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- Herausgeber: A L Stringer
- Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
A valuable diamond has been stolen, and Holmes and Watson find themselves on a chase through the streets of London at Christmas as they search for clues.
This book is a graded reader. The story has been retold in modern English for students of English as a foreign / second language at intermediate level (CEFR B1) and younger native speakers.
Features
• Comprehension and vocabulary tasks
• Summary of the story
• Endnotes for difficult words, place names and cultural references
• Word list at the end of the book
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About graded readers
Graded readers help language learners improve their skills through reading for pleasure. They use grammar and vocabulary that are appropriate for learners at different levels.
Graded readers can help learners to
•
remember key vocabulary;
•
improve their understanding of grammar;
•
remember common phrases and expressions; and
•
enjoy great stories that would be too difficult to read in the original.
This graded reader is suitable for non-native learners of English at intermediate level (CEFR B1) and younger native speakers (US 6th grade). Stories at this level keep close to the original but are retold in modern English using high-frequency words. Less common words, place names, and points of cultural and historical interest are explained in the endnotes.
Features
•
Comprehension and vocabulary tasks
•
Summary of the story
•
Endnotes for difficult words, place names and cultural references
•
Word list at the end of the book
Introduction
The Blue Carbuncle
A valuable diamond has been stolen, which leads Holmes and Watson on a chase through the streets of London at Christmas as they search for clues.
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by the British author and former doctor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930). He lives in a flat in Baker Street, London with his friend Dr Watson. He works because he enjoys solving mysteries, rather than for money, and only investigates cases that he thinks are interesting. He is best known for his powers of logical reasoning, his ability to use disguises, and his forensic skills (he is the author of a book on different types of cigar ash). Conan Doyle once explained that Holmes was based on real doctors he had known when he was a medical student in the late 1870s.
Holmes is interesting because his personality has many contradictions. He is methodical in his work but untidy in his private life: he keeps his tobacco in the end of a slipper and rarely answers his letters. He is a man of science but also a heavy smoker. He is hard working when he is on a case, but when he has nothing to do, he is bored and lazy. He is an expert in certain fields related to his detective work, but completely ignorant about many other things. He once claimed that he didn’t know the Earth revolved around the Sun because it wasn’t relevant to his work. His interests are mostly intellectual, but he also plays the violin and is an expert at boxing and sword fighting.
Holmes is a loner and has no time for family, social life or romantic relationships. The only woman he admires is Irene Adler, and that is because she manages to outwit him;however, he is always charming to his female clients. As a person, he often seems unemotional and cold, ‘a thinking machine’, but he gets excited when he is in the middle of an investigation and he likes to show off his skills. He is particularly happy when he can solve a case that has defeated everybody else.
Doctor Watson
Most of the stories, including this one, are told by his friend Dr John Watson. Watson is an army doctor who was wounded in Afghanistan and sent back to England to recover. He meets Holmes when he is looking for a place to live and they agree to share a flat at 221B Baker Street. They become friends, and Watson eventually becomes an unofficial assistant to Holmes and writes up his cases. Watson later marries and moves out of Baker Street, but he stays in touch with Holmes (see A Scandal in Bohemia) and later, after his wife dies, he returns to share the Baker Street flat once again.
The Blue Carbuncle
I went to visit my friend Sherlock Holmes two days after Christmas and found him sitting on the sofa wearing a purple dressing-gown. His pipe was on the coffee table and a pile of newspapers was next to him. Beside the sofa was a wooden chair with a very dirty old hat hanging on the back. His magnifying glass[1] was lying nearby and I guessed he’d been studying the hat.
‘You’re busy,’ I said; ‘perhaps I’m disturbing you.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, looking at the old hat. ‘I’m glad to have a friend to discuss this with. It’s not a very important case, but there are some interesting points and we might learn something from it.’
I sat down in his chair and warmed my hands in front of the fire. The weather was very cold, and the windows were covered with ice. ‘I suppose that hat is a clue in some deadly crime that you’re trying to solve.’
‘No crime,’ said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. ‘Just one of those funny little incidents that happen in large cities, where so many people live together in a small space. Many problems are just strange without being criminal.’
‘That’s true,’ I agreed. ‘Our last case didn’t involve anyone breaking the law.’
