"I have not lived for years with Sherlock Holmes for nothing" OOH TELL EM KING

“It is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you, Dr. Watson,” said he. “The records of your detective have reached us here, and you could not celebrate him without being known yourself. When Mortimer told me your name he could not deny your identity. If you are here, then it follows that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is interesting himself in the matter, and I am naturally curious to know what view he may take.”

Watson is famous!

“I was at Holmes’s elbow, 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”

Watson you’ve absolutely picked up the “I already knew who you are before you said anything” way to greet people from your roommate. Love that while Holmes slowly picks up softer social manners from Watson, Watson is getting ruder lmao

:( Do not separate them…

They should be Together!!

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES!

If you've dropped off Letters From Watson, or you'd been meaning to pick it up but haven't yet, now is a GREAT time. We're about to read The Novel Everyone Actually Likes. (There are four novels. Sorry, other three novels.)

It should take us a couple of months, I think, at a chapter every four days. Come in! The water's fine! You may or may not be savaged by a ghost dog!

Victorians in general: Eh Dracula is trash, we like The Beetle better ://

Arthur Conan Doyle: BEST BOOK EVER I HAVE THREE NEW BLORBOS NOW!!

Okay I looked up Hound of the Baskervilles’ publishing date out of curiosity because the gothic horror atmosphere of that book is IMPECCABLE, and lo and behold! 1902, five years after Dracula!

I love the idea that Dracula was the gothic horror gold standard ACD was looking up to for Baskervilles, particularly since it was such a genre departure from his other Sherlock Holmes stories. It even isolates Watson as he nervously digs into the mysteries, as he keeps faithful notes of all the details he can for Holmes! Which Holmes relies on to crack the case, just like Mina does with Jonathan’s diary!

Hell there’s even a scene of a woman begging Watson (thinking he’s someone else) to flee or he’ll meet his doom.

None of this ever occurred to me while reading it, since it doesn’t feel derivative at all, but knowing how much ACD admired Dracula as a book makes that influence really stand out!

For those who enjoy the first chapters of Dracula, PLEASE read Hound of the Baskervilles!!

If i may, I will add some additional context. Conan Dyole had gone into gothic horror territory with Holmes before HOUN and even Dracula, see The Speckled Band and the Jane Eyre like story The Copper Beeches. And outside of Holmes, ACD wrote plenty of gothic horror stories, before even inventing Holmes. There is an Oxford World Classics volume, Gothic Tales that collects almost 500 pages worth. So even if ACD was clearly influenced by Dracula, he was an old hand at writing gothic literature by the time he wrote The Hound.

unpublished sketches by frederic dorr steele for hound of the baskervilles (1901-1902)

I have a question ... Is Jeremy writing on his white shirt here? Was that a thing back in the day? Did they have special ink that easily washes out? Or is it just a 'Holmes doesn't care' moment?? I NEED TO KNOW

v interesting!!!

I first learned this from an annotated copy of the Hound of the Baskervilles that my mom had when I was little.

In case it's hard to read: the text mentions Dr Mortimer scribbling an appointment on his shirt cuff. The annotation reads: Shirt-cuffs were easily detachable so they could be easily changed every day. They were made of linen or paper; let's hope Dr. Mortimer's were made of paper!

And here is an actual collar of a much later vintage; detachable collars were used, at least in formal wear, well into the twentieth century (this one's probably from the forties) They buttoned onto the shirt at the front and back. Easy to starch and when they got too dirty, you just replaced them. And yeah, you could easily write on them

I do love how, in the Sherlock Holmes fandom, when a question of historical context comes up the first thing we look to is more Sherlock Holmes content. I love how our Jeremy Brett question was answered by an annotated copy of the original works

Also: depending on the ink you used, writing on your cuffs wasn’t necessarily a bad move. Linen-washing instructions of the time would more or less have factored down to “Boil until clean.” If you could just avoid “permanent” and India-type inks, you were generally okay. (Or, if you filled your pen with the wrong ink that day and trashed a set of cuffs? [shrug] Yeah, as above: just ask Mrs. Hudson to order you in some new ones from the laundry.)

Happy Halloween! Please enjoy this spooky collage I made a while ago which is inspired by Sidney Paget’s illustration of the hound in The Hound of the Baskervilles 🧪🐾

the hound of the baskervilles + favorite quotes, part two

Holmes & Watson + dates 8/8

-John Watson (The Hound of the Baskervilles)

Just finished: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 1st edition (1902), cover art by Alfred Garth Jones