Special #7 – Lyndsay’s Intro To Canon: Part III

And we’re back with the third of Lyndsay’s four classes on the Sherlock Holmes stories at the Center for Fiction in Manhattan. This time: Hounds, Points, and Baker Street Irregulars.

Enjoy!

SESSION 3: The Hound.

Readings:

—The Hound of the Baskervilles

—“The Hound Isn’t the Point” by Lyndsay Faye

Arguably the best of the four novels and certainly the most famous, The Hound of the Baskervilles was published serially between Holmes’s “death” and his later resurrection; Doyle suggested that the events took place previous to his demise in Switzerland at the hands of Professor Moriarty.

We’ll discuss the iconic legend of the ghostly death hound, Doyle’s mastery of Gothic atmosphere, the most famous adaptations of the work, the function of absence and its effects on great suspense writing, and ways in which the novel-length form is singularly ill-suited to Holmes as a character.