The Great Keinplatz Experiment

The creator of Sherlock Holmes delves into the sphere of the supernatural and unexplained in a collection of chilling stories.

Mediums and mummies, séances and out-of-body experiences: they’re all here in tales penned by one of the masters of detective fiction, whose real-life efforts researching the paranormal made him a true believer in spiritualism. In “The Brown Hand,” a member of the Psychical Research Society proves the perfect relative to free his uncle, a celebrated surgeon, of the one-handed apparition that haunts him. The titular story tells the tale of a professor at the University of Keinplatz who hopes to take a man’s soul out of his body and put it back again, and the macabre fate that awaits him. In “Cyprian Overbeck Wells,” an aspiring writer gets a visit from the greatest masters of fiction in every age to assist him with his difficulties. And the execution of a criminal goes drastically wrong in the “Los Amigos Fiasco.” These stories and more will draw you into the most compelling mysteries of our earthly experience, and the world beyond it . . .

“Start a story by Conan Doyle and you cannot stop reading, whether you are ten or sixty.” —Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post columnist