Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes with the "The Final Problem", published in 1893 but purportedly telling of events that happened in 1891. Doyle had to deal with regular requests from fans for more stories, which he resisted, but when Doyle set about pulling together some ideas for a story that would be a sort of revived homage to Victorian-era thrillers, Sherlock Holmes (prior to his demise) ended up being a good fit for drawing it all together, with The Hound of the Baskervilles as the result. The novel was a stunning success. A number of his works in the meantime, particularly his historical novels, had been moderately well regarded by critics, but nothing on the same level. So Doyle finally gave in, and brought back Holmes -- really this time, and not, as with Hound, simply going back in narrative time. Thirteen stories were serialized in monthly stories in Collier's and Strand Magazine beginning in September (Collier's) or October (Strand) of 1903. They were published as a book in 1905. The stories included in the collection are:
"The Adventure of the Empty House"
"The Adventure of the Norwood Builder"
"The Adventure of the Dancing Men"
"The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist"
"The Adventure of the Priory School"
"The Adventure of Black Peter"
"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton"
"The Adventure of the Six Napoleons"
"The Adventure of the Three Students"
"The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"
"The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter"
"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
"The Adventure of the Second Stain"
Since the last story puts Holmes into retirement, the work can be seen as Doyle's attempt to bring the Holmes stories to a close that would be more acceptable to fans of the character. If so, it was not particularly successful. Doyle's explanation for the Great Hiatus -- why Holmes simply vanished -- has also not always been found particularly convincing by readers, who in the Great Game have often tried to come up with better accounts -- the most extreme and interesting to think about probably being Charles Williams's suggestion (in a brief review of S. C. Roberts's Dr. Watson) that Sherlock Holmes in fact died at Reichenbach Falls and all of the return stories are really about Moriarty impersonating Holmes. While they usually do not speculate quite so boldly, Williams has not been the only reader to think that there is something different about Holmes post-Return, probably in part due to the fact that Doyle does a lot more experimenting after the Return.
While they are not generally as popular as the pre-Return stories, there have been quite a few adaptations of the tales in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, so I might listen to a radio adaptation of a couple or a few, as time permits, and perhaps even TV or movie adaptation, if any strikes my fancy.
