The Man with the Twisted Lip

About The Man with the Twisted Lip

The case moves between different faces of the city, making social identity an unstable kind of evidence. Clothing, a letter, and the geography of a room receive careful scrutiny. Watson's accidental entry into the investigation preserves the surprise of a mystery in which respectable assumptions may obscure more than they explain.

Reading focus

Follow a disappearance across contrasting London settings, where appearances and social expectations complicate the meaning of a wife's apparently decisive sighting.

This reading edition contains 9,212 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.

Opening excerpt

Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George’s, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey’s description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in…

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