The suggestion of the Editor of THE NATION that I should myself review in his paper the collected adventures of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, (*) which, it will be remembered, I was the first to lay before the public, comes at an opportune moment; for though I am a man of even temperament (save when the weather adversely affects my old wound) I am not one that can sit down under injustice, and in the matter of this book I feel that a grave wrong has been done to me. In order to explain just what this is I must take the public into my confidence in a way that only became necessary in the March of this year, when, as will be remembered, Inspector Lestrade fell off the pier at Southend while the tide was unfortunately out, and suffered a dislocation of the cervical vertebrae which has delayed, if not actually restricted, the memoirs which he had proposed to publish. In those memoirs, as I understand from his widow, he would have done me the justice which a mistaken sense of loyalty to my friend Mr. Holmes has hitherto prevented me doing to myself. In the course of my different narratives I have had occasion to refer from time to time to a medical practice which I had purchased at Paddington. The real truth about this practice has not yet come to light, for the various small deceptions in regard to it which I played upon my friend Holmes (always an easy man to deceive) have undoubtedly led both him and the public to suppose it other than it actually was. The truth which I am now at liberty to reveal is that the practice when I bought it consisted almost entirely of a Mrs. Withers, and that the surprising death of Mrs. Withers during my prolonged absence at Paisley in connection with the Syncopated Bacon Frauds left me with no means of subsistence other than an inadequate wound pension. In this predicament it was natural that I should. look about for some other source of income. I had always been fond of writing, and my descriptions of the Afghan Campaign as sent home in weekly letters to my Aunt Hester at Leamington, and by her submitted to the LEAMINGTON COURIER, had received considerable editorial commendation, although, owing to the exigencies of space and an unexpected local interest in some trouble at the gas-works, they had been denied actual publication. In the hope that my pen had not lost its cunning, I now decided to write out in narrative form some of the adventures in which my friend Holmes and I had participated, and submit them to one of the more popular monthly magazines. Of the instantaneous success of my venture into literature I need not now speak, for it is public knowledge. But the means by which this success was achieved has remained obscure until to-day, when, in the regrettable absence of Inspector Lestrade, it has at last fallen to me to reveal it. One of the most useful arts by which a writer may achieve his effects is the Art of Contrast. I remember that in my letters home during the Afghan Campaign (in which I received my wound) I often employed this art with telling effect; contrasting, for instance, the sublimities of the mountain scenery, by which we were surrounded on all sides, with the occasional inadequacies of the sanitary arrangements; and so forth. So, now, in my stories, I decided to heighten the effect by contrasting as sharply as possible the characters of Holmes and myself. Holmes is in many ways the most remarkable man I have met, but he was human. Humanum est errare, as my old Anatomy Lecturer used to say. Holmes was human enough to make mistakes, and human enough to resent their being found out. It became my habit, therefore, both in my personal relations with him, and in the narratives which I was putting before the public, to cover up, as far as possible, the very natural errors into which he fell, and to heighten the public appreciation of his amazing talent by contrasting it whenever possible with an assumed obtuseness of my own. It amuses me now to think how little he suspected this, just as it fills me with pride to think how greatly he, and through him the country, profited by it. For Holmes was an artist, and, above all, an artist must believe continuously in his own powers. Let me refer my readers to the story known as "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax." In this story, it will be remembered, I record how Holmes deduced from the appearance of my boots that I had just come back from a Turkish bath. It was a matter of habit with me by this time to admiringly admit the correctness of all his inductions, and to ask for the explanations which he was longing to give. The explanation in this case was that my boots were tied with an elaborate bow, such as only a bootmaker or a bath attendant would use; undoubtedly a keen piece of observation and an intelligent deduction. But he went on to say, "It is unlikely that it is the bootmaker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, what remains? The bath." Why, because one has a newish pair of boots, one should not buy a pair of slippers (as in fact I had been doing, having received a substantial cheque that morning from the Editor), why one should not even buy a second pair of boots, I do not know; but it was without difficulty, almost without conscious thought, that I replied, "Holmes, you are wonderful." It was on this same occasion that he deduced from the splashes on my left sleeve that I had sat on the left side of my hansom (which was true), and that therefore I must have had a companion (which was not true); for, like most men, I prefer to lean against the side of a cab rather than sit upright in the middle. But to have told Holmes so would have destroyed his confidence in himself, and to have told the public so would undoubtedly have detracted from the financial value of the stories. "Holmes," I said, again, "you are marvellous," and he never suspected otherwise.