THE SIGN OF THE FOUR - Softcover

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345286170 ISBN 13: 9780345286178

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1979

Synopsis

The Sign of Four: As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who 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 - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her. And in the ensuing investigation - which involves a wronged woman, a stolen hoard of Indian treasure, a wooden-legged ruffian, a helpful dog and a love affair - even the jaded Holmes is moved to exclaim, 'Isn't it gorgeous!

About this title

Review:

In this erudite and provocative edition, Shafquat Towheed offers fans of both Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle an intricate account of the intertextual histories at the heart of The Sign of Four. Arguing for the inextricability of its colonial plots with its work as detective fiction, Towheed builds a persuasive case for The Sign of Four as Mutiny fiction, positioning it as pivotal to the imperial career of 'British' fiction per se. Readers of this edition will be gripped by the colonial pathways Towheed reveals, the politics of citation he uncovers, and the entanglement of home and empire he tracks in the making of the novel. This is postcolonial interpretation at its very best. --Antoinette Burton

Perhaps the greatest of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries is this: that when we talk of him we invariably fall into the fancy of his existence. --T. S. Eliot

Book Description:

Emmy award-winning actor Sir Derek Jacobi reads this full-length story featuring Holmes and Watson.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0345286170
• ISBN 13: 9780345286178
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback