrieve sensitive documents from the Openshaw

family. To make matters worse, Ku Klux Klan members were be ordered to kill all of the Openshaw family in the process if necessary. Finally, in “Silver Blaze”, Holmes and Watson had to succeed in finding the prized racehorse, Silver Blaze, whose trainer had been killed and whom the Dartmoor authorities had failed to find.

This collection of some of Holmes most fascinating cases included essential elements, like blackmail, murder and lost fortunes. And all the cases were

interconnected with Holmes’s characteristic lifestyle. Of course, Holmes solved nearly every case. Nevertheless, in each case he had to admit a failure. In stead of making Holmes like a loser, these failures added lots of humanities to the particularly unbeatable Holmes. In fact, he was a little rude, arrogant, unfriendly, even cold, and easily bored. But nobody minds, on the contrary people like him and some of the Holmes enthusiasts are keen on him so much so that make every effort to prove that he was a real man who existed in the human history but not a fictional character that

was made up by the author Conan Doyle. They keep a record of Holmes’s main activities according to the series of detective stories. Even in the early days, Conan Doyle received letters from readers who wanted to hire Holmes.

After finishing reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, I came to know why so many people are crazy about Holmes. He was quite good at searching for clues and recomposing them. Conan Doyle showed Holmes’s great observation at the beginning of A Scandal in Bohemia. He told us that Holmes even noticed the number of the steps which led up from the hall to his room. And Holmes emphasized that it was the great difference between” see” and “observe” that led to his point where Watson failed. In addition, what appeared to others as chaos, however, was a wealth of useful information to Holmes. He was fairly knowledgeable and famous for his logical reasoning. Eventually, almost all of the cases were solved in 221B Baker Street. Conan Doyle didn’t portray him as an all-rounder. He had many bad habits. Yet these disadvantages only made Holmes seem like a real man but not a fictional character. And still, he has charmed thousands of readers.

Holmes’s methods of detection impress me, and also, I have learned a lot from it. In fact, he often employed several connected principles which were based on his great observation. And this kind of deductive reasoning allowed Holmes to reveal the

pawnbroker’s former occupation, the carpenter on a ship in The Red-headed League. From that, I know that Holmes had accumulated a wealth of experience before he succeeded. So I think I shall learn accumulating knowledge in my daily life like him.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is really worth reading. Not only does the plots are so fantastic but it also offers us plenty of knowledge and experience. I like this book every much, for it exposes me to the most intriguing detective in the fictional world!

References

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

2. The Critical Thinking Co. ? Staff. "Sherlock Holmes: The Skill That Made

Him Famous!" October, 2005. 10 November 2009.

3. Arthur Conan Doyle - A Life (PEARSON) 10/07/2001

4. Radford, John (1999). The Intelligence of Sherlock Holmes and Other Three-pipe Problems Sigma Forlag

第二篇：book report of The Lady of the Camellias-茶花女的英文读后感(578字)

The Love between Marguerite and Armand

——The Lady of the Camellias

“The Lady of the Camellias” was written by Alexandre Dumas, fils. It’s a story of Marguerite Gautier, a young courtesan, in Paris in the mid 1800's; it’s a story of how she fell in love with a young man, Armand Duval, and then tried to escape from her questionable past; it’s a story of how she ended up returning to her former life and died painfully and lonely.

I had been thinking that it was Armand Duval’s father who strangled Marguerite’s love, while after reading the book I realized actually it was Armand’ s vanity and suspicion did it.

There are two ways in pursuing a courtesan: money and sentiment. Armand’s 8000 franc was absolutely insufficient. Therefore he could only use “sentiment” to pursue Marguerite. Finally after several years of effort, Armand not only made Marguerite his lover, but also won her true love.

A courtesan sells her body and soul for living, but she also has love which one is not willing to sell. Perhaps it is because she has seen too much hypocrisy that she treats love more carefully, and also longs for true love. When mistaking Armand’s admiration for the true love, Marguerite devoted all to him without hesitation.

However, Armand actually did not believe that a courtesan knew true love, therefore Armand sent Marguerite a letter asking for rupture just the third day after winning her heart. Whereas, when he realized that Marguerite, an attractive lover, could save face for him, for vanity he sent her a letter requesting forgiveness.

To Armand, it’s much more satisfying to possess a famous courtesan than to possess Marguerite's love. It means that what he wanted truly is the vanity of possessing a famous courtesan, not a woman's love.

True love sublimes human beings. Armand became even more degenerate, while Marguerite turned truly lofty. Armand enjoyed the vanity all day long. He never considered about giving Marguerite a normal life. In the light of his behavior, Armand’s love to Marguerite is not worth mentioning. On the contrary, Marguerite firmly abandoned his past, and turned over a new leaf.

Although they had lived a happy life, Armand never believed in his subconscious

that Marguerite was truly willing to escape from her past life. So when Marguerite left him and reluctantly returned to her former life because M. Duval, 's father, pled for her to leave Armand to save both Armand's reputation and that of his younger innocent sister, Armand denied Marguerite’s true love entirely and immediately. What is more pitiful, instead of thinking over why Marguerite left him unexpectedly and trying to retrieve Marguerite, Armand crudely and despicably carried on all sorts of shameless retaliation. Finally, Marguerite died in debt and basically lonely.

We cannot deny that Armand truly loved Marguerite. However, he never believed that Marguerite also truly loved him. He didn’t know how to love selflessly without receiving value in return.

Vanity may satisfy one who haven’t encountered with love, but once did, vanity may become vulgarly. So when Marguerite fell in love with Armand, she was eager to get rid of vanity, but Armand didn’t give her the chance. He just wanted to maintain the sumptuous life and enjoy being the envy of all the other men.

Marguerite is just like the camellia, she could never escape from the destiny of withering. But it wasn’t her fault; it’s because of the vanity of that society.