Sherlock Mondays: The Hound of the Baskervilles Archive
This Biblioventures, Sherlock Mondays: The Hound of the Baskervilles was a paid subscriber series, but we have now released it for everyone to watch free.
When Arthur Conan Doyle wrote “The Final Problem,” he had no intention of continuing to create more adventures for his detective. However, his readers (including his own mother) wanted more, so he resurrected Sherlock and Watson for an investigation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, a nine-part monthly serial in The Strand Magazine.
Join us as we take a Biblioventure to Dartmoor where a strange diabolical hound haunts the moors, preying upon the heirs of Baskerville Hall. What will the logically reasoning Sherlock Holmes do when faced with a supernatural creature? We condensed the story slightly into eight weekly episodes. Host Edward G. Pettit and a rotating group of cohosts will have a conversational annotation about each story, providing context and insight about Doyle and his Hound.
The Rosenbach holds in its collection first editions of some of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books, including The Hound of the Baskervilles, as well as the handwritten manuscript of “The Adventure of the Empty House.” Our founder Dr. Rosenbach was deeply committed to mystery and crime literature, corresponded with the famous Sherlockian and founder of the Baker Street Irregulars, Christopher Morley, and once purchased Doyle’s personal crime library.
Episode Archive
This series took place live from May 6-June 24, 2024. You can watch all the episodes on our YouTube Playlist Sherlock Monthly: The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Reading
The Hound of the Baskervilles as first published in the Strand Magazine (complete text)
Episode Guide
Episode 1, Chapters 1-2: with special guests Paul M. Chapman and Mark Jones from Doings of Doyle
pdf Hound Strand Mag Aug 1901
Chapter 1: Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Chapter 2: The Curse of the Baskervilles
Both Paul and Mark host the Doings of Doyle podcast and are members of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London and The Scandalous Bohemians – a Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle society based in the north of England, which holds regular meetings in Leeds and York. In 2018, together with Paul’s partner, Teresa Dudley (Secretary of The Scandalous Bohemians), they organised the ‘Through a Glass Darkly’ M. R. James conference in York.
Paul M. Chapman (left) has written widely on Victorian and Edwardian genre literature, with a particular focus on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James. He was a staff writer on Sherlock magazine for ten years, and edited The Ritual for the Northern Musgraves Sherlock Holmes Society. He is also the author of Birth of a Legend: Count Dracula, Bram Stoker and Whitby, and has contributed articles and reviews to ACD: The Journal of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society, The Musgrave Papers, All Hallows, Ghosts & Scholars and Wormwood.
Mark Jones (right) (BSI, MBt, ASH) has been fascinated by the works of Arthur Conan Doyle since he read the canon one wet summer holiday as a twelve-year-old, before diving into The Lost World. He studied and taught the history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and continues to work in higher education as a consultant. He has written several books on television, film and literature including Dark Matters (co-written with Lance Parkin), an introduction to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels for young teenagers. He has contributed articles to The Baker Street Journal, Canadian Holmes, The Serpentine Muse and numerous blogs.
Episode 2, Chapters 3-4: with special guest Anastasia Klimchynskaya
pdf Hound Strand Sept 1901
Chapter 3: The Problem
Chapter 4: Sir Henry Baskerville
Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya is a scholar of nineteenth-century literature with a deep interest in the intersections between science, technology, literature, and the cultural imagination. Having called Philadelphia home while receiving her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, she has previously appeared on the Rosenbach’s Sundays with Frankenstein, and written widely on Sherlock Holmes, science fiction, the history of science, and the Gothic in numerous scholarly and Sherlockian publications. She is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the world’s oldest and most renowned Sherlock Holmes society, and helps organize Philcon, Philadelphia’s science fiction convention.
Episode 3, Chapters 5-6: with special guest Monica Schmidt
pdf Hound Strand Oct 1901
Chapter 5: Three Broken Threads
Chapter 6: Baskerville Hall
Monica Schmidt, ASH, BSI, is the president of The Younger Stamfords of Iowa City, a BSI Scion Society. She is a member of multiple Sherlockian societies including The Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota, The Sons of the Copper Beeches, The Speckled Band of Boston, and The Hounds of the Baskerville (sic) of Chicago. Since 2013, Monica has been a staple in the Sherlockian conference/lecture circuit, typically speaking on the subject of Sherlock Holmes and mental health, having written the definitive essay on Holmes’s cocaine use in the Canon. She received the investiture of “Julia Stoner” from The Baker Street Irregulars in 2019 and “The Church of St. Monica” from The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes in 2015. When not engaging in Sherlockian events or playing cricket, Monica is a licensed mental health counselor in private practice, a member of the film critic staff for Cedar Rapids radio station KCCK, and engages in never-ending landscaping projects in her backyard with her supportive spouse, Bill.
Episode 4, Chapters 7-9: with special guest Steve Doyle of The Fortnightly Dispatch
pdf Hound Strand Nov and Dec 1901
Chapter 7: The Stapletons of Merripit House
Chapter 8: First Report of Dr. Watson
Chapter 9: The Light upon the Moor
Steven Doyle wears many hats in the Sherlockian world, including being one half of Sherlockian publishing company Wessex Press/Gasogene Books, and publisher of The Baker Street Journal for the last ten years. He also hosts the popular BSI video podcast The Fortnightly Dispatch. He has authored or edited seven books on Sherlock Holmes, including Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, and the just-released Clutches of a Fiend, the latest in the Baker Street Irregulars Manuscript Series. Steve is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars and is proud to lead The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis. He is also a founding member of The 140 Varieties of Tobacco Ash, as well as the international movement known as S.P.O.D.E.
Episode 5, Chapters 10-11: with special guest Curtis Armstrong
pdf Hound Strand Jan 1902
Chapter 10: Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson
Chapter 11: The Man on the Tor
Curtis Armstrong is an actor who began his life in the organized Sherlockian world when he joined The Trifling Monographs, a Scion society for students founded by the late Susan Rice in the late sixties. His first paper was published in the Baker Street Journal shortly before his induction in the Baker Street Irregulars in 2006. He has delivered numerous papers since at the BSI annual January Birthday Weekends in New York City, for the 221B Con in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as literary symposiums in Chicago and the Hudson Valley, NY. Recently, he was featured in both seasons of the Audible dramatic series, Moriarty, written by Charles Kindinger.
Episode 6, Chapters 12-14: with Scott Monty of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere
pdf Hound Strand Feb and Mar 1902
Chapter 12: Death on the Moor
Chapter 13: Fixing the Nets
Chapter 14: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Scott Monty, BSI (“Corporal Henry Wood”), Editor-in-Chief, Founder and Co-Host of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, began his interest in Sherlock Holmes in his teenage years, during which he discovered his first Sherlockian society, The Men on the Tor in Connecticut – his first social network. The Sherlockian societies around the northeast were never the same after Scott descended on Boston, and The Baker Street Irregulars invested him in 2001. He established a web presence and online ordering system for The Baker Street Journal later that year. His profession led him into digital communications, and as a side project-cum-laboratory, Scott founded The Baker Street Blog in 2005. The blog existed as a standalone site until mid-2013. In 2007, with Burt Wolder, he added a podcast, and I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere was born. The two sites were combined in mid-2013 to serve as the definitive site for news and information about Sherlock Holmes on the web.
Episode 7, Chapters 14-15: with special guest Mary Alcaro
pdf Hound Strand Apr 1902
Chapter 14 (con): The Hound of the Baskervilles
Chapter 15: A Retrospection
Mary Alcaro is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at Rutgers University, where she is completing a dissertation on the Black Death’s traumatic effect on fourteenth century literature. An avid Sherlockian, Mary has been invested in the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) and Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (ASH), and currently co-leads The Sons of the Copper Beeches, Philadelphia’s Sherlockian scion society. She has contributed essays to several books on various Sherlockian topics. Mary is also a bartender, co-creator of the Sherlock Mondays’ themed cocktails.
Episode 8, The Legacy of the Hound: with special guest Max Magee
Maximilian Magee, PSI (“Agent Tobias Athelney”) is the social chair of the Notorious Canary-Trainers of Madison, Wisconsin, and leads a group known as Comrades of The Order and its spin-off SPODE scion Captain Basil’s Mignonettes. In 2021, he attended his first BSI weekend and has never looked back. He’s a [hyper] active member of the Hounds of the Internet, frequent visitor- and member of- the Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota, he’s also the “Gopher” Yeoman Purser of the Torists International S.S. of Chicago. His background, education, and work experience in tech has led to all sorts of weird and interesting Sherlockian projects, like an e-re-serialization of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and using A.I. and computer science to analyze, dissect, and discuss the Canon. Recent projects include brute-force searching the entire canonical text for longest palindromes (it’s 12-characters long and occurs in COPP)*, producing story summaries in alphabetical word-order, and frequency analysis of word-usage and punctuation over time. Max holds a B.S. in Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics from the University of Wisconsin, has worked as a Flight Design Engineer and Flight Controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and worked as the CTO of a cloud A.I. startup, is currently a Manager of Software Development at a local Madison software company, and he’s a third-degree black belt and teacher of Kuk Sool Won and former world-champion in bong (the Korean martial art long-staff).
*All pdfs created from books digitized by Google and Strand cover images from The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Meet the Host
Edward G. Pettit is the Sunstein Senior Manager of Public Programs at the Rosenbach and has been presenter for the weekly Biblioventures series: Sundays with Dracula, Sundays with Frankenstein, Sundays with Jane Eyre, and Austen Mondays: Pride and Prejudice. Pettit has taught many reading courses at the Rosenbach, including Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, and Dickens’ Christmas Books. He is a member of the Dickens Fellowship, the Philadelphia Pickwick Club, and in 2012, was the Charles Dickens Ambassador for the Free Library of Philadelphia’s year-long bicentenary celebration of Dickens’ birth. He is a member of the Philadelphia Baker Street Irregular scion society, The Sons of the Copper Beeches, serving as the Recorder of Pedigrees, and has probably never read a Sherlock Holmes story without smoking a pipe while reading.
