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THE VALLEY OF FEAR
Arthur Conan Doyle
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2016
Life & Times section © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Gerard Cheshire asserts his moral right as author of the Life & Times section
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from
Collins English Dictionary
Cover by e-Digital Design
Cover image: Holmes uses his magnifying glass to help solve the mysterious events at Birlstone, Frank Wiles, The Strand Magazine, 1914 © Mary Evans Picture Library
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008166755
Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780008166762
Version: 2015-11-24
CONTENTS
PART 1: THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE
Chapter 2 - Sherlock Holmes Discourses
Chapter 3 - The Tragedy of Birlstone
Chapter 5 - The People of the Drama
Chapter 3 - Lodge 341, Vermissa
Chapter 4 - The Valley of Fear
Chapter 7 - The Trapping of Birdy Edwards
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and The Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to
