The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle – Nov 21, 2025

 

The Hound of the Baskervilles – first edition 1902

Sherlock Holmes has been rated as one of the most popular fictional characters in history. His claim to fame is backed by an official world record. According to Guinness, Holmes is the “most portrayed literary human character in film & TV,” having been depicted on screen in over 250 films and hundreds of TV episodes. The stories have been translated into over 60 languages and Braille. Some iconic portrayals are by Basil Rathbone in the forties, and Jeremy Brett in the 80s and 90s. The enduring appeal of Holmes for over a century is a testament to his lasting impact. He consistently ranks at the top of “greatest character” lists and is an enduring literary figure. His stories have never gone out of print, and he has inspired one of the world's first and most dedicated fan communities.

Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett are both iconic Sherlock Holmes portrayals

His quixotic qualities, his unique enthusiasms, and vast range of expertise on esoteric subjects have contributed to his becoming an almost mythical figure. In the present novella, the third of four Conan Doyle wrote, a dark mystery presents itself and he has to put himself and his client in danger’s way to entrap the villain behind the baying hound on the moor that is heard during the ‘hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted.’ Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, who has by now become an admirer of Holmes’ methods, is called upon to assist in the planned denouement when Holmes hopes to catch the villain red-handed.

Portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle from the official website conandoyleestate.com

One of the charms of Conan Doyle’s writing is his use of words that have by now become archaic, such as Farrier (one who shoes horses), Almoner (an official responsible for distributing alms on behalf of another individual), Roysterer (a noisy and boisterous reveller), Pannikin (a small pan or drinking vessel of earthenware, what we would call a ‘khullar’ in Hindi), Tor (a high rock; a pile of rocks, gen. on the top of a hill), Goyal (a deep trench, a ravine). Then there are obsolete uses of verbs such as this:

the beast spring upon its victim, hurl him to the ground, and worry at his throat.

‘worry’ meaning to seize by the throat with the teeth and tear or lacerate; to kill or injure by biting and shaking. It is said, for example, of dogs or wolves attacking sheep, or of hounds when they seize their quarry. (OED definition). 

Sherlock Holmes with revolver and Watson in the Hound of the Baskervilles

The powers of observation of Holmes are the foremost among his detective skills. “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes,” he says. When the portrait of Hugo the Roysterer, who became the first known victim of a hound among the Baskervilles, is before them, Holmes observes an uncanny resemblance to Stapleton, and cries out to Watson: “Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that he should see through a disguise.” 

The Grimpen Mire with its Tors is very atmospheric, full of boulders and mist and eerily open spaces, which help set the mood

Next to observation is his ability to frame a series of hypotheses after collecting as many facts as possible. Facts are the underpinning of every one of his deductions. Indeed the word ‘facts’ occurs 23 times in the novel. “An investigator needs facts and not legends or rumours,” Holmes says. A third and perhaps crowning part of his intellectual apparatus is described in this famous saying of his: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” (from The Sign of Four). His method of logical deduction works by ruling out all possibilities that are not feasible, based on the facts.

The novel is full of interesting characters like the butterfly hunter Stapleton who has discovered a species on the moor and is quite famous in entomological circles. There is a litigious community worker, Mr Frankland, who has filed cases to open up private lands for common access to walkers, and also done the opposite, close off his own land to public  trails. Of course, Holmes himself takes centre-stage with his  sharp powers of observation and deduction, combined with an eschewal of unverified assumptions, which give him a penetrating access to detective solutions. Some of the descriptions give a Gothic cast to the novel, for instance:

– the hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted, 

– two great stones worn and sharpened until they looked like the huge corroding fangs of some monstrous beast,

– slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces,

Poetry Session – Oct 30, 2025

Of the ten poets read at this session only one was new, Ryan Teitman. All the others from Ben Jonson to W.H. Auden, and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish had been selected for previous readings. Had Priya been present we would have had one more new poet to add, George Sze.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes - illustration

It began with the highly atmospheric and haunting ballad The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. The poem tells about the gallant outlaws of olden times and begins with the line

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,

…

And the highwayman came riding—

         Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

Ben Jonson invites a friend to supper

Ben Jonson the great rival dramatist to Shakespeare, came up with a feast for his patron that is described in lush terms, more poetic and detailed than any modern Michelin starred restaurant could muster:

An olive, capers, or some better salad

Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,

If we can get her, full of eggs, and then

Lemons, and wine for sauce; to these a cony

Is not to be despaired of, for our money;

And, though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,

The sky not falling, think we may have larks.

The spirit of conviviality and shared enjoyment at the supper makes for delightful reading.

St. Cecilia with an Angel by Orazio Gentileschi (father of the renowned woman artist Artemesia Gentileschi). The organ is the symbol of St Cecilia

Auden was a fortuitous choice occasioned by Joe’s desire to remember his sister, Cecilia. Auden wrote the lyrics of a chorale that was composed by his friend Benjamin Britten whose birthday fell on the feast day of St. Cecilia on Nov 22. The refrain has the lines:

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

It ends with an instructive line:

O wear your tribulation like a rose.

Ada Limón, the current poet laureate of America, was read in a simple poem, The Conditional. The poem imagines all the malign things that can happen but reminds us it is enough that tomorrow comes, and we are still alive to enjoy the day:

Say we spend our last moments staring

at each other, hands knotted together,

clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.

Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be

enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,

right here, feeling lucky.

Robert Frost – man peering into a well

Robert Frost, a perennial favourite among our readers, is here represented by a strange poem in which a man peers constantly at the still water in a well, seeing himself reflected – but one day Something happens. That something is what disturbs this proto-Narcissus from succumbing to his enduring fancy for himself. Readers were reminded of another modern, sitting atop the world with only himself to admire!

Darwish, the poet of Palestine, who made it his calling to defend his land against all comers ready to snatch it from his compatriots, writes:

We have on this earth what makes life worth living: 

on this earth, the Lady of Earth,

mother of all beginnings and ends. 

She was called Palestine. 

Her name later became

Palestine. 

My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life.

Imtiaz Dharker reminds us that to be in a minority is no disaster, indeed it builds one up to resist all encroachment on one’s freedom and meet others on an equal footing. She writes:

I don’t fit,

like a clumsily-translated poem;

She has become a prescribed author for school children in UK.

Bob Dylan delivers his Nobel lecture finally – photo by Lester Cohen

Bob Dylan has been a favourite songster-poet of Thomo’s and this time one of his signal recordings, Mr. Tambourine Man, was sung by Thomo, paying homage to one of the greats of the modern world who is still going strong at age 84.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me

…

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship

My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip

My toes too numb to step

Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’

It is a song about seeking inspiration and escape from the mundane through a mystical, musical figure, often interpreted as a muse. The real Tambourine Man was musician Bruce Langhorne, who played a large Turkish frame drum that looked like a giant tambourine on several covers of Dylan's recordings; Dylan confirmed Bruce was indeed the inspiration. 

Bruce Langhorne – Tambourine Man