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The Oxford Sherlock Holmes

Published by the Literary Agent on December 28, 2023

Setting aside for the moment the question of whether Holmes went to Oxford, or Cambridge, or both, the Oxford Sherlock Holmes has been my favourite annotated collection of the stories for many years.

Owen Dudley Edwards (General Editor) Edition

The original set of nine volumes, with Owen Dudley Edwards as the general editor, is not available new but second hand copies are still around.

Some of the volumes were republished later as paperbacks but not all nine volumes in this format – only A Study in Scarlet, The Adventures, The Memoirs, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return, The Valley of Fear, and The Case-Book.

To further confuse matters, some of the volumes are available in Amazon Kindle format, but again are hard to track down as they are not all marked out as part of the actual Oxford Sherlock Holmes collection on Amazon – you have to scan through the sample pages looking for the required details to confirm they’re the annotated versions.

To help, I have compiled the following list to help anyone trying to buy the set or add to their existing collection. But please take care if you order second-hand copies to stipulate that you require the Oxford Sherlock Holmes editions as these are the annotated versions. A well-meaning but unaware bookseller may send you another version without the detailed notes.  Those that are available are listed below and the links lead to them in the Amazon catalogue with the ISBN for books and ASIN for Kindle versions.

Darryl Jones (General Editor) Edition

In March this year, Oxford World Classics announced a new set of annotated versions to be published over the next year or so.

So far, three have been published, A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Return. The Adventures is due to be published next May and publication dates for the remaining five volumes are not yet available.

The following list will be updated with the remaining volumes when their publication dates are known.

  • Volume 1 – A Study in Scarlet
  • Volume 2 – The Sign of Four
    • Paperback not yet available
    • Kindle not yet available
  • Volume 3 – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
    • Paperback not yet available
    • Kindle not yet available
  • Volume 4 – The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
    • Paperback not yet available
    • Kindle not yet available
  • Volume 5 – The Hound of the Baskervilles
  • Volume 6 – The Return of Sherlock Holmes
  • Volume 7 – The Valley of Fear
    • Paperback not yet available
    • Kindle not yet available
  • Volume 8 – His Last Bow
    • Paperback not yet available
    • Kindle not yet available
  • Volume 9 – The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
    • Paperback not yet available
    • Kindle not yet available

There are, at present, no plans to produce hardback versions or a boxed set of all nine volumes.

If you want to read an interesting discussion about Holmes’ college years, please refer to Dorothy Sayers, Unpopular Opinions, pages 134-147.

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