11. The Hound of the Baskervilles: Mystery, Folklore, and Sherlock Holmes

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“Cried homes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol.”

Look out, it's coming! I was at homesizelbo, and I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement. At the same instant, the Strat gave a yellow terror, and threw himself face downwards upon the ground.

I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol. My mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape, which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth. Its eyes glowed with a smoldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and jolab were outlined in flickering flame.

Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish, be conceived,

than that dark form and savage face, which broke upon us out of the wall of fog. So hello everybody, what a tremendous reading and done I have to say into great pressure as a savage face was staring at me from my screen. The savage face of Sherlock Holmes. Exactly of Sherlock Holmes, yeah. So that was the hound of the Basqueville's.

It's one of the most celebrated scenes in all popular literature at the moment that Holmes and Watson confronts the eponymous hound of the Basqueville's. Written of course by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was first serialized in the Strand magazine in 1911 and 1902 and then was published as a novel.

“And tabby it's by far the best known Sherlock Holmes story, isn't it?”

Arguably the most famous of all detective stories. I mean I definitely say so. Lamond ranked it as the 44th best book of the century. And that's two places ahead of great Gatsby, the great Gatsby, and 14 ahead of the Lord of the Rings. Shocking, tragic.

I think we both like the head of the Basqueville's but we like the Lord of the Rings more than we. Yeah, yeah. I mean it's a win-win really in my book. Yeah.

So I first read it when I was about nine and I remember it very well because it was on a family holiday.

And I remember being totally enthralled by it. But also very genuinely very frightened by it. I remember I had to have a nightlight on because I was really spooked out. I found it such a joy to reread. I would hope that my tube would carry on so that I didn't have to stop and get off and stop reading.

It's such a page-turner. Yeah, no, it's a great book. I think it's a wonderful book. I don't think anyone listening to this will be surprised by saying this because it's a book that people feel very fondly about. Yeah.

I think it's the combination. I know we've talked about this, the combination of the coosiness of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the familiarity, the formula, the fact that we're in safe hands with them. But also as you say, the supernatural sort of horrific mystery of the hound on the moors. I mean that's something that really sticks in your mind.

There's more action in this than actually bothering heights. There is. Yeah. Much, much more. So for people who haven't read the hound of the basketballs and are sort of puzzled why we're so enthusiastic about it.

We'll give a bit of the plot when we won't give the end away. We are going to be incredibly disciplined in this podcast and not talk about the villain too much. We will not be revealing the identity of the murderer. Yeah. So no spoilers for those who will be reading in the future.

So we open far from these kind of creepy moors. We open in a reassuringly familiar scene and that is 221B Baker Street, of course,

as always, where the great Victorian detective Sherlock Holmes is in conversation with

his loyal friend, flatmate, chronic clur, helpmate, Dr. Watson. And so, I mean, everyone has heard of Sherlock Holmes, everyone knows about Sherlock Holmes. But he is the most brilliant detective of his age. He's a genius, he's eccentric. And he has a kind of endearingly selective knowledge.

So he knows everything about the different types of tobacco ash. But he doesn't know, didn't know, for instance, that planets revolve around the sun.

“Stuff like that, which I think is so such a clever little detail.”

And then, Dr. Watson is the guy who narrates the story. And Dr. Watson was a former British Army surgeon injured during Afghan wars who goes to British Sherlock Holmes at 21B Baker Street. And the two friends are in conversation at breakfast. Holmes is putting Watson through this kind of slightly patronizing test to see if he's kind of assimilated

And Watson is trying to analyse the character of a mysterious doctor who's called earlier that day. Purely by studying his walking stick. And he does this pretty well.

“But you know, not even nearly well enough to please Holmes, who then kind of blows him out the water with his own”

takes or conclusions. Holmes is unbelievably condescending, isn't he? Yeah. So Watson is being embarrassed, isn't he? Because Holmes has made a fool of him.

But that's basically set the tone perfectly.

It's reminded us of the dynamic between them. Because as we shall discuss, there has been a bit of a hiatus in the Sherlock Holmes Cannot say this is the return of Sherlock Holmes after a long absence. And it is just classic Sherlock Holmes. Like it's everything you expect.

Like the condescension, the way the Sherlock Holmes like picks extraordinary details out the no one else, humanly would be able to. There's even a violin. It's just fantastic. So that has set the scene very nicely for the arrival of this guy.

This anxious visitor who has come to consult the one man in London. The top consulting detective not just in Britain but in the world. Who can solve this most serious and extraordinary problem. And this is, he turns out to be a doctor. And he's from Dartmoor and he is Dr. Mortimer.

And Dr. Mortimer has come to see Holmes because his friends,

Sir Charles Baskerville, has been found dead on the grounds of his estate, Baskerville Hall, on the sort of fog read moors of Devon. And Dr. Mortimer says, you know, in the newspapers, it was reported as just he died of natural causes. But something weird has been going on.

My friend was running away from his house towards the moors, which seems weird. And on his face was an expression of perfect fear. And around him there were these footprints. And this is one of the most famous passages in the book tab.

“So the great dramatic performer would you like to read this excellent passage?”

So it's this. It's so good. It's so good. And just literal chills. Footprints? Footprints? A man or a woman's? Dr. Mortimer looks strangely at us for an instant. And his voice sank almost to a whisper.

She answered Mr. Holmes. They were the footprints of a gigantic hound. A gigantic hound. Wow. So the guy who wrote the French Lieutenant's woman, John Folls, great novelist. He said that the title of the next chapter, which is the problem, must be the least read chapter title in all literature.

Because basically, people are so desperate to skip on to find out what happens next. So they ignore the heading of the top and they move straight onto the text. And you are. I mean, when you see that, the footprints of a gigantic hound. You are hooked because it's the perfect. It's one of the things about the Sherlock Holmes story.

There's always this element of the weird and the kind of a possibility of the supernatural or something utterly inexplicable.

That's the hook that draws you in. Even at this moment, you know, the cogs are turning in Holmes's might and he's probably figured it all out. Yeah. Because we haven't.

“So then after this, Mortimer gives him this manuscript.”

And we learn about the curse of the basketballs. And this is a legend surrounding the family and question of the Charles basketball. In which an ancestor Hugo basketball was murdered by a gigantic hellhound who kind of came for him, after so Hugo himself committed kind of a terrible crime against a young maiden. And the curse is said to have dogged the bass.

Thank you. Do you notice that? Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. I'm here for a reason. It's said to have haunted every basketball ever since. With several members of the family dying under strange circumstances.

And so Charles lived in fear of this. He was terrified of them all. And then we are introduced to his nephew and heir. So Henry basketball, who in a very, very classic Sherlock Holmes way, has traveled from America to take up his fortune in his estate.

And he's high find him quite an amusing character. He's got a sturdy man with a pugnacious face, but a lot brave and practical. And there's this really funny moment when he and Watson, have to rush out to confront a terrifying murderer living wild on the moans.

And he's armed with nothing more than a riding crop. But that's because he's a hearty sort of stalwart soul who's been in North America. Hasn't he's been in the US and in Canada. Yes.

And so he's another, as you said, he's a very familiar figure in the sort of, South Korean and Doyle world of the sort of, the guy who's gone out to the British Empire or to, you know, similar parts. And has been outdoors, he's got a ready face.

He's like a man's man. He's, he's, he's young and he's vigorous and all of this kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. But because of this, because he's young and vigorous, he is determined to live in the hall,

despite the warnings, despite the curse,

But then while still in London, mysterious things start happening.

“He sent this warning with words cut out from yesterday.”

He's out from yesterday's times, without only the word more written in ink in it, as you value a life or your reason, keep away from the more. And then his boot mysteriously disappears from his hotel.

And you love this detail, don't you? Yeah. This is the best part for you. But again, that's the kind of really weird bizarre detail that sticks in your mind.

So when you first read this as a child,

so I read this when I was, I don't know, 10 or 11 or something. And it's sort of, I sort of a bridged kid's version. And it really stuck in my mind that his boot had been stolen. Who would steal one boot?

Now, what we find out the reason later on, of course, this is the kind of detail that Sherlock Holmes loves. Yes. Because he's able to now create the sort of put the puzzle together with the missing boot and the words cut out of the times

and the mysterious hellhound and the curse and all of this kind of thing. But interestingly, at this point, Watson says, "Well, I'm going to go off to Dartmole with Sahenry to find out what's going on." But Sherlock Holmes doesn't go because there's a big blackmail case in London.

And he has to stay behind and deal with that. So homes are hero. It's taken out of the narrative, isn't he? Yeah, it's left to Watson to help Sahenry and kind of solve the case and report back to Holmes everything that he witnesses.

But they arrive now at the mall and the house. And this is really when we get into this kind of gothic, creepy, supernatural part of the book. Because it's a really gloomy, desolate place. Anyway, while they encounter a cast of characters who all kind of turn out to be suspects to some degree or another.

So there's the Hall's Servants, the Barrymore's. It turns out that Mrs Barrymore's brother is this terrifying convict that's been on the loose and he's hiding on the more. And the Barrymore's are kind of protecting him.

“Do you know what you're not mentioning about the Barrymore's?”

Oh, wait, let me guess. I know you know, and you're not saying it just to be difficult. I've played Frank Barrymore in our sister podcast, Sherlock and K. Yeah, it was a great performance. I'm the underkeeper.

I was so hoping this wouldn't come up. Well, it has. Yeah. Okay, so that's the least interesting thing about the Barrymore's. Thank you, Dominic.

But it's really interesting because this is murderer being on the loose. Kind of a red herring because we're kind of, at some point or another kind of. Encourage to think of him as maybe a suspect is maybe like a force of danger, but actually not so. Or perhaps so anyway, then there's that there's naturalist Jack Stapleton. Yeah.

And his parents is oddly familiar. But he has and he's obsessed with catching butterflies in the net. And he has a beautiful sister, Barrymore, with whom a Sahenry quickly becomes infatuated. And Stapleton, her brother, is furious about this. Disproportionally, really.

Yeah.

And what's in kind of dislikes him from the first and and there's a lot of stuff about people's features in this.

The way your face looks, the way your skull is shaped whatever says a lot about who you are.

“And then Stapleton's sister, the one that Sahenry's kind of.”

Infatuated with, is secretly warning Sahenry in Watson to get back to the safety of London. You know, there's danger here. And then there's another character Mrs. Laura Lyons. She's a woman abandoned by her husband, but she's also entangled in some way with the dead's child. And this is Stanton.

We don't know why. So they're there with this strange sort of cast of characters. There's all kinds of strange howling on the moors, eerie kind of night time house. It's genuinely creepy to howling. It is creepy.

Completely. Yeah. Watson is reporting back all the time. He's clues to Holmes in London. And then they find this another man.

There's a strange man on the moors. And they spot him, don't they? Or there's reports of him in the distance. In the moonlight, his silhouette. This sort of long, lean figure.

Amazingly tabby. This turns out to be now. But you didn't guess this when you first read it. It's Sherlock Holmes. Yeah.

Of all people. Thrawnry. So he's been here all along. Solving the case under our very noses. And Paul Watson, who's been kind of writing.

And you know, large portions of the book of Watson's kind of journal. And Watson who's been sending him these long, painstaking letters with every duty for the case.

Turns out like never read them.

Holmes had it in hand all along. Poor Watson. This is like me doing my own notes for these episodes. And then it turns out that you've actually been doing them all along. I know.

I know it's always too sad. So Holmes says to Watson, you know, I know what's going on here. It's murder Watson. Refined, cold, blooded, deliberate murder. And then they hear the sound one night.

They hear the terrifying howl. They hear a man screaming. Yeah. Even Holmes, the great man of iron. You know, with his kind of iron will.

And rational mind. Yeah, he's shaken to his very soul.

Well, if you want to find out who the victim is.

The truth behind the hound. All of this kind of thing. We will come to this one. We will be exploring the story behind the hound of the basketball. We will.

And that, and particularly, there's going to be a lot of stuff. We're not the with a book club, not the kennel club. But there's a lot of stuff about dogs. You don't have a lot of dog-based canine research, Terry. Yeah, exactly.

We hope he's gets sponsored from crafts at some point. No. No, dead dogs. Actually, there are dogs in this. I take that back in time.

It wouldn't really, the book club without dead dogs. Without dead dogs, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. So put this into some context.

Because obviously, it's a product of the late Victorian Bodian period. It's a wonderful kind of period. He's the great window into the anxieties of the age and more. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, one of the great celebrities of the day.

“He is a tremendous, tremendous character, isn't he?”

He absolutely is. He's got a very striking face. He looks just as you would hope the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes would look. But he was born in Edinburgh in 1859 to an Irish Catholic background. His father is a civil servant, turned artist,

suffered from alcoholism and mental illness. And they live in some pretty grim tenement flats. But then the young Arthur's uncle sends him to a Jesuit prep school and then onto Stonyhurst in Lancashire. And he finds school very a steer and harsh, very like Emily Bronte.

Complains that the curriculum is kind of pre-modern. It's all kind of rhetoric. The classics, geometry, all of that. Yeah. And then as I'm born his teens, he goes and spends a year in Austria.

Perfect his German. And then from 1876 to 1881, he studies medicine at Edinburgh. But he also, this is when he also starts writing his short stories.

And tellingly his first, which is published in 1879,

is the mystery of Sasasa Valley. And this is, so this is a very kind of foreshadding role later come. It's an adventure story about diamond hunting in South Africa. And the valley is haunted by this frightful field. And people who see it's glowing eyes are belighted

“by the malignant power of this creature,”

which obviously anticipates the hellish hound of the basketballs. And then after this, Arthur Conan Doyle, he has a very adventurous life. He becomes a doctor on a green and wailer, which is a fascinating detail I think. Then a ship surgeon on a voyage to West Africa.

So very master and commander. He graduates as advanced doctor of medicine 1885 with a dissertation on neurocyphalus. Yeah, neurocyphalus, interesting. Valleable information now.

And then he sets up a practice and plymoth. And then Portsmouth is neither a very successful. He spends a lot of his time writing fiction. Goes to Vienna for a bit, study eyes. I don't know how to say the word, but he's an eye surgeon.

Ophthalmology. Yeah. Again, not very successful. And charmingly, spends most of his time ice skating with his wife, Louisa.

So I approve of that. Anyway, then back to London. Try to set up a practice again, total failure. No patience. And I know Dominic, you're a very big fan of Arthur Conan Dawn.

I can see why. Yeah. So just give us a portrait of the man, the character a bit more. So I mean, he's not a terribly successful surgeon. He's absolutely true, but he's a really, really endearing character.

I think Arthur Conan Dawn. He's a man of great enthusiasm. He's irrepressible. He's got a real zest for life. So among other things, he was a goalkeeper.

And he played cricket. He's a goalsman as you would call it. Yeah, I'd like Albert Camo. That's great to have the goalsman back on the show. Great to have goalsman's back on the show.

Yeah. Goalman's surely goalsman. Anyway, we're getting, we're, yeah. We're lost. We're lost.

He's a goal was run. He's a cricket for the MCC. He found a design rifle club. He was a keen amateur boxer. He loved playing golf.

He was a judge. I discovered, from doing some important research in the Bodden Library.

He was a judge at the world's first body building competition.

So he's all in, well, he'll do anything basically. He's always available. He literally is a jack of all trades, master of none. He is. So you mentioned him going ice skating with Louise,

his wife. So she was called two. He was her nickname. She, they had two children. She got TB.

And by the time he writes the hands of the basketballs,

“I think she's already quite seriously ill.”

And he has become infatuated with a young woman called Jean Lackey. It's not clear whether they had an affair or whether he just completely finally fell in love with this Jean Lackey. But he's basically in this love triangle, possibly a kind of platonic love triangle.

But he's in it nonetheless. He's also very interested in his politics. So he stood twice a parliament as a liberal unionist. So these were liberals who were keen on the empire. More kind of hard line on foreign policy issues than mainstream liberals.

He lost both times.

But he's very into his kind of social activism.

So one example of this is he lends his voice to the campaign against the atrocities in the Belgian Congo. Very admirable, good man. Another one actually. So people who was laugh at Conan Doyle,

because part of being such a massive enthusiast, was spiritualism for seances. He believes in fairies. I love that. You know, this all is stuck.

Well, well, come on to this. He's interested in the supernatural. Because it's a really important part to the hand of the basquilles. But he's also really passionate and devoted to the underdog and to justice. So there's a brilliant book by Julian Barnes,

called Arthur and George. It's such a good novel. And it's the story of how Arthur Conan Doyle cross paths with this guy who was a lawyer called George Aidal G, just outside Wolverhampton actually.

“He was framed for all these attacks on horses, I think it was.”

Quite a widely outrageous.

Basically ended up in prison.

And Arthur Conan Doyle lends his voice to try to free him. And it's a really really moving story. And it's a good example of the sort of humanity in decency that I think is part of the Arthur Conan Doyle story. Definitely.

When everybody laughs at him about the fairies which will come to, I think they're being a bit harsh. Anyway, we're getting a bit of a head of ourselves because obviously all of his fame is based on one character level and that is Sherlock Holmes.

And he started writing Sherlock Holmes in 1886. He sent a story to this company called Wardlock and Co, who did a Christmas annual every year. And the story was called a study in Scarlet. Of course, so famous.

And this is Watson. He's come home to London. He's been wounded in the second Afghan war. He's somewhere to live. And a friend says, there's a bloke in 221B Baker Street

who's looking for a flatmate. This enthusiastic and some branches of science. And what's in goes to meet him. And this bloke is very tall. He's very lean.

He's got a sort of hawk like nose. He's got sharp piercing eyes. He's got a general air of kind of alertness and decision. And this is Sherlock. Holmes, who it turns out, is actually modeled

on one of Seraphican and Doyle's former tutors. I love this guy. This is so funny. So he's, yeah. He's inspired by Conan Doyle's former Edinburgh Tutor

and a brand called Joseph Bell, who is a pioneer of forensic science. And Arthur Conan Doyle said of Bell. He would sit in his receiving room and diagnose people as they came in before they even opened their mouths.

He would tell them their symptoms and even give them details that their past life and hardly ever would he make a mistake. I mean, if someone's going to tell you details about your past life is not like you can be like, actually that's wrong. I was the Duchess of York or whatever.

“But still, I mean, that is very, very Sherlock Holmes, isn't it?”

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's what a doctor does that. I mean, that's part of, I guess, a doctor's, you know, how many GPs would say they can actually read things about people when they're describing their symptoms or whatever? They definitely don't go into past lives though.

GPs and likes. But anyway, he, um, and then Arthur Conan Doyle that she said to Bell in the letter. It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes around the center of deduction and inference and observation

which I've heard you inculcate. I've tried to build him up a man. Yeah. Yeah, lovely, really good. But then there's also, you know, the other main character

of the Great Sherlock Holmes do and that's Dr Watson. He's another great creation. He's curious. I mean, there's something of Arthur Conan Doyle and him, I think, maybe.

He's curious. He's honest. He's warmhearted. He's very brave. And I was very struck by his humanity because Sherlock Holmes

isn't always very human, I think.

You know, he's sort of too genius. Yeah.

“Except perhaps in his kind of fondness for Watson.”

And through Watson, you know, we have a more human reaction. He reacts to scary or dangerous scenarios in the way that a normal person would, you know, rather than Sherlock Holmes himself. Yeah, he speaks for the audience, doesn't he? I guess.

He speaks for the audience. Except in this story, when Sherlock Holmes is genuinely rattled. And so through him, we experience the mystery as a normal person would. And his loyalty to Holmes is so touching and so unwavering no matter how many times he's told, kind of,

you've got it wrong or you haven't put the method to proper use. And he admits time and time again that he's no match for Holmes's intellect. But you never let his brave and capable under pressure. And the thing is that Sherlock Holmes himself is very, very fond of Watson.

You know, there's just one of the great literary friendships and there's this lovely moment when Watson is almost killed by a bullet and Holmes is very relieved. This is Watson. It was worth a wound. It was worth many wounds to know the depth of loyalty

and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes would dimmed for a moment and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time, I caught a glimpse of a great heart as was of a great brain.

All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation. Oh, Tabby, is there, if someone shot you,

What? No, I'm Holmes and this, and I-- Oh, yeah, of course, I've mistaken myself. Yeah, I forgot that I'm actually the junior partner. Get back to your books. Yeah, okay.

Yes, it is a motive as the firmest and most loving, goal-hanger presented dynamics. Right. So you can see why this friendship is kind of the beating heart of the book

“and I think a massive attraction for a lot of readers.”

Anyway, so turns out that Sherlock Holmes is a massive hit, huge success. So Wardlock asked for much more and then the sign of the four is published in February 1890. That's another hit.

And it seems that Arthur Conan Doyle has kind of perfected his famous formula for these books. Yeah, absolutely has because he then goes to the Strand magazine and he takes homes with him and he publishes, I think, 23 more Sherlock Holmes stories

and he mentioned a formula, I mean, there is a formula. They open at 22 1B Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes is usually, you know, inject himself with cocaine or plain the violin or maybe madly because he's a bit bored.

A visitor arrives. Holmes does all his rigmarole with the kind of bizarre details. There is a weird story and the weirdness is often the point to the story. It's not just a sort of generic who done its story.

There's some mad thing like with orange pips or a blue car bunkle, a missing goose or any of these kind of weird things. And there's often it turns out a connection to the British Empire to set things that have gone on abroad. You have that in the south, the four.

You have that in the hound of the basketballs with the idea of the guy returning from North America to claim his inheritance. Holmes will think for a while, he'll play the violin, stare out of the window.

“Then he and Watson will rush off somewhere by cab or by train.”

Holmes will often arrange some deranged trap or put on a kind of incredibly baroque disguise. You know, disguise myself as a washroom or something. And then the villain has revealed and Holmes explains all to a bewildered Watson

and everybody loves it and everybody goes home happy. Except for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Because he writes that these stories, they're very successful and he gets quite bored of it. And he actually says of Holmes,

"I must save my mind for better things. Even if it means I must bury my pocketbook with him. In other words, I'm being very well paid, but actually I'd much rather write. The sort of stuff that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wants to write,

which are basically historical novels

about the Napoleonic Wars and stuff. So in December 1893, he publishes the final short story, the final problem. And this is this, you know, absolutely titanic confrontation

with Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, at the Reich and Back Falls in Switzerland. And it ends with Watson looking down into the waters. Holmes has disappeared

in this cauldron of swirling water and seathing foam. And there says Watson will lie for all time, the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.

A man whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known. Oh, you're crying! It's so sad, tapy!

Watson is sobbing into his microphone. Exactly, because Holmes is dead or is he? Or is he? Or is he?

Whether he's dead or not, their certainly is a long hiatus from the Sherlock Holmes novels. As Arthur Conan Doyle throws himself into writing what he calls his real books.

And these are, so this is actually very like A.M.L. The guy that became very famous for Winnie the Pooh,

but always considered it kind of

beneath him and his real talents in his other words. But so the real books, you know, Arthur Conan Doyle believes a kind of his Magnus opuses.

And these are historical novels set in the 100 years war, the Napoleonic Wars etc. I think they sound excellent. Have you read any? Uh, I've read some of them.

I think they're all right, but they're not as good as Sherlock Holmes. I mean, this is the reality. There were some people listened to this to say who was about the white company,

isn't that wonderful or whatever. They're nice period pieces, but the Holmes formula is what you come back for. Yeah. And, you know, for that very reason,

the public is constantly pestering him to bring Holmes back. And at first, he says no. He said, I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards

patty to foreground, of which I once ate too much, so the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.

“That's how I feel about kettle crisps actually.”

Really? I mean, you would get this about foreground or something like that. No. Pringles.

The green pringles. [laughs]

Yeah, you always eat those on plain fat.

Yeah. But then, two years later, he allows that to be an American stage adaptation. But it says, as long as there's no love business, so, you know,

strictly kind of English values. Yeah. That'll be a big contrast to the book we're doing next week. I was going to say, that's a far cry from Sergio Massas,

the Court of Thoughts and Roses. Or is it? And then, in December 1900, he doesn't interview with tidbits and says, he has never regretted

the course I took in killing Sherlock. That does not say, however,

I should not write about him again,

if I wanted to.

“For there is no limit to the number of papers he left behind.”

Oh. And then this sets the stage for the hand of the basketballs. Yeah. So we can date precisely

when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came up with the idea for the hand of the basketballs. He is in North Norfolk. [laughs] It's great to have North Norfolk

back on the show. Alan Bartridge is hunting ground. So he's gone to North Norfolk with his mate Bertie Fletcher Robinson, his young journalist,

and they've gone golfing in Chroma. And he's feeling very low, Conan Doyle. He can't sleep. He went to the Burr war.

There's a kind of war correspondence, and he got fever. He then lost his campaign to become a liberal unit, MP in Edinburgh.

He was blown away and the sort of carkey election as it was called during the Burr war.

“And then he took part in Queen Victoria's funeral procession.”

Got it's also Victorian, isn't it? Yeah, it is. He's been there's a sign of his celebrity that he's doing all these things. Yeah.

And he was in Queen Victoria's funeral procession. And having this very melancholy reflection about the states of the nation and all this kind of thing. Also, his soul is, and I quote,

"Renched in two, because he's torn between twoy, his wife is bedridden with CB, and this woman Jean Lackey, that he's fallen in love with."

So it's all going on for him mentally. And on Sunday, the 28th of April, they can't play golf, him in this book,

"Fletcher Robinson", because it's so windy. And so they sit around at the hotel, kind of having tea and whatnot. And "Fletcher Robinson" tells him a story

of a black dog that haunts the countryside, and we should come, because I know you've done a absurd amount of research into folkloric dogs. Yeah, I can't get enough of food at all.

So we kind of love this story about the dog haunting the countryside. He actually writes to his mother a few days later and says, "I've had a brilliant time.

I've slept soundly at last. All goes well in every way. "Fletcher Robinson and I are going to do a small book together." The hound of the basketball is a real creeper. And then he writes to the editor

of the Strand Magazine as well. He uses the same expression. I've had the idea of a real creeper for the Strand. He says, "It'll be at least 40,000 words.

You'd love it. It'll really suit you. It's going to be called the hound of the basketballs." And he says, "I'll co-write it at a Fletcher Robinson.

I'll do all the writing and it'll be kind of in my style. But Fletcher Robinson will provide the ideas and the colour." The point about the ideas and the colour takes us to,

well, what's at the heart of this story, which is the idea of the supernatural, and of the kind of the dog from the realms of folklore. So you love all this, don't you,

because you love bizarrely.

I would never have had you down as a folklore enthusiast,

but here we are. I absolutely love it. Yeah, I can't get enough. My flat is listed with kind of books of mythical beasts and stuff like that. But we'll probably get into this in the second half,

but it's kind of, it's rooted in this long tradition of English folklore, these kind of hellhounds that kind of roam the countryside. And there's this idea that it may have derives in kind of a real story, featuring an ancient English family, but that itself is kind of a mythology.

But Conan Doyle loves this whole idea, because he's, as we've said, he's a huge enthusiast for the supernatural. He loves stories of curses, spells, ghosts, haunted houses, et cetera. And that's also very Victorian.

This is sort of fairies and say-onsers. And they kind of tap into that in one of the,

“I think Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes is.”

It's all to do with like wizards and not wizards, like magicians, mystical practices, that kind of thing. And Conan Doyle himself, he's a founding member, a various kind of psychological research groups, and then later in life, he's the best known champion of spiritualism,

say-onsers, as we've said, mind reading, et cetera. And then in 1922, he kind of famously endorses this whole hoax around the existence of fairies. Yeah, the cutting of the roots. Yeah, I think there's a film about it, a charming film, actually.

Yeah, so there's these girls who's basically sent in photos

that they've mocked up of fairies in the garden. And everybody laughs and says, well, obviously these are completely fake, poor Conan Doyle. He wants to believe it. He loves all this. And he gives it, he basically lends his name to these hoaxed photographs,

and everybody laughs at him again, 'cause of course, by this point, he's getting on a bit, and so he's kind of a bit of a sort of old war horse, and people like poking fun at him. But it's a sign of this sort of longing within him.

That he really wants to believe in the power of the supernatural and stuff. So this is why he loves the story. And at first, he's not thinking of it as a Sherlock Holmes story, but then he starts to sort of ponder it and he says, well, if I'm going to have this pound on the moors,

I need a really, really good central character. I need a hero. And he basically says to the editor the strand look, I can do you two options, option one is, it'll just be the hound of the basketballs. I kind of go story, and I'll charge you 50 pounds for every thousand words.

and I'll charge you a hundred pounds for every thousand words,

which would you prefer? And then he adds homes as a premium in America right now, and the directors of the Strand Magazine immediately come back, and they say, we'll pay you the hundred pounds per thousand words, and so Sherlock Holmes is back.

Yeah, and on that extremely exciting note, Dominic, I think we should take a break. And when we come back, we will be explaining how Sherlock Holmes is resurrected, we'll be discussing the book itself in much more detail,

and most exciting of all, we will be definitively solving the dark mystery of the hellish hound of the basketballs itself. Oh, exciting. Welcome back to the book club, now Dominic,

before the break you taunted us with the prospect of Sherlock Holmes's resurrection in the hound of the basketballs.

“So, how is it that he's written back into existence?”

So, he's got the idea,

when he's been on the golfing trip with this guy,

what's his name? Fletcher Robinson in North Norfolk, and he has come back, and he's absolutely infused, because as we said,

Conan Doyle is a man with this tremendous zest for life, and his future wife Jean Lackey said, he could write a Sherlock Holmes story in a room full of people talking, he could write it in a train,

he would just once he got stuck in, you couldn't stop him, he's a machine. And so, he had that idea in late April 1991, and a month later, he and this guy Fletcher Robinson go on a sort of walking tour

of dark moort to get local color and stuff. And by that point, he's already written half of the book. Of course, he's faster than you. Well, he's as fast.

Oh, there he's turned it around really quickly. They stay near dark moort prison,

“which gives him the idea for that part of the book,”

because dark moort prison features in the book. And Conan Doyle, we know he's writing to his mother, and he says, you know, I'm exploring the more over our Sherlock Holmes book, it's a great place,

very sad and wild dotted with dwellings, a prehistoric man, strange monoliths and huts, graves. They go to the bog, they go to some abandoned stone forts,

and they read books about local folklore, which is where they get the idea of resemblance is being passed down through the generations, so kind of your face, the face recurs in the portraits of the basketball family.

Yeah, there's this scene where they walk down the scallery, and it's almost like, I mean, it's almost like comical, and then these faces repeated down the generations. Very Victorian theme that.

Yeah, with different wigs, and it is a very Victorian theme, I agree with you, because a lot of writers in this period, so 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, they are fascinated by ideas of heredity,

which is, of course, what gives rise to you, Jennings later on. So if you look at novelists of this period, 1890s, 1900s, like Emile Zola in France, or Thomas Hardy,

the idea that traits are passed down through the generations, particularly criminal traits, or violence or drunkenness or whatever, that they are inherited. Yeah.

These ideas play a big part in the kind of novels, the realist novels, of the late 19th and early 20th century, and that's, you can see that, admittedly in this very cozy kind of benign way,

in the hound of the basketballs, and then there's one last element, which, of course, is the title. A few days after they finished this trip, they go to Fletcher Robinson's family, seat, which is also in Devon,

and the coachman to the Fletcher Robinson family, is called Harry Baskerville. Don't, don, don. At later on, Fletcher Robinson gave a copy of the book, too, his coachman, to Harry Baskerville,

with apologists for using their name, read the dedication. So that's nice.

Yeah, and also the first release carries this Fletnote,

acknowledging Arthur Conan Doyle's debt to Fletcher Robinson, and then he later expands this in the novels, dedication, which is reprinted in all editions today. So, to the publication, so the first nine instalments come out

in Strand magazine again in August, 1901, and runs alongside, interestingly, the first part of HG Wells's, the first man in the moon. So, obviously, you know, the fantastical

is kind of very invoked right now, among kind of Victorian audiences. Yeah, I love that, the fact, I mean, the fact that you could imagine buying that magazine, you can read the first instalments

of the first men in the moon by HG Wells, and the first instalments of the hand of the Baskerville. It gives you a sense of how rich literary culture is at this point. And also, I mean, these are people who are commanding enormous sums

of money by today's standards for their serializations, and short stories and things. It's a literary culture that,

“you know, dwarfs anything that we have today, I think.”

Yeah, I mean, there'd be the same kind of enthusiasm

as there would be now for kind of the new big blockbuster. Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, and then, and it's obviously a massive hit. There are cues outside the Strand magazine's offices, and at bookstores the first time in its history.

The magazine goes into seven prints, and circulation rises to about 300,000 from an average of 180,000. So that's massive. And it's such a huge hit

that homes is full-time return, obviously just becomes inevitable. You know, U.S. the U.S. publisher, Collears, offers Arthur Conan Doyle,

a staggering sum of $30,000 for eight new stories, and in income terms,

that's more than $7 million today, I mean.

Yeah, Collears allowed some money. That's what queues up. Yeah. The adventure of the empty house, which is the next short story,

which is when it turns out that he didn't die, the riker backfalls. He was alive all along. He was alive all along, exactly.

But the fact that he's returned is down to this one book, The Hand of the Baskar Wills, which becomes, by far, the most celebrated Sherlock Holmes story. In fact, I would say that if you

asked 100 people in the street, can you name one Sherlock Holmes story? I'm guessing 90 percent of them would say the hound of the Baskar Wills,

“and very few would be able to name many more, I think.”

This is by far the most, the best known, even though, in some ways, it is not typical, not least because the supernatural element, for example, is much more pronounced in this than any other. Much more gothic.

Much more gothic. But I suppose there are some ways on that. I mean, it starts with the formula. It starts with them in 2-2-1-B. I mean, it's undeniably a very Sherlock Holmes story.

There's a lot in it of the traditional fat formula. So, you know, Ruth Randall says, Conan Doyle often featured in his fictional protagonist, who returned to his homeland after half a lifetime in foreign parts. The exotic country, which most usually be America,

India, Australia, or South Africa, giving him the opportunity to make his main character a perspective of gold or adventure in some local war. So, there we have Sahenry Basketball. Some protagonists return to exact revenge on the man or woman

who, all those years before, was instrumental in sending them away. A few black maillers, others because they haven't inherited a fortune or a property in England. This is all very home to the basketballs. It's the classic Arthur Conan Doyle.

And actually, we've been talking beforehand. So, our executive producer Tony Pasta was saying, "The Hound of the Basketball." Who's a massive Sherlock Holmes fan, was saying to us. Yeah, and actually, I'd really recommend the Sherlock and co-rendition of this.

It's brilliant. Yes, just go hang it does, exactly. Yeah. So, Tony was saying to us, "Oh, the Hound of the Basketballs is unusual because Sherlock Holmes's absence

for so much of the story." Which is, I mean, he's true, he's absent, but he's often absent for bits of the short stories as well. So, bits of what's and will go off on his own and then Holmes pops up later on in disguise, as he does in this.

But I mean, Holmes is always, basically, whenever you meet

a homeless person, somebody an old crown on the streets or something, you know that three pages later. They will cast aside the hat and it will actually be. What, oh, Watson? Yeah, exactly, the great detective.

But then this absence then opens the door for Watson, who actually rather than Holmes and his presence. It's actually Watson and his kind of very sharp observations and his reports back and forth to Holmes that propel the narrative of Sherlock Holmes

and as, you know, Christopher Fraling says, Watson is a long way away from the phone figure of Hollywood films in this novel and I totally agree.

“I think there's one thing that a lot of the versions”

of Holmes get wrong. Yeah, he's a comical foil woman. As a, yes, he's a genius of Holmes. But I don't think he's, he's certainly not comical in this book. At all.

No. I think you're brilliant. I think-- Oh, thanks. I don't think you're a buffoon at all.

Well, I think you should clip that bit and they should just use that. Just you saying, I think you're brilliant. I don't think you're a buffoon at all. It's what I've waited all my life to hear to be honest.

So Watson is, I'm not talking about myself here, by the way, I'm talking about Dr. Watson. He's brave, he's very manly. He's-- (laughs)

Here's a partial for cashmere sweaters. (laughs) Sorry, I'm unbelievable. I couldn't believe that you laughed, so it's gone fully when I said that.

That's shocking. But actually, Sherlock Holmes, so Watson in this book comes out rather well. Holmes makes some demented mistakes 'cause he keeps risking the life of his client.

“As a sort of trap to lure the hound out, doesn't he?”

He does. He absolutely does. And then he says at one point,

because basically, they think this

Sahenry is kind of done for his dead. And he says, I'm more to blame than you Watson. In order to have my case well rounded and complete, I've thrown away the life of my client. It is the greatest blow which has before in me in my career.

But how could I know how could I know that he would risk his life alone upon the more in the face of all my warnings? And he doesn't actually catch the villain

The villain that escapes arrest is maybe survives.

Yeah, we actually never say anything about that.

We think that the villain has been killed by the bog. But the villain's body is never found. And Sherlock Holmes's body was never found at the right and back falls. And he came back from the dead.

Yeah, well, exactly. Someone's going to resurrect the villain. And the other thing is in this, which is very unusual for Sherlock Holmes novels. His Holmes himself is genuinely kind of frightened.

Like there's this bit in the book where he says, you know, it's like he's, they hear this howling on the more. And he's genuinely unnerved by it. And he says, come on now Watson,

“didn't you think yourself that it was the cry of a hound?”

I'm not a child. You need not fear to speak the truth. You know, he's seeking out reassurance from his sidekick. Yeah. Nevertheless, he confesses at the end of the story

that he's mismanaged the case. He's made mistakes, he's put his clients in danger. But he also makes excuses. He, he blames it on the fog. Yeah.

And the hound. Yeah, but the hound was part of the, the business from the beginning. Yeah.

Who's at the end says, well, I could never anticipate

to that terrifying hound. But hold on. That's right. That's I blaming a murder on the murderer. Precisely.

The book's called The Hound of the Basketball is made. I mean, did you not notice? But I think this, this weakness in Holmes is otherwise kind of granite, you know, deduction and it is, you know, cold, rational mind.

I think it's rather endearing. I think it's a strength for the book. And it also shows you just how terrifying these supernatural forces that they are working against are, or are they supernatural?

Well, this absolutely brings us perfectly to the dimension of the book

“that I think explains why uniquely among Sherlock Holmes stories.”

It has made such an imprint and then popular imagination. And this is the fact that it is not just a detective story. It's a brilliant Gothic story, a supernatural story. The late Victorians, the audience loved stories of kind of horror and sensation.

Yeah, I mean, think of Dracula, which we did not many series back in September.

Yeah, so we're only a few years after the publication.

Dracula, we're only a few years after the publication of things like King Solomon's Mind. So she, they kind of ate through either Haggard's stories of the supernatural in Africa. The Victorian is level this kind of thing.

And actually, that gives it a much darker, tinge, I think, than almost all the Sherlock Holmes stories that are set in London, because this feels like Holmes and what's in it going out to confront something much more primal and ancient.

I suppose they're going back in time, not just in to confront a beast from folklore, but also in a literary sense, because they're going back to an older literary form, they're kind of gothic novel of the 18th century or something, the haunted house,

or the sensation novels of the mid-Victorian peer that kind of will colonism things. Yeah, I mean, definitely, because just think of the curse, you know, that said to haunt the basketball family,

“that's classic kind of late Victorian horror novel.”

And, you know, this thing of the wild, profane, and godless, to Hugo basketball, set upon by this hound and having his throat ripped out and being slaughtered. And then, you know, those who said we saw it,

one is to say, die that very night of what he'd seen, and the other twain were but broken men for the rest of their days. Even the writing there, it's harkening back to an older, time, and older form.

And then there's basketball hall itself, which is straight out of Victorian sensation fiction. It actually reminded me so strongly of the gothic house of horror in Guermo, Dol Toro's movie Crimson Peak,

which is set in Victorian England. And then also to some extent, Thornfield Hall in Jena. Right. It's so, it's just the typical gothic mansion that kind of features in, you know,

games or cartoons, whatever it may be. Oh, and classic haunted house. That's exactly what it is. Exactly. And it's, so there's this passage. In the fading light,

I could see that the centre was a heavy block of a building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in ivy with a patch clipped here and there where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil

from the central block rose the twain tower was ancient, crenellated, and pierced with many loop holes. A dull light shone through heavy,

mullion windows. And from the high chimneys, which rose from the steep, high angled roof, sprang a single black column of smoke.

I mean, it's like, it's like the archetype of the haunted house. It completely is. I mean, even when they go inside, they're dining room,

a place of shadow and gloom. There's a sense the whole place is deserted, that it's haunted. It feels also like something from an M.R. James ghost story or something.

There's sort of sabrical atmosphere. And that's sort of the house. And then you've got the more. And actually, as you said, we did weathering heights at the very beginning of this series.

And the weathering heights, the more is organly absent from most of the book, where is in this book. If you like more, this is the book for you.

Because there's a lot of time spent on the more. There's some lovely writing about the more sort of nature writing. And the more. The point about the more is,

I mean, you really are going back in time. You're, you're your, your modern technology

It is the sort of prehistoric location.

“There are actually these prehistoric dwellings.”

Did they talk about all the time? Exactly. And whenever they go out there, there are moments like this, a long, low,

moon, indescribably sad, swept over the more. There's a huge, mottled,

expansive green, splotched bog, which stretched away until it merged into the russets, slopes of the more.

There's all this sort of stuff. This sort of melancholy, this sense that there's, you know, you're taking a life in your hands.

When you venture out there, because there are who knows what there's ghosts, there's creatures, there's weird dogs, there's all sorts of stuff. Yeah. They're constantly warned at the letter right from the start,

when we're in London saying, you know, if you value your life stay away from the more. We know it's a dark, dangerous place, but the irony at the heart of all this

is that homes doesn't believe in the supernatural. He's kind of the opposite of the supernatural. And I think this is something else that separates it from the classic, Sherlock Holmes formula,

because Holmes never believes in supernatural explanation.

You know, he says at one point, when Watson asks if it might be something, you know, beyond the kind of man.

He says, the devil's agents may be a flesh and blood may they not, but this is earlier on in the novel. This is before he's actually been on the more and heard the hound and encountered it.

You get the sense as it goes on, that he begins to doubt, you know, that passage that I read, when he says to Watson,

if that is like, that is the howl of a hound. You tell me, tell me that I'm wrong. Yeah, no,

you're dead right. I think the beauty of it is that homes is the incarnation of science and rationalism. I mean, when Watson first met him in their very first meeting,

when they decided to get a flant together, you know, they met in the laboratory. And Holmes is always filling around with this chemistry sets and whatnot.

And he, you know,

he's never taken in by things.

He's not gullible. He's he's in icy cold and his logic and whatnot. And the beauty of it is, he's now confronted with something

that is, as you said, beyond the ken of man, kind of it is, it is kind of read in mystery and all of this.

And when he goes out there, he doubts himself. He totally does. I mean, he deep down,

in part of his mind, he knows who the killer is, and he knows what the plan is, but there's a bit of him that is scared, nevertheless.

And I love that. He experiences fear, I think, in one and a few times that you see Sherlock Holmes, rattles.

Yes, Yes, exactly. He is rattled completely.

“And I think this contrast between the two things,”

the ancient evil on the one hand. So you mentioned Ruth Randall, a brilliant detective writer in her own right. PD James, another one,

writing the same time as on 1980s, she said that she thought, how do the basketballs, what made, what elevated it above,

other detective stories, is that it pits on the one hand, the ancient evil of the more, against Holmes, sort of modernity and his individualism.

And that, I think gives it so much power, because it's, it's not just a sort of a formulaic who done it. No,

but also, that's why the introduction of this, convict, this murder of living on the walls is so ingenious, because that would normally be in,

like, traditional detective fiction. He would be the bad guy. He'd be the guy that we're trying to hunt down. But the flesh and blood of him,

even though he's a terrifying murderer, and he's feral living on the walls, is nothing, that against the darkness of the walls, and the howl of the hound,

and, he seems so puny and feeble in his comparison, versus the might of this supernatural entity. Yeah, I mean,

Holmes, in all detective novels,

“I think the detective represents a kind of security and stability.”

And so many detective novels, particularly this period, there's a single kind of masterful figure who is restoring order to a world that's been put into disorder.

So he's beating off the kind of forces of evil that are threatening civilized, conservative, kind of modern England. That's what Sherlock Holmes does, is what Eculoparo does,

later on with Anglican Christie or whatever. But the interesting thing about this, I think is that the sort of paradox of it, is that actually the one person who really does believe in this supernatural,

is Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. So Sherlock Holmes is saying, "Well, deep down what's, and we know there's no such things as,

as kind of diabolical dogs." But the one man and England who really does believe in Diabolical dogs. Yeah, the only man in England to believe in fairies.

Yeah, because he does believe in fairies. I read that from him. Ruth Rendel was so interesting about this. She said, "It's as though Conan Doyle,

and I quote, "was so deeply subsumed into the character "if his most famous creation, "that when writing of him, "of Sherlock Holmes,

"he was unable to do otherwise "than believe in what Holmes believed." So even though Arthur Conan Doyle "dead down what love to have a supernatural explanation, Holmes would judge him for it.

Holmes would think badly of his creator "for kind of getting into all of this kind of stuff." Absolutely. And I mean, we said earlier that obviously he was

"in factuated with this idea of this mythical hound."

we've all been waiting for the entire episode,

which is the hound itself. So, if you remember in our opening reading, we gave you a very vivid and very well read, Dominic,

description of the hound. You know, when Holmes and Watson finding our knowledge of it for much of the book is just kind of this eerie howling, that grows closer and closer and closer to Holmes and Watson.

So, we learn that it has fire burning out of its mouth. It's eyes glow with a smoldering glare. It's mussels and hackles, and do that by outline and flickering flame.

It's massive. It's very dark. It has a savage face. So it's absolutely terrifying. But Dominic,

reveal for us once and for all.

Is this a supernatural beast,

you know,

“that has rushed straight out of the flames of hell?”

Or is it just a very big dog? [laughter] Well, if you haven't read the book, I think you kind of can guess what's coming,

so I don't know how much of a spoiler this is. Yeah, come on, this is a Sherlock Holmes novel author. It's a Sherlock Holmes story, exactly. It's just a very big dog.

It's a very big dog that's been covered in phosphorus, that makes it kind of glow in the dark. So it appears terrifying and anotherworldly. But we won't reveal is who has done this, because that would spoil it for you.

Yeah, so we will be keeping the delicious secret of the true murderer, a secret, for any of you that want to go on and read the book. The story behind the hound is really interesting, because obviously it is the hound

that sticks in people's minds. So I think there's something about this sort of gigantic, feral, diabolical dog.

That's lodges in your imagination when you first read the story,

particularly if you read it when you're younger.

“So would you say you were nine or say when you read it?”

Yeah, couldn't sleep. So my son read it when he read a very, very, very, very, a bridge kind of version for six-year-olds or something, and he loved it.

I mean, he loved the idea of this kind of demonic dog on the moors and homes and what's in these great pals, kind of running away from its entera and all this. And critics have really got stuck into what the hound means. So in the 1930s, people thought,

"Is the hound the proletariat? Is it the working classes of Britain that are sort of rising up against the charles and the Henry Baskerville and their sort of feudal seat and whatnot?"

Later on, people said, "Is it the id?" You know, there's a lot going on and Sir Arthur Conan doors personal life, does the hound represent his kind of base, primal, sexual urges or something?

But what the hound obviously is whether you believe all that the other explanations are not, the hound is the latest iteration of a long-running theme, a long-running feature in English folklore, which is this idea of the black dog

or the sort of the terrifying ghostly dog that haunts people for generations. And that's happy, I'm queuing you up, because you love a feral dog and you love folklore. I love a feral dog and I love feral dog.

“So this is just the best thing that's ever harmed me in the book club.”

It's tabby-sire at Bingo. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, I've loved folklore all my life. And as you say, there is this long tradition of black dogs in English and Welsh folklore.

That's kind of a technical turn. These are dogs which haunt landscapes and they warn of impending disaster, often connected with landowners, families. And remember here that Arthur Conan doors

love tales of the supernatural as we've said. And so these stories of supernatural black dogs and these spectral hounds, they crop up in the folklore of all different parts of the United Kingdom.

So for instance, in Yorkshire, you have the Barguest, then in the Isle of Man, you have the Modi do. The Modi do. The Modi do.

Which is, this is, you don't know this? I don't know this. This is black dog in monks. Okay, how's your monks? Good.

Strong, it's strong. Yeah, I'll save it for a future episode. But the best known of all these kind of mythical black dogs is black shark, old shark, and of Norfolk. And he's terrifying.

I remember being fascinated by him as a child. And then also, I think, when I read the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Harry Potter book, the Grim in that is like a full telling of death. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah.

He's reputed to be the size of a calf and was easily recognizable by his saucer-sized eyes, weeping green or red fire. And this is black shark. This is black shark, exactly.

The editor of the Strand Magazine suggested that it derived from the phantom borehound of hurgest ridge on the Welsh borders. This is the hound, the hound of the Baskerville. This is the hound of the Baskerville, which supposedly appeared

with clanking chains whenever there was a death in the local Baskerville, Vaughan family. Wow, they record the Baskerville's. The Baskerville Vaughans, yeah. Okay. And there's even this story about how this husband

if she knew that their family was haunted by this terrifying hound.

And then one of their children falls ill from smallpox and the wife goes upstairs to check on the invalid and only to run down again moments later to say that there's this large black dog lying on her son's bed. Anyway, the husband rushes up to only to discover that the child is dead

and that this was a warning all along. There's another legend, and this is of Squire Richard Cable, of Buckfastly, Dotmore, so Dotmore again. And he's supposedly incredibly evil man. He murders his wife and solves his soul to the devil.

So this is just like the original Hugo Baskerville. And this is from a guide to Devon published in 1907. He died in 1677. He was the last male of his race and died with such an evil reputation that he was placed under a heavy stone and a sort of penthouse

that was built over with iron gratings to prevent his coming up and haunting the neighborhood. When he died, the story goes that fiends and black dogs breathing fire raced over Dotmore howling. And then further black still you have a black dog that appears

as a harbinger of a simmin of Athens death. And then obviously you have like Churchill's black dog it was a way that he spoke about depression and Samuel Johnson as well. So it's a very well-known trope in England

in English folklore. But dogs also feature prominently in Charlotte Cone's stories more generally. This isn't the only one.

“So both Holmes and Watson are like into dogs aren't they?”

So I mean Watson is always very dog-like.

He's always, he's like Holmes is kind of loyal dog. In a study in Scarlet, Watson likens Holmes to appear blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the COVID whining in its eagerness until it comes across the lost scent.

And there's also very famously in the sign of the four. There's a dog called Toby. And Toby is a sort of, he's a cross. I can remember what he is. He's a cross between two dogs.

And he has a brilliant nose. Holmes says to Watson, "I would rather have Toby's help than that of the whole detective force of London." And so they go all this great chase across London led by Toby. Then very famously there's the dog that doesn't bark in the night time

in silver blaze. The Holmes says famously, you know, the great mystery is that why the dog didn't bark.

“And that is the key to the whole mystery.”

But it is the hound that stands out. And must be the most famous dog in popular literature. Do you think? Yeah, I mean, I definitely say it must be. I can't think of another contender, really.

But then there's another interesting detail of the hound of the basketball that, you know, we've spoken about how it has much more supernatural, much more gothic element than most of the other books. But also Arthur Conan Doyle's treatment of women in the book, I think, is worth discussing because in this book in particular,

there's an extraordinary degree of brutality towards the female characters of the book. And it's kind of interesting because Sherlock Holmes meant tend to be bigger fans of the books than women, I think, on the whole. And yet women are much bigger consumers of true crime, you know, in pub-casts, movies, documentaries.

I give the Christie or exactly exactly exactly. Right, as we've been talking about, PD James or whatever. They tend to be bought by women. And this highlights how Sherlock Holmes is slightly different from the rest of the genre.

It has a much bigger, almost like a Baroque scale to it. And it's less believable, it's less conceivable, whereas, say, I get the Christie, her plots, they have a smaller scale, they're closer knit. And that makes them much darker because the villains at the heart of the story, the devils,

they're the devils that you know. You know, it's those that live with you. It's those that sleep beside you and they're sounding so sinister about that. Whereas, in Sherlock Holmes, they're often gloriously kind of inconceivable. Yeah, I agree completely. I'm not on the women point.

“I think it's absolutely true because there's the various characters that we mentioned.”

Mrs Barry Moore is exploited by her brother, who's a murderer, is that right? Yes. The relationship between Stapleton and his sister is at the core of the book, isn't it?

And she ends up with kind of, I mean, she basically suffers domestic abuse.

Yeah. She's treated, appallingly, she's tied up for a whole night. She has bruises, she has a terrible time actually. And some of Arthur Conan Hall's progressives have suggested that, I don't know if this is a bit fanciful. You know, he is in this love triangle. He is being torn between these two women. I think it's, it's actually probably there's no psychological explanation for it.

It's just, you know, his net, his net, warden, man, writing four men. And it doesn't, he just sees the women characters as despensable. I would say, rather than it being sort of the expression of some darkness in his soul.

Yeah. It's a very common theme and gothic literature that these kind of women are treated abominably and kind of abused by their male counterparts in some way or another. So I think it's more about than anything. I think you're dead right, though, that some men tend to like Sherlock Holmes.

Historically, have liked Sherlock Holmes probably more than women do. I think that might have changed now with things like Sherlock. Sherlock and co, or the Benedict Cumberbatch, or whatever, their TV version. Yeah, I think you might be right, actually. But I do think, I mean, past that is to do with male friendship, I think.

But also, the difference between Sherlock Holmes and some of those other writers we talked about is the who done it elements

and Sherlock Holmes is never as pronounced as it is in the others.

No, it's much more obvious. Puzzling out how they did it is fun, but you always didn't really know who the killer was. I think Sherlock Holmes. I think it's, Sherlock Holmes feels to me more of an adventure story. Yeah, it's the journey, not the big reveal.

Yeah, exactly, it's the characters.

“I think that's what keep people coming back.”

It's the characters and the atmosphere. It is the Watson Holmes dynamic. It is a portrait of male friendship, rather like a master and commander or something. Quite rare. I would say in popular literature, to have two male characters who are in a very uncomplicated way.

Just great friends. And that's what the book's capture. I think you'll write, I think that's a massive part of it's enduring appeal. It's still, I mean, it's so famous even today. I mean, Sherlock Holmes's figure must be one of the most iconic characters in all of literature.

And then I think it's also the fact that it's, as we said at this cozy world, but also how neatly the cases are unraveled.

You know, that irresistible satisfaction of an almost infallible hero who always cracks the case.

And the kind of secret satisfaction of thinking, "Oh, well, we got there before Watson. We got there at the same time as Holmes because it's so obvious right from the start." And I think with the hand of the basketballs in particular, it's, you know, popularity in its fame.

“I think a huge part of that is kind of the gloomy atmosphere of the Moore's,”

and sort of the prospect of hellfire and supernatural devils wound up into woven with this kind of safe, homely familiar Victorian world. It's the contrast of those two things. It is, it's the modernity on the one hand of Victorian Britain, with these two friends who in their different ways represent Britain's kind of self-image.

So you've got the centric individual, the brilliant genius on the one hand. And then you've got the Afghan War veteran solid, dependable decent on the other. So they're both kind of middle class archetypes, I suppose. So you've got them on the one hand. And then on the other hand, you have this kind of brooding evil.

And it's satisfying for us to have that explained and tamed and kind of domesticated. And then they can go home and Sherlock Holmes can smoke his pipe. And they can play his violin very badly and what some were right at all up. And they'll, you know, their friendship will endure and take sheds loads of homely cocaine. Exactly, yes, exactly.

Right. So let's get to our, on that note, let's get to our final takes. So we're going to market in what tabby. I'm going to say, "Fiendish Hellhounds out of ten." It's a bit more predictable this week, but got to be done. Yeah, we had dead dogs out of ten in weathering heights, and now we're back on the dogs.

But at least in these ones, the hellhounds are kind of triumphant. They're not being beaten to a pulp by the brunty sisters. Okay, so Fiendish Hellhounds out of ten, go for it, you can go for it. Okay, I'll go first. You know what? I'm going very, very high this week. I'm going to give it a nine.

So I just thought it was just so enjoyable. It's just such a good read. I long to sit down and read it. It was a massive page, Turner. It also has some cases really excellent writing, you know, the more's in the swamps, the very good marriage of what is genuinely frightening and primal with a sort of always psych comedic injection of Sherlock Holmes is quirkiness and eccentricity. It's genuinely chilling any book in there.

So that brings to life the Victorian world so powerfully, I'm always pretty sold on.

So yeah, big fan, what about you? I'm going to give it eight. Oh, I'm higher than you. I didn't expect that. I have to say. I'm not taking marks off for any particular reason.

“I think there's George Orweller had this idea about the being good bad books.”

So in other words, a book that maybe is not great literature, but it's just brilliant. Yeah. And I think the hands of the basketballs fits that. Ticks that books perfectly. It's not, you know, it's not Jane Austen, it's not Vladimir Nabakov, it's not proof or something.

It's not pretending to be. It's not going to change your life. No, it's not a book that you nominate as a book that shapes the way you think or anything like that. It is just tremendous, tremendous entertainment. So actually, the eight is harsh.

I'm giving it eight as this kind of literary production, but as entertainment, it is undoubtedly a ten. Because Holmes and Watson are not one of, you know, they're one of the great double acts in all literature for a reason they're beautifully observed. The writing is excellent.

There's no question about that.

It's easy to just laugh at him because the fair is because he thought that his greatest creations were these slightly dated kind of hundred years war epic, sort of the no one reads anymore. But this is, I mean, if you could write something as good as the hand of the basketballs, you're laughing. It's really, really good. Oh, you'd be chuffed.

“And I think, you know, that's a good point.”

The good bad books. And this is most definitely not a small be podcast. Like, I think books that are just a really brilliant read, even if they're not kind of literary masterpieces. I think they should, they should have their day in the sun. And that brings us neatly onto next week's book, which, you know, arguably is it a good bad book?

Or just a or a bad bad book.

Or a good good book. Exactly. Is it a literary masterpiece? And that is a long last book. Everyone's been waiting for.

Sarah Daymasters, a court of films and roses. The book that taught Dominic Sandbrook how to love. Oh, my god.

“Yeah, so this is our first venture, possibly last.”

Let's hope last. Into the world of Romanticity, which we'll be doing next week. And then after that, we'll be back. Well, we'll be doing something very hard at the basketballs. Like, we'll be doing Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White.

So Victorian sensation fiction. Another ghost story. By Tony Morrison. After that, one of my very favorite people, Virginia Woolf. And Mrs. Dalloway from the 1920s.

Then the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. And The Code of the Wisters by PG would have. So lots to look forward to.

And Tabby, you never asked me who my favorite screen Sherlock Holmes was.

Oh, don't come so sorry. Well, okay, well, this is actually an interesting detail. You know, that according to the Guinness World Book of Records. Sherlock Holmes holds the record for the most adaptations in film and TV. Yeah.

About any other literary figure with over 250 appearances.

“So in light of that, who is your favorite on-screen Sherlock Holmes?”

I think there's two that stand out for me. One is some Jeremy Brett, who did the Granada versions in the 1980s and 1990s. Yeah, that was before my time. They are definitive, Tabby. I can't believe you haven't seen them in the shocking.

The other one, of course, is Will Ferrell. So Will Ferrell too. Don't see Riley. And it just makes me, I know it got naught zero stars. Well, then these papers, but just to see it kind of makes me spark.

And I know it will annoy Holmesians on people who really love Sherlock Holmes. So I've thought I'd throw in that detail. Who's your favorite? Obviously, it's going to be somebody terrible, Tabby. I know, I actually, I can already anticipate a just a barrage of backlash.

I'm going to have to say Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock. Oh, do you do absolutely? I thought he captured the eccentricity, the genius. That's terrible from you. Because the best version, just to reiterate,

the best modern version of Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock and Co. The Gohanger podcast is not. Yes, agreed, agreed. And not least, because you will see people other gohanger presenters pop up in it. All right, quit.

Can't end. We're done. Okay. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye.

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