Orlando Pearson, Dr. Watson's successor as the assistant to Sherlock Holmes, was entrusted by the doctor with notes on cases too controversial to publish during Holmes's career.

The three complete stories in this volume were withheld respectively due to the threat they posed to national security, the disclosure of a scandal in a foreign Royal family, and the exposure of excessively close links between Government ministers and industry. Other stories, which are available online, highlighted such matters as Government failure to regulate the banks and some grotesque events in Camberwell.

It is obviously inconceivable that any of these issues could be of relevance in the better ordered 21st century, but these stories, freshly unearthed, provide a fascinating insight into some of the issues facing society at the turn of the 20th and right up to the early 1950's.