Issue 10 : Hound, Chapters 13 and 14 (part1)

"Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse"

George Colman's son of the same name became a greater playwright than his father

"That's lucky for him--in fact, it's lucky for all of you, since you are all on the wrong side of the law in this matter. I am not sure that as a conscientious detective my first duty is not to arrest the whole household. Watson's reports are most incriminating documents."
This is a typical example of Holmes's dry humor. It is also clear that he, at least, sees that the plan to send Selden to South America was not the most brilliant idea.

"Watson won't allow that I know anything of art, but that is mere jealousy, because our views upon the subject differ."
Despite Watson's earlier protestations in chapter V that Holmes possessed "the crudest ideas" of art, Holmes does seem able to identify works by major painters of the previous century.

"That's a Kneller, I'll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder…"
Sir Godfrey Kneller (1649?-1723) was a German-born painter who became one of the leading portraitists of England. His style influenced English portraiture for at least a generation.

"…and the stout gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds."
Born in Devon, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was probably the most important of 18^th-century British painters. His portrait list reads like a "Who's Who" of late 18^th-century society. He was the first president of the British Royal Academy, and, through his writings on artistic style and technique, he influenced the course of aesthetics and art history far beyond the impact of his paintings alone.

At right, two engravings after paintings by Reynolds: the first, an allegorical portrait of Mrs. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), England's leading actress during her lifetime; the second, a portrait of George Colman the elder (1732-1794), dramatist, writer, and sometime manager of Covent Garden Theatre and Drury Lane Theatre. Both engravings are from H. Saxe Wyndham, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre, vol. I, 1906.

"That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney in the West Indies."
George Brydges Rodney (1719?-1792) was a successful British naval strategist during the American Revolutionary War who conquered the island of Martinique, in the West Indies.

"The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is Sir William Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons under Pitt."
Chairman of Committees is the presiding member of the House of Commons. William Pitt (1759-1806) was Prime Minister of England from 1783 to his death in 1806. He presided over the British government during one of its most tumultuous periods, including the aftermath of the American Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. Conan Doyle places Sir William Baskerville, an entirely fictional character, at a crucial moment in British history.

	A portrait of William Pitt from Earl Stanhope, Life of the Right Honorable William Pitt, vol. I, 1861

"And this Cavalier opposite to me—the one with the black velvet and the lace?"
During the English Civil War (1642-1651), the royalists called themselves "Cavaliers." The Cavaliers tended to dress more flamboyantly and wear their hair longer than their Puritan opponents, contemptuously known as "Roundheads" for their close-cropped hair.

"Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual. A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. The fellow is a Baskerville—that is evident."
Although we were earlier led to suspect that the hound itself might be a throwback, now it becomes clear that Stapleton is the throwback, reproducing the ruthless and cruel personality of Hugo Baskerville, as well as his physical appearance. Why Dr. Mortimer, an expert on atavism and a frequent visitor to Baskerville Hall, did not notice the resemblance is difficult to say.

He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.
Sherlockian Christopher Morley (1890-1957) says this of The Hound of the Baskervilles:

Probably the masterpiece. There are moments of anxiety and shock which no story in this vein has improved. From the moment when Holmes, looking at Mrs. Hudson's well-polished silver coffeepot, sees the image of Watson studying the "Penang lawyer" (a walking stick) the reader is carried in an absorption we would not spoil by giving any hints. Holmes rarely laughed, and when he did so it boded ill for evildoers. Toward the end of this superb tale we hear his strident and dangerous mirth.

—From Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: A Textbook of Friendship (1944)

I was up betimes in the morning…
Watson rose early.

"Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Grodno, in Little Russia, in the year '66, and of course there are the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are entirely its own.…"
Holmes is mistaken--Grodno is in Lithuania, not in Little Russia (the Ukraine). Neither of these cases is real. Again, Conan Doyle creates the feeling of verisimilitude by studding his narrative thickly with names and dates.

	This poster for the 1939 Hound of the Baskervilles represents the hound only as a series of monstrous footprints, rather than trying to show its glowing face

…and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the practical man.
Lestrade's change of attitude towards Holmes's method is usually ignored in movies and pastiches of Holmes and Watson stories. There, he is forever doubting, and yet quite willing to take credit when the mystery is solved.

Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame.
Now Holmes has an answer to his question from chapter VII: how did Selden know, despite the darkness, that the hound was on his trail? Answer: he saw the phosphorescence.