The Mystery of the Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles is an odd novel. As usual with the Doyle Sherlock Holmes novels, it’s really a Holmes short story, divided in half, with a completely different novella sandwiched in between. Every Holmes novel is like this, but 'Hound' is somewhat different.

In 'Hound' Doyle disappears Holmes for the bulk of the story and has Watson carry the narrative. Only later do we find Holmes had been shadowing Watson and watching his investigation from afar (while doing his own investigation, of course). Frankly, it's kind of a dick move from Holmes, but not completely out of keeping, as Holmes has always been kind of a jerk.

But the structure is still odd, even more so than Doyle's other Holmes novels. Some think this is because Doyle didn't write it, or at least didn't come up with the story, and then inserted Holmes into someone else’s case.

Enter Bertram Fletcher Robinson.

Fletcher Robinson was an author in his own right (even wrote a series starring his own detective, "Addington Peace"), and on a visit with Doyle, told his friend of various legends, including that of a large hound in the Dartmoor area. Doyle was intrigued, and together the two hatched the plot of the 'Hound', with Fletcher writing drafts of several chapters, even borrowing (with permission) the name of his coachman, Henry Baskerville, for the manuscript. Doyle, in correspondence with his agent, even insisted on Robinson's byline being next to his.

But.

Oh, there is always a whole world contained in a 'but'...

Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in 1893, with the short story "The Adventure of the Final Problem”. He had thought that Holmes was holding him back from greater literary achievement (anybody read 'The White Company' recently?) and resented the time lost figuring out puzzles for the burdensome Sherlock. So, he killed him. He didn't realize the hate storm he would unleash. He may have hated Holmes, but the detective was beloved by the public, worldwide. A great uproar was raised: BRING BACK SHERLOCK HOLMES! 

So, faced with uproar, and desperately wanting to move on, Doyle took the Robinson collaboration, a story not about Holmes, and shoved in Sherlock, cutting Fletcher's credit to a footnote in the first edition. This explains why Holmes is mostly absent in 'Hound', appearing in only a couple of chapters in the beginning and not seen again in nearly 3/4ths of the way into the story.

This is why this particular Holmes story is not so much about Holmes. Holmes feels tacked on, almost an afterthought. Fletcher died at the age of 36, just a few years after the publication of 'Hound'. He had claimed to be the 'co-author' of 'Hound ' and it was never disputed by Doyle, who soon revived Holmes and would put out new stories until 1929. 

Doyle died in 1939 never acknowledging the full role of Fletcher Robinson in 'HOUND'. It’s a literary mystery that goes on, endlessly debated, among Holmes fans to this day. Did Doyle just take the plot and write his own story, or did he take a draft of Fletcher’s featuring a different character, re-writing it in a Holmes story? If we had the full, handwritten manuscript, that might have some answers, but the pages were lost in a publicity stunt by Doyle’s agent, who split up the manuscript to have it displayed in bookshops in America. Most of the pages have never been found, though some turn up from time to time.

Fletcher died of cancer at the age of 36, leaving several books on English sports, dozens of articles, and a collection of the Addison Peace short stories.

And a mystery.