Baskerville is my take on the Arthur Conan Doyle classic. Told as a journal penned by the original’s villain, it relates his life story from a pauper’s childhood in the Empire of Brazil to life on the run in Panama and Costa Rica. He lands in England determined to confront his family and claim his place at Baskerville Hall. All the while, he lays out his plan to settle a score with Holmes and Watson, whom have taken him for dead after their confrontation on the bogs of Dartmoor.
A review copy of the novel is available to NetGalley members upon request. Please note, I’m currently seeking NetGalley members who actively review and crosspost to other sites (Goodreads, Amazon, book blogs, etc.)
You may have also heard something similar ten or so years ago (such as this 2013 news story). Why are we going through this again in 2023?
You may also wonder how a character created in 1887—136 years ago—could have been copyrighted up until a few days back. Did all those recent Sherlock Holmes adaptations (Sherlock, Elementary, Mr. Holmes, Enola Holmes, etc.) pay a license fee to someone? Who was collecting the money?
The character of Sherlock Holmes, and most of his stories, have been in the public domain since the late 1990’s. However, Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary estate—which represents a few distant descendants—continued to insist that the character remained in copyright, and so authors and filmmakers kept paying a license fee to produce derivative works. The final batch of Holmes stories entered the public domain in 2023, but it remains to be seen if the estate will cease to claim it holds rights to depictions of him.
And, no, I did not purchase a license to publish my book last year. Here’s why.
Of the books I’ve written, A Man Named Baskerville required the most research. I studied Victorian idioms and writing patterns, the history of the Empire of Brazil, the British peerage, dog breeding and training, and the ecosystem of the Dartmoor bogs. I read and reread (and reread) the source story, The Hound of the Baskervilles. None of this was a chore.
However, I also spent a frustrating amount of time researching whether I needed to pay a license fee to publish my book. That research drew out to a confounding and depressing study in modern greed.
This is what I learned:
In the United States, the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have been in the public domain for decades now. The earliest Holmes stories fell out of copyright in 1998, when U.S. legislation declared works published prior to 1923 were automatically in the public domain. That magic year—1923—was “frozen” until 2019, when the public-domain clock began moving forward. Today, the magic public domain cut-off date is 1927.
(This is an important distinction: The characters of Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, etc. were placed in the public domain in 1998, even though some of the later stories remained under copyright. As you’ll see, the Doyle literary estate played up this confusion for their own ends.)
The first Sherlock Holmes stories were published in 1887. The bulk of them were published prior to 1923. You’d think authors and filmmakers have been free for decades now to produce new Sherlock Holmes works. You would be wrong, in a way.
The complication stems from Doyle’s writing history. Although he killed off Holmes in 1893’s “The Final Problem,” he returned to the character in The Hound of the Baskervilles (serialized in 1901–1902) and brought the detective back to life in 1903’s “The Adventure of the Empty House.” Doyle continued producing Holmes stories and novels until 1927—meaning he produced four years’ worth of work that remained copyrighted though the end of 2022.
Astoundingly, the Doyle literary estate did not stop insisting after 1998 that depictions of Sherlock Holmes required a license. Their logic was that since some of the Sherlock Holmes stories remained copyrighted, the estate still held rights to the character. What’s more, they asserted any depiction of a “rounded” Sherlock Holmes—that is, a Sherlock Holmes with feelings—was also copyrighted. (It’s preposterous, and I won’t go into their reasoning here.)
These specious claims crashed into a wall of common sense thanks to author Leslie S. Klinger suing the estate in 2013. Klinger had previously paid a $5,000 licensing fee to publish his first Sherlock Holmes book. He refused to pay for his second book; the Doyle estate threatened to prevent the book’s distribution. Judge Richard Posner recounted the estate’s threats in his findings:
[The estate] did not mince words … “If you proceed … to bring out [the sequel] unlicensed, do not expect to see it offered for sale by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and similar retailers. We work with those compan[ies] routinely to weed out unlicensed uses of Sherlock Holmes from their offerings, and will not hesitate to do so with your book as well.”
Posner excoriated Doyle’s estate, calling their actions “a form of extortion”:
The Doyle estate’s business strategy is plain: charge a modest license fee for which there is no legal basis, in the hope that the “rational” writer or publisher asked for the fee will pay it rather than incur a greater cost, in legal expenses, in challenging the legality of the demand.
Posner also tossed out the estate’s attempt to extend their copyright via the last remaining stories, as well as their “Sherlock Holmes with feeling” claim. He said their appeal “bordered on the quixotic.”
This is why, when the suit was settled, news sources in 2013—ten years ago—were printing headlines like “Finally, Sherlock Holmes Is Now in the Public Domain.” Considering Posner’s scathing dressing-down of the estate, you’d think the matter was settled. Again, you would be wrong.
Unabated and shameless, the Doyle literary estate continued to squeeze payments from authors and filmmakers. One victim of this bogus “Sherlock Holmes with feeling” copyright was the 2015 film Mr. Holmes, starring Ian McKellan. Another was the Netflix production of Enola Holmes. The final 2020 settlement details are undisclosed, but I wager Netflix paid the Doyle estate rather than continue with a protracted lawsuit—exactly the shakedown Posner described in his Klinger decision.
With the passing of 2022, articles blossom again with proclamations that the master detective is finally in the public domain—“Now anybody can write a Sherlock Holmes story.” Actually, anybody could have written a Holmes story since 1998—it’s only due to an insufferable and insatiable literary estate that anyone would think otherwise.
Mr. Holmes movie poster
With the entire Sherlock Holmes corpus now in the public domain, this must close the door on the estate’s claims, right? I’m dubious. The Doyle estate has been told at least twice in the past (in 1998, again in 2013) they do not hold a copyright on the detective. That did not stop them from abusing their namesake’s prestige to squeeze money out of creators.
If you think I’m being cynical, consider that the estate continues, in 2023, to solicit license fees from prospective Holmes authors. A separate agency solicits licenses for Sherlock Holmes memorabilia and merchandise—even though generic depictions of the detective are entirely in the public domain and do not require a license. The literary estate’s web site is polished and professionally-produced. You could not blame a naive author wandering onto it and concluding they must pay a license fee to publish a Sherlock Holmes book.
And if you think I was being paranoid or overly self-important worrying that the Doyle estate would come after me, recall that they were more than happy to take Leslie Klinger—an independent author you may not have heard of before—all the way to the 7th Circuit court of appeals. Remember what they told him: “Do not expect to see [your book] offered for sale by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and similar retailers. We work with those companies routinely to weed out unlicensed uses of Sherlock Holmes.” Would Amazon’s algorithm automatically ban or blacklist my book because it did not carry a license from the Doyle estate?
And if that sounds farfetched, know that several years ago Amazon informed me that they would de-list my first novel because its description contained the phrase “Star Wars.” They didn’t care that my novel centers on the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), dubbed “Star Wars” by its critics. I removed the phrase from my description, and the book continues to be sold online. I’m not happy about that, though.
With all that in mind, I decided to risk it. The strength of the Klinger decision convinced me the Doyle estate did not hold the copyright to Sherlock Holmes, that I didn’t need to obtain a license, that I didn’t need to wait until 2023 to publish A Man Named Baskerville—that I was entirely free to take the original Baskerville story and re-shape and re-imagine it from the perspective of the villain himself. That’s exactly what I did.
Mystery and Suspense Magazine has published my article “Sherlock Holmes: The enduring allure of history’s greatest detective” on their web site. In it, I explore the traditional reasons why critics and fans think the Baker Street detective remains popular—even immortal—to this day, and offer in return my own thoughts on the subject:
What is the enduring appeal of this shape-shifting character? Doyle gives no indication that Holmes is particularly attractive or magnetic in personality. He can be cold, abrasive, and downright rude in moments. One cannot help but feel Dr. Watson is a man with a remarkable reservoir of patience. How many Sherlock Holmes adventures open with the detective challenging Watson to discern the history of a person from nothing more than a walking stick, a battered hat, or a muddied shoe? Watson entertains Holmes and his games of deduction, but always as the lesser, never as the equal. (In my experience, medical doctors are not the sorts of people who take well to being talked down to.) Why would such a man continue to fascinate and entertain well into the 21st century?
My thinking on Doyle and his creation has shifted over the past few years due to a renewed appreciation for the Sherlock Holmes canon and, of course, writing a reinterpretation of his classic The Hound of the Baskervilles.
While this tale is intended to be Stapleton’s counter to what Watson’s published version of the events would be, it rather exposes a horror within that cannot be saved by the loyalty of a good friend, the love of a woman or the faithfulness of a dog.
The full review is here. More information on the book is here, including links for reading sample chapters in your browser.
If you’re a fan of science fiction, fantasy, and/or historical fiction, I highly recommend checking out her channel, where she offers patient and thoughtful views on a wide range of fiction. Thanks, Kayla!
[Note: The following is adapted and compressed from the afterword to A Man Named Baskerville. It reveals some details from the book. It also contains spoilers to the book it was inspired by, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.]
Years ago, while traveling Japan via its Shinkansen bullet train, I found myself without a book to read. An ebook reader I’d installed on my phone came with a free sample to whet the reader’s appetite. That book was Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of the earliest Holmes short stories. (I explore this incident in greater detail in my 2016 post “Sherlock by Train.”)
The collection stands as a record of a remarkably creative streak. So remarkable, if Doyle were to have stopped writing after its publication, we would still be talking about his literary creation and storytelling prowess. The titles of the stories within are as familiar as the books of the Bible: “A Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Red-Headed League,” “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” Perhaps the only missing short story title of comparable infamy is “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” published in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes a mere two years later. In toto, they represent the height of Doyle’s powers and inventiveness.
None of this inspired me to write A Man Named Baskerville. As exciting and inventive as a great Sherlock Holmes story can be, never have I entertained the question that has dogged countless other producers of Doyle homages and pastiches: Could I write my own Sherlock Holmes story? Honestly, the thought has never crossed my mind.
After consuming the first collection in a rush of reading, I used the opportunity of a brief train stop and some free wireless Internet access to download more Sherlock Holmes books for our continued journey. I had read a little of Doyle’s work before, and never found much interest in it. They were too Victorian for my tastes, too concerned with Empire and upright decency and British morality. My California upbringing, and the plain-speaking tastes I inherited from my parents, led me to the hardboiled school of Chandler, Hammett, and Cain. Nathanael West’s grotesqueries and William Gibson’s cyberpunks are a better fit for me than Holmes’ Irregulars.
On that train ride, my interest in Sherlock Holmes kindled. Holmes may not have walked Chandler’s mean streets, but he did present a more compelling moral force than I’d sensed before. As with the hardboiled school, Holmes time and again must balance his own sense of justice against the British legal system’s notion of the same. Doyle wrote for an audience who would understand those boundaries implicitly. A hundred and ten years later, I viewed Holmes’ sense of justice through a different lens. This came to a point when my reading reached The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The book was first serialized in 1901, ten years after that auspicious run of early short stories. Doyle had killed off Holmes in “The Final Problem” (1893) hoping to rid himself of the literary creation upstaging all his other work. An appalled public demanded more stories featuring Holmes, and publishers increasingly pressured Doyle to satisfy the market’s cravings.
Inspired by a trip to Devon and its local folklore of wisht hellhounds roaming the countryside at night, Doyle produced The Hound of the Baskervilles. To avoid what we today call “continuity problems,” he retroactively dated its events to October 1888, three years before the publication of his earliest stories. This places the story square in the middle of the Autumn of Terror, when a serial killer dubbed Saucy Jack terrified London, while, across the Atlantic, the Empire of Brazil was warily beginning its dissolution.
One overlooked quality of Doyle’s writing is that his knack for concise storytelling in the short form executes equally brilliantly in the longer form. I’ve seen adept short story writers get fouled up when they attempt to tackle the novel. The pacing and breathing cadences that permit a runner to win the 100-meter dash do not sustain when attempting a marathon. Yet Doyle’s economical style holds up with Hound, making for dazzling quick cuts between crucial scenes, and exposition that does not lead the reader to impatiently flip ahead. Doyle had a gift for paring down prose to its vital emotional and informational elements without stripping it of that uniquely English sense of mood and atmosphere. One also sees in Hound Doyle’s assiduous control of pacing. The early chapters draw out their eerie scenes, while the closing chapters barrel headlong toward the conclusion. The movement becomes so breathless at the end, it takes pure inference on the part of the reader to detect scene changes.
Readers either love or hate this no-nonsense approach to storytelling. Either way, the final output of his opus on the moors is consistent with this quality, and obviously has held the public’s interest for well over a century.
None of this inspired me to write this book, either. I grew to admire Doyle’s writing while traveling by bullet train, but I never craved to imitate it. The first fourteen chapters of The Hound of the Baskervilles served to reaffirm my growing estimation of the man’s talents, but not to pick up a pen.
What did inspire me to write A Man Named Baskerville? The fifteenth and final chapter of the book it derives from.
All detective mysteries deal in sleight-of-hand. Keeping the perpetrator out of the narrative limelight until the moment the solution is announced is a tried-and-true technique for maintaining the element of surprise. In response, savvy readers have learned to guess whodunnit by evaluating how much “screen time” the author gives the suspects. The most obvious suspect is never culpable. The suspect we’ve read the least about is quite often guilty up to their eyeballs.
First edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles
And that’s pretty much the case in The Hound of the Baskervilles. The perpetrator is one we hear precious little about, an absentminded collector of butterflies and moths named Jack Stapleton who lives with his sister (the nineteenth-century equivalent to rooming in your parents’ basement, apparently). He’s not the least elaborated-upon character in the book, but he is pictured as far removed from the crimes and the curse of the Baskervilles. When Holmes and Watson finally suspect his guilt, Doyle spends no time speculating on his motivations in favor of keeping the story moving at a brisk clip.
Doyle knew the reader would eventually demand to know why Stapleton posed under an assumed identity to murder his uncle in such a contrived way, and then attempt the same on his cousin. To sew things up, in Chapter 15, Watson calls on Holmes to explain the background of Jack Stapleton. Holmes launches into fourteen pages of exposition, a matter-of-fact recounting of Rodger’s life from the New World to Devonshire, England.
Much detail is omitted, of course, but Holmes’ reckoning of Rodger’s life is a far more plumbed-out biography than I think any reader expected. After all, Holmes could have simply stated, “He was raised abroad and returned to England to kill his uncle and claim his estate.” Yes, that could be worded more artfully, but Doyle stretched himself to fill in the blanks.
I don’t know why Doyle felt the need to so thoroughly detail Rodger Baskerville’s life. I’m not sure anyone does. In my research for A Man Named Baskerville, I never located a definitive answer to the question. Perhaps in Doyle’s papers, or in a complete treatise on his life and work, an answer may be found. Perhaps it was a modernist faith in the triumph of reason—all things must be explained that can be explained—that led Doyle to stretch himself, much as he uses many pages to lay out the backstory in A Study in Scarlet and some of his short stories.
What I do know is, reading those seemingly superfluous fourteen pages of Rodger’s life struck me as a kind of boggy sinkhole in the tale. It felt Arthur Conan Doyle had wanted to write two books, Rodger’s life story and The Hound of the Baskervilles. Unable or uninterested in writing the first, he wrote the latter and included a précis of the former in the final chapter.
Fascinated, I made copious notes of Holmes’ reckoning of Rodger’s life. Later, I transferred and organized them on my computer. A bell tinkled in my mind, a Pavlovian reaction all writers develop: Is there a novel here? I let the idea stew. Holmes’ reckoning might appear a rich vein to mine, but once I started digging, it might yield little more than a couple of small gems.
And how would readers react to Rodger as a main character? Yes, everyone says they like stories about villains—but too often those so-called villains are more like lovable rogues or bad boys with a soft spot. Was I trying to humanize Rodger Baskerville? That’s exactly what a novel does: It humanizes. Would it be a Victorian “Sympathy for the Devil”?
Maybe, I thought, I should just write the damn thing and see what comes out of the keyboard.
I made a private agreement with myself: I would not write yet another pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, of which there are plenty to pass around. The book would be told in Rodger’s voice and not in imitation of Doyle’s Watson. Of course, that didn’t excuse me from the challenges of writing a historical novel, which include diction, grammar, tone of voice, colloquialisms, and historical accuracy. Nor could I write such a book without featuring Holmes and Watson at some point.
Mostly, though, my doubts centered on originality. Certainly someone had executed on this idea since the publication of Doyle’s book. Internet searches yielded nothing of the sort.
It became a secret too juicy to keep to myself: In the final chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle embedded a working outline for a novel—a rousing novel, in my estimation—that had been overlooked for over a century. It took me five years to set aside my private doubts and write it.
Yes, it was exhilarating to liberally borrow from a master’s synopsis and expand it into this novel. No, having said synopsis to work from did not make my job any easier.
When I planned A Man Named Baskerville, I failed to see how a man with Rodger’s background would not bring to Dartmoor one or more Central or South American dialects along with his impeccable upper-class English accent. He would also bring with him a rich and varied New World culture as his starting point of reference.
Once in England, around his neck would be the weight of several albatrosses: His father’s suspicious exile; his “ethnic” upbringing and foreign tongue; his lack of secure income; his marriage to a dusky woman most un-Anglo-Saxon. Only his upper-crust accent would save him. It would work in the British Isles like a charge card with no spending limit. After all, he didn’t merely fool the English into thinking he was one of them; he fooled them into thinking he was better than most of them.
Freud’s narcissism of small differences is an underappreciated observation of the continuing human condition. As long as people lift themselves up by cataloging their differences with outsiders, there will always be Rodger Baskervilles walking among us.
The A Man Named Baskerville book tour is underway! As the above graphic shows, the tour is making stops at several spots around the book-reading web. I’m working with Escapist Tours, who have been an able hand in putting together all the finishing touches.
Throughout the week, several well-known book reviewers and bloggers will be discussing Baskerville. I’ll post here as the tour stops along the way, and what these great and generous readers have to say.
If you’re curious, learn more about A Man Named Baskervillehere. It’s my take on the classic Sherlock Holmes novel retold from a brand-new perspective. As I like to say, I peered into the Arthur Conan Doyle book and realized there was another book within the book—another story waiting to be told.
And if you’d like to read A Man Named Baskerville, consider signing up for the giveaway: I’m raffling off one digital edition of the book at the conclusion of the tour. To sign up, just follow this link.
