Free public-domain audiobook
Listen to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a free audiobook on iPhone
You can listen to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle as a free audiobook on your iPhone. Because the book is in the public domain, you can download a free EPUB edition and have it read aloud with natural on-device voices - privately, offline, and without buying an audiobook.
Twelve self-contained cases narrated by Dr Watson, from "A Scandal in Bohemia" to "The Speckled Band." Because each story stands alone, the collection is ideal for short listening sessions - a complete mystery per sitting. Doyle’s plain, brisk prose is some of the most listenable in the canon.
Why The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is free to listen to
These stories were first published in 1891-1892 and are in the public domain. Free EPUB collections of the twelve Adventures are widely available.
Length: 12 standalone short stories; listen to one in a single sitting.
How to listen to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on iPhone
- Download a free public-domain EPUB of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks both offer one).
- Move the EPUB to your iPhone via AirDrop, iCloud Drive, email, or a direct download into Files.
- Open the EPUB in a reader app that reads text aloud, or use Apple's built-in Speak Screen to hear the open page.
- Choose a voice and press play. A reader that generates the voice on the device works offline, with nothing uploaded.
Questions & answers
Do I need to read Sherlock Holmes in order?
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve independent cases, so no reading order is required - you can listen to any story on its own. This makes it one of the best public-domain books for commutes or short breaks, since each mystery opens, unfolds, and resolves within a single sitting.
Is this the same as the Sherlock Holmes novels?
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a short-story collection, distinct from the four Holmes novels (such as A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles). All of the early Holmes work is public domain and free to download, but this volume specifically gathers the twelve short cases narrated by Dr Watson.