14 h 11 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 14 h 11 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A locked room, a hidden motive, a sudden danger: where does the truth begin?
In The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories, editor Julian Hawthorne gathers short tales of crime, secrecy and detection. The English volume brings together stories from the nineteenth century and the years around it. A crime, a disappearance or a strange event opens the way into a puzzle, with a hidden truth waiting to be found.
Crime, atmosphere and the slow work of discovery give these tales their pull. The wider library groups stories by country and kind, tracing the growth of the puzzle story in English and other languages. Here, the English tradition takes shape beside the modern city, its police and newspaper accounts of crime. Read slowly, and let each mystery hold your attention.
What you’ll discover
- Locked rooms and secrets Enter tales where secrecy and hidden motives make the search for truth compelling.
- Crime and strange events Follow mysteries that begin with a crime, a disappearance or something difficult to explain.
- The roots of detection Explore the early puzzle story through tales chosen by a writer of detective fiction.
- An English atmosphere Discover a tradition where crime and atmosphere develop alongside city life and its police.
- One tale at a time Settle into an older pace, with room to pause between mysteries and consider each puzzle.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Sherlock Holmes, ghost stories told by lamplight, and puzzles touched with humor will love this anthology. It also suits anyone who likes a tale finished in one sitting.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A noisy night and a swarm of kittens
- Tricks, bets and a wife from nowhere
- Holmes reads a client from her sleeve
- A king, a photograph and the woman
- A pawnbroker, a will and a very odd job
- A wolf hunt where the quarry walks upright
- A king's minister and a joke that nearly hangs
- A pavilion in the dunes and a ring of enemies
- A dream that arrives on schedule
- Lighter tales of ransoms, pipes and stones
Who’s who
- Sherlock HolmesThe Baker Street detective who reads clients from their sleeves and boots and takes on cases that others find too small or too strange.
- Doctor WatsonHolmes's friend and chronicler, who sees everything and observes too little, and who tells the cases with warmth.
- Irene AdlerAn opera singer who holds a compromising photograph of the King of Bohemia and matches Holmes in quickness.
- Jabez WilsonA stout pawnbroker with fiery red hair who takes a well-paid job copying an encyclopedia and cannot guess why it was offered.
- Mary SutherlandA typist whose bridegroom disappears on the way to the church, and who stays faithful to him anyway.
- Frank CassilisA wandering camper who loves solitude and is drawn into a siege at a seaside pavilion by love for Clara Huddlestone.
- NorthmourThe handsome, dangerous owner of the pavilion, who hides a ruined banker and wants the banker's daughter as his price.
- Francis RavenA worn hostler who dreads his birthday because of a dream of a woman with a knife.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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25 languages, side by side
La biblioteca della serratura e della chiave: classici del mistero e storie di detective in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
La biblioteca della serratura e della chiave: classici del mistero e storie di detective
by Julian Hawthorne (a cura di)
Billiards seem to click in an empty room, a duke pays a false ransom, and Sherlock Holmes studies a sleeve.
Medium level5–10 hours to read2 languages
Impara una lingua con i classici di livello mediumSpagnoloFranceseTedescoItalianoGiapponesePortogheseIngleseCome misuriamo i livelli
Excellent
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Read free3 months free · cancel anytimeFree for 3 months, then 0,14 USD a dayCancel anytimeHow it works
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In short
What would you do if you heard a billiard game in a room too small to hold a table? A tired traveler in a crumbling Indian rest house asks himself exactly that, and his night of dread opens this book.
La biblioteca della serratura e della chiave: classici del mistero e storie di detective in breve
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 8 h 5 min6 h 25 min fast, 9 h 35 min slow
- Durata
- 115.200 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Medio longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A noisy night and a swarm of kittens
Kipling opens with two Indian tales that treat the supernatural as a puzzle about belief. In My Own True Ghost Story, the narrator reaches Katmal, a rotten old rest house kept by a bent and babbling servant. Rain, rattling palms and howling jackals do half the work.
That night he hears bearers set down three litters outside. Then comes a billiard ball rolling down a table, followed by the click of a cannon shot. The next room is far too small to hold a table, and he lies awake, afraid the players will ask him to keep score.
Free for 3 months · Cancel anytime
Hai guardato
Quale edizione fa per me
- 15-minute summary
- Le idee principali dell’intero libro in circa 15 minuti. Per un primo sguardo o per rinfrescare la memoria.
Dettagli
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 9 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cita questa edizione
The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lock-and-key-library-classic-mystery-and-detective-stories.
The lock and key library: Classic mystery and detective stories. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lock-and-key-library-classic-mystery-and-detective-stories
The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lock-and-key-library-classic-mystery-and-detective-stories.
@book{anonymous2026lock,
title = {The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lock-and-key-library-classic-mystery-and-detective-stories}
}
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Questions about La biblioteca della serratura e della chiave: classici del mistero e storie di detective
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What is The Lock and Key Library about?
It is a collection of mystery, detective and ghost stories gathered by Julian Hawthorne. The tales range from Kipling's Indian ghost stories to Sherlock Holmes cases, a siege on a Scottish beach, a dream that keeps its date, and several comic puzzles.
Which Sherlock Holmes stories are in this book?
It holds three Holmes cases by Arthur Conan Doyle: A Case of Identity, A Scandal in Bohemia and The Red-Headed League. Each is narrated by Doctor Watson and shows Holmes solving a puzzle from small clues.
Is The Lock and Key Library a single novel?
No. It is a collection of separate short stories by different writers, so each tale stands on its own. You can read them in order or pick one, and each can be finished in a single sitting.
The author
Julian Hawthorne
1846–1934 · American novelist and journalist
Julian Hawthorne was an American novelist and journalist, born in Boston in 1846. He was the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne. He wrote novels, short stories, biographies, and journalism. His novel Idolatry appeared in 1874. He lived in Europe and the United States and died in San Francisco in 1934.
More by Julian Hawthorne (a cura di)
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