The Return of Sherlock Holmes, first published in 1905, was the first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories since The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893). In the last story of the memoirs, Conan Doyle had his hero die, which caused grief, outrage, and a desire for resurrection among Sherlock's large fanbase. The author could not permanently ignore this wish, and so he brings his hero back in the first story of this collection, set in 1894, three years after Holmes' literary death.

This edition contains German translations from the early 20th century that have been carefully standardized linguistically, along with the original illustrations by Sidney Paget.