Southsea Stories and Beyond, the Complete Uncollected Stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.

(Note: The MUCH RARER AND COLLECTIBLE BLUE VERSION of this book in hardback is ONLY available at a special price of ?25 post-free in the UK from the publisher at www.lifeisamazing.co.uk. Amazon is unable to provide this rare blue edition)

While working as a GP in Portsmouth's seaside resort of Southsea between 1882 and 1890, young Arthur Conan Doyle produced short stories and novels at an astonishing rate.

Some of his anonymously-published tales were forgotten, only to be rediscovered around a century later in 1983. They are included here, along with more recent discoveries collected in book form for the very first time.

Conan Doyle wrote comedies, tragedies, horror, supernatural and earthbound mysteries, unlikely adventures from the outposts of Empire and much more besides. All became part of his story-telling palette.

In these pages you will meet a military medic, a super-shrewd observer of people, a terrified occupant of a lonely country house, a diamond thief, a masked visitor and many other characters imagined by Conan Doyle as he inched ever-closer to his greatest creation: Sherlock Holmes.

While many associate Holmes with London, this book reveals how the detective was initially conceived in Southsea - and why Portsmouth will forever be "Sherlock's home".