Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson appear in a second series of twelve intriguing cases. They include The Adventure of Silver Blaze, with the famous 'curious incident of the dog in the night-time'; The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, where guilt apparently points to a man with a smoking pistol in his hand; and The Adventure of the Crooked Man, the only story in which Holmes ever utters the word 'elementary'. The Memoirs close with Holmes's deadly encounter with the arch-criminal Moriarty in The Final Problem.

The stories in this volume were first published monthly in The Strand magazine (1892-1893). They are accompanied here by many of the original iconic illustrations of Sidney Paget.