Mystery and Crime Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur: Illustrated Sherlock Holmes. v1, 1 Jan 09

[HarryT]

In this thread I'll upload, as I create them, fully illustrated versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Due to the size of illustrated books, I'll split it into the original books, rather than creating an "omnibus" edition, as I've done with the non-illustrated stories.

For the short stories, the illustrations are the original Sidney Paget illustrations, as published in the Strand Magazine for the original publication of the stories. These wonderful illustrations are "iconic" and form everyone's idea of what Sherlock Holmes "should" look like, as well as providing a superb illustration of Victorian life and dress, which is now lost to us.

This project will take me a while to complete, so please be patient!

The books are:

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with 104 illustrations by Sidney Paget (1892)

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[Jellby]

Excellent!

Where did you get the illustrations from? I guess they could probably be improved with some photoshop-like program, I could give it a try if you tell me where to get the "originals" from.

[HarryT]

I scanned them myself from various sources. Took forever to do. A few are available on the web, but I wanted the complete set, which doesn't seem to be.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I scanned them myself from various sources.

I see... do you keep higher-resolution scans? I'd like to try with them anyway.

[HarryT]

No; I scanned directly at 150dpi to (pretty much) match the resolution of the device. I'm reasonably happy with the way that most of them have come out. Remember that these are 1890s magazine illustrations, so the originals are not exactly "high quality"!

[Jellby]

OK, nevermind then. I was thinking of removing the letters from the back page that are sometimes visible, or the shadow of the book binding...

[Polyglot27]

Thanks for all the work Harry.
The way to attenuate the black letters on the other side appearing through a thin page is to put a sheet of black paper behind the page you are scanning. Of course the whites go a little grey, but that can be fixed with graphics software by increasing the brightness and contrast.

[nam11]

I'm new here and so far, the books that I have downloaded are by Harry. Thank you so much for your efforts. Love Sherlock Holmes and illustrated version is really a treat. Thanks again.

[ekaser]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No; I scanned directly at 150dpi to (pretty much) match the resolution of the device. I'm reasonably happy with the way that most of them have come out. Remember that these are 1890s magazine illustrations, so the originals are not exactly "high quality"!

Your copy of these Sidney Paget illustrations seems to be a bit different than mine (same illustrations, just different reproduction). I've scanned in the first 6 images from "A Scandal In Bohemia", at 150DPI. I didn't put any effort into hiding the bleed through from the backside, and I didn't play with the contrast any (either you lightened the contrast on yours, or your source copy is lighter than mine... my copy of the illustrations tend towards the dark side). Sometimes mine are larger (physically, not storage-wise) than yours, sometimes smaller. I didn't know what JPG compression value you used, so I just picked one (30) that seemed to result in acceptable appearance and small file size. My file sizes are roughly the same or smaller than yours.

Your images, while better contrast, are a bit blurry and show the 'interlace' pattern of the newspaper printing (which my don't seem to). I know that my copies could be improved a bit by playing with the contrast (I tried it on one, just to see).

Anyway, I'm attaching those first six images to this message (first time I've attached anything on MR, so hopefully it will work okay...) for you to see. If you'd like me to scan more in for you, I'll be glad to.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.