When Sherlock Holmes met his demise in The Adventure of the Final Problem, published in 1893, the distress of the unsuspecting reading public was profound. For years fans showed no signs of letting Sherlock Homes lie down and die. Eventually, Doyle saw fit to continue his Holmes' canon and wrote a series of 13 short stories The Return of Sherlock Holmes published in 1905. The series begins, inevitably, with the shock re-appearance of the master detective in The Adventure of the Empty House.