Originally published in Great Britain in 1890 by the Walter Scott Company, Mysteries and Adventures collected together seven of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's earliest fictional works. Three years later, two international editions were issued and these featured five additional stories. Conan Doyle was not to profit from any of these ventures as, in order to have the stories carried by popular journals of the day, he had signed over all rights to their owners. Prior to their appearance in book form, several had been printed without credit and were not commonly known to be the work of Conan Doyle. The narratives in Mysteries and Adventures dance confidently across the genres, touching upon colonial life, political upheaval, the supernatural, romance and the furrow he would later plough to great acclaim, crime. These twelve entertaining tales plot Doyle's development from budding young writer to the great author that he quickly became.