Sam Kusi

It has been three years since Sherlock Holmes fell to his death after a showdown with his brilliant enemy Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Believing his friend to be dead, Doctor John Watson has moved on with his life. That is, until he discovers Sherlock Holmes alive and in disguise one afternoon in a London shop. A whole new series of adventures awaits Holmes and Watson, and the consulting detective must use the science of deduction to solve new mysteries,...

The writer of several hundred stories and novels, English author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began his writing career in 1879. While he introduced the world to his most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, in the 1887 novel "A Study in Scarlet", it would not be until the 1891 publication of "A Scandal in Bohemia" that his illustrative career in writing would truly begin. With this Sherlock Holmes short story, the imagination of the reading public was instantly...

Themes: Adapted Classics, Low Level Classics, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Fiction, Tween, Teen, Young Adult, Chapter Book, Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Books, Hi-Lo Solutions, High-Low Books, Hi-Low Books, ELL, EL, ESL, Struggling Learner, Struggling Reader, Special Education, SPED, Newcomers, Reading, Learning, Education, Educational, Educational Books. Timeless Classics-designed for the struggling reader and adapted to retain the integrity of the original classic....

Dr. Watson is called to 221b Baker Street to check on Holmes, who is apparently dying of a rare Asian disease contracted while he was on a case. Watson is shocked, having heard nothing about his friend's illness. Mrs. Hudson says that he has neither eaten nor drunk anything in three days. Upon arriving, Watson finds Holmes in his bed looking very ill and gaunt indeed, and Holmes proceeds to make several odd demands of Watson. He is not to come near...

Holmes is visited by a perturbed proper English gentleman, John Scott Eccles, who wishes to discuss something "grotesque". No sooner has he arrived at 221B Baker Street than Inspector Gregson also shows up, along with Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary. They wish a statement from Eccles about the murder near Esher last night. A note in the dead man's pocket indicates that Eccles said that he would be at the victim's house that night. Eccles...

The monotony of thick smog-shrouded London is broken by a sudden visit from Holmes's brother Mycroft. He has come about some missing, secret submarine plans. Seven of the ten pages - three are still missing - were found with Arthur Cadogan West's body. He was a young clerk in a government office at Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, whose body was found next to the Underground tracks near the Aldgate tube station, his head crushed. He had little money with...

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", the only Holmes mystery set during the Christmas season, is the seventh story of twelve in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. During the festive season, newspapers report the theft of the near priceless jewel, The "Blue Carbuncle", from the hotel suite of the Countess of Morcar. John Horner, a plumber and a previously convicted felon, is soon arrested for the theft. When the Blue Carbuncle appears in a goose's...

"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", is the ninth of the twelve stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. A young London engineer, contracted to service a hydraulic press at a country house, discovers that the owner is using the machine for illegal purposes. After confronting the owner, the engineer narrowly escapes death and loses a thumb when the owner turns on him. Holmes deduces the actual use of the machine and sets off to bring...

In "A Case of Identity" Miss Mary Sutherland, a woman with a substantial income is engaged to a quiet Londoner who has recently disappeared. Of the fiancé, Mr. Hosmer Angel, Miss Sutherland only knows that he works in an office in Leadenhall Street. All his letters to her are typewritten, even the signature, and he insists that she write back to him through the local Post Office. The climax of the sad liaison comes when Mr. Angel abandons Miss Sutherland...

"If-" is a timeless classic, a masterpiece about keeping your balance in a topsy-turvy world and maintaining personal integrity. A phenomenal poem by English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), written circa 1895 as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson, it is a literary example of Victorian-era stoicism. Among other nuggets, it advocates the idea of not allowing your successes to go to your head or allowing your failures to go to your heart....