The Sign of Four - Softcover

Arthur Conan Doyle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551118378 ISBN 13: 9781551118376

Publisher: Broadview Press, 2010

Synopsis

Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes novel is both a detective story and an imperial romance. Ostensibly the story of Mary Morstan, a beautiful young woman enlisting the help of Holmes to find her vanished father and solve the mystery of her receipt of a perfect pearl on the same date each year, it gradually uncovers a tale of treachery and human greed. The action audaciously ranges from penal settlements on the Andaman Islands to the suburban comfort of South London, and from the opium-fuelled violence of Agra Fort during the Indian ‘Mutiny’ to the cocaine-induced contemplation of Holmes’ own Baker Street.

This Broadview Edition places Doyle’s tale in the cultural, political, and social contexts of late nineteenth-century colonialism and imperialism. The appendices provide a wealth of relevant extracts from hard-to-find sources, including official reports, memoirs, newspaper editorials, and anthropological studies.

About this title

From the Publisher:

"Barker adapts character voices adroitly, showing an especially uncanny ear for stuffed-shirt aristocrats."

About the Author:

Shafquat Towheed is a Lecturer in English at the Open University, UK.

About this edition

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1551118378
• ISBN 13: 9781551118376
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Shafquat Towheed