Arthur Conan Doyle 
Arthur Conan Doyle Collection 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A Study in Scarlet
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Sign of the Four


To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position.