His last bow: Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle
Book Club
His last bow: Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
8 ways to start a deeper conversation.
Contains spoilers for the entire book.
Discussion topics
Topic 01 of 08
Wisteria Lodge
How does "Wisteria Lodge" turn a grotesque experience into a story about political exile and revenge?
Keep the conversation going
- What did you make of the Tiger of San Pedro and the household that hides him?
- Why does Holmes so enjoy competing with Inspector Baynes?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.
Discussion topics
How does "Wisteria Lodge" turn a grotesque experience into a story about political exile and revenge?
Keep the conversation going
- What did you make of the Tiger of San Pedro and the household that hides him?
- Why does Holmes so enjoy competing with Inspector Baynes?
What does "The Bruce-Partington Plans" show us about Mycroft and the work he does for the government?
Keep the conversation going
- How is a case about national secrets different from Holmes's usual private crimes?
- What does Holmes's pride in solving it tell you about him?
Why do Holmes and Watson risk their lives testing the poison in "The Devil's Foot", and what does it show about their friendship?
Keep the conversation going
- Was Holmes right to let Dr Sterndale go?
- How does the bleak Cornish setting shape the story?
What did you make of Mrs. Lucca and the secret life hidden in the lodging house in "The Red Circle"?
Keep the conversation going
- How does the story use messages in a window and the newspaper column to build suspense?
- Whose side are you on by the end?
Why is Lady Frances Carfax so easy to make vanish, as Holmes puts it, a drifting and friendless woman?
Keep the conversation going
- How did you respond to the race against the funeral at the end?
- What does Holmes's admission of his own mistake add to the story?
How did you feel about Holmes deceiving Watson into believing he was dying?
Keep the conversation going
- Was Holmes's explanation that Watson's face would have given him away a fair one?
- What does Culverton Smith's eagerness to watch Holmes die reveal?
Why do you think Doyle tells the final story in the third person rather than through Watson?
Keep the conversation going
- How did you feel seeing Holmes as an old man drawn out of retirement on the eve of the war?
- What does the closing talk of an east wind coming suggest about the world after 1914?
How do these later cases differ in mood from the earlier Holmes stories?
Keep the conversation going
- Which story in the collection would you give to someone who had never read Holmes?
- What did you make of the picture of Holmes in the preface, retired to keep bees on the Sussex Downs?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.