Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (great books for teens txt) 📖
- Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Book online «A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (great books for teens txt) 📖». Author Arthur Conan Doyle
1
Original Transcriber’s Note: This etext is prepared directly from an 1887 edition, and care has been taken to duplicate the original exactly, including typographical and punctuation vagaries.
Additions to the text include adding the underscore character to indicate italics, and textual end-notes in square braces.
Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: In reproofing and moving old PG files such as this to the present PG directory system it is the policy to reformat the text to conform to present PG Standards. In this case however, in consideration of the note above of the original transcriber describing his care to try to duplicate the original 1887 edition as to typography and punctuation vagaries, no changes have been made in the ascii text file. However, in the Latin-1 file and this html file, present standards are followed and the several French and Spanish words have been given their proper accents.
Part II, The Country of the Saints, deals much with the Mormon Church.
CONTENTS
A STUDY IN SCARLET.
PART I.
CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.
CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY [6]
CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.
CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.
CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
PART II. THE COUNTRY OF THE SAINTS
CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.
CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.
CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.
ORIGINAL TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
PART I.
(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.) 2
CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.
The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There
Comments (0)