The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
by Julian Hawthorne (1846–1934)
- Free to read
- 8 hours to read
- 36 chapters
- Reading level: 6th grade
"The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English" edited by Julian Hawthorne is a collection of classic mystery and detective stories compiled in the early 20th century. This anthology features notable authors such as Rudyard Kipling, A. Conan Doyle, and Wilkie Collins, showcasing suspenseful tales that delve into crime, the supernatural, and the intricacies of human nature. The book offers a glimpse into the genre’s evolution, reflecting social conditions and the human psyche through its distinctive narratives. The opening of the anthology provides a vivid introduction to a spectral tale by Rudyard Kipling called "My Own True Ghost Story," where the protagonist encounters eerie happenings in a dilapidated dâk-bungalow in India. The protagonist narrates experiences filled with tension and atmospheric dread, detailing ghostly sounds and the unsettling presence of unseen entities during a stormy night. These initial sketches set the tone for the collection, weaving themes of fear, the unknown, and the human response to uncanny events, while establishing a sense of place and cultural backdrop essential to many of the stories included in the anthology.
- Fiction
- Short stories
- Detective and mystery stories, English
Read the opening
Chapter I
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen; but as a lover, he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing that a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
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About this edition
This free edition of The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English by Julian Hawthorne comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #2038, released 2005-06-04. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Short Stories, Crime, Thrillers and Mystery, British Literature.
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