He is the most famous detective of all time. Though he never existed outside his creator's imagination, and his most recent adventures were dreamed up nearly a hundred years ago, Sherlock Holmes remains as popular, and as fascinating, now as he ever did. Now, in this beautiful and lavishly illustrated book, Daniel Smith explores Sherlock Holmes and his world in every engrossing respect.

Here, in a witty and informed text, are plot summaries of every single Sherlock Holmes story, in the order in which they were written, and with good-humoured and even waspish assessments of their relative merits. There are compact biographies of Holmes, Moriarty, Watson, and of course Conan Doyle - whose own life and earnest preoccupations remain of enduring interest. And there are many original interviews with some of the actors who've played Holmes, or written film or television scripts about him, over the years as well as a comprehensive chronology of all the (often unlikely) thespians to have attempted a portrayal of Holmes, from Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett to Stewart Granger, no less.

If you want to know all the different kinds of firearms ever toted by Holmes, or when he first took to sporting a deerstalker, or how often the examination of footprints facilitated the successful solution of a case, or when Roger Moore played Holmes or Robert Duvall Watson (and why), then this is the book for you. Illustrated. throughout with more than 150 pictures - half in full colour - ranging from period engravings, gorgeous theatre posters, and book jackets to modern-day location shots and film stills from TV adaptations, this is a compendious guide to all the stories, their author, and the enigmatic pipe-smoking creation at their heart.