This month, we join a young doctor struggling to recruit patients for his medical practice in ‘Crabbe’s Practice’ from 1884, a story that Conan Doyle rewrote in its entirety in 1922. 

You can read the two versions of the story here.

Or listen to an audiobook version of the 1922 version here.

The episode will appear on our YouTube page. Please like and subscribe.

You can follow us @doingsofdoyle on BlueSky.

Synopsis

When they were fellow medical students at Edinburgh University, Robert Hudson had foreseen a successful and rewarding career for the eccentric but brilliant John Waterhouse Crabbe. His prophecy appears to have been fulfilled when Crabbe invites Hudson to stay at his impressive and well-appointed residence-cum-practice at Bridport. All, however, is not as it seems: Crabbe is the area’s least regarded doctor, despite his local family connections, and he is desperate need of a plan to attract patients and stave off bankruptcy. Hudson provides an answer: he will play the role of a well-heeled gentleman who is suddenly taken ill on Crabbe’s doorstep and then cured within. Crabbe then further dramatises the plot to involve Hudson’s miraculous recovery from a staged drowning. What could possibly go wrong? 

Next time on Doings of Doyle

We look at one of the last stories penned by Conan Doyle, his Regency short story ‘The End of Devil Hawker' (1930). You can read the story here.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ 

YouTube video created by @headlinerapp.

This episode, we welcome to the podcast, James Machin, to talk about the new edition of The Stark Munro Letters (1895) he has edited for Edinburgh University Press.

About James Machin

James is a writer, researcher, and editor, whose recent books include the Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Arthur Conan Doyle's version of The Stark Munro Letters (2024) and The Strange Stories of John Buchan for British Library Publishing (2025). He edited Faunus, the journal of The Friends of Arthur Machen, for over ten years, and has taught at Birkbeck (University of London), the Royal College of Art, and the University of Bedfordshire. He has recently commenced work on the Edinburgh Edition of Round the Fire Stories.

The Stark Munro Letters (Edinburgh University Press, 2025)

The first new edition of The Stark Munro Letters since the early 1980s

This is the first scholarly edition of Arthur Conan Doyle’s epistolary novel, originally serialised in the Idler, 1894–95, and long out of print. With its first-hand testimony of the life of a doctor at the outset of his career in the late nineteenth century, The Stark Munro Letters will appeal to anyone with an interest in medical history. It is based on his experiences during the eight years he spent as a General Practitioner, before becoming a professional author in 1890. By some way the most autobiographical of Conan Doyle’s novels—written at the height of Holmes’s popularity—it is also the most personal in terms of presenting his worldview during his formative years, including ruminations on moral philosophy, religion, science, and evolutionary theory. Moreover, it is entertaining and incredibly vivid—a contemporary critic described the mercurial Cullingworth as ‘one of the finest characters Dr. Doyle has yet drawn’.

Source: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-stark-munro-letters.html

Bibliography

The Strange Stories of John Buchan (British Library, 2025)

British Weird: Selected Short Fiction 1893 – 1937 (Handheld Classics, 2020)

Faunus: The Decorative Imagination of Arthur Machen (Strange Attractor Press, 2019)

Of Mud and Flame: A Penda's Fen Sourcebook (MIT Press, 2019)

Weird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

The Cosy Room and Other Stories (Tartarus Press, 2017)

Also mentioned

Margie Deck (ed), Sherlock Holmes Into The Fire (Belanger Books, 2025) https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Into-Fire-Margie-ebook/dp/B0FJK3H29X

Next time on Doings of Doyle

We continue with Conan Doyle’s medical fiction with a related comic tale, ‘Crabbe’s Practice’ (1884). You can read the story here.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

YouTube video created by @headlinerapp.

This episode, we travel to Wiltshire where an Indian army surgeon is being hounded by a very unwelcome visitor, in ‘The Story of the Brown Hand’ from 1898.

Read the show notes at https://www.doingsofdoyle.com/2025/06/64-story-of-brown-hand-1898.html 

You can read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Story_of_the_Brown_Hand

Or listen to an audiobook version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-tK9m42tKY

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/doingsofdoyle.com). We don’t do Twitter no more.

Synopsis

Following his retirement to an estate on the edge of Salisbury Plain after 40 years’ service in India, Sir Dominic Holden has invited his nephew Dr Hardacre to stay for a weekend. Hardacre assumes that this is simply a family courtesy, as he is only sixth in line of inheritance to his uncle’s fortune. He finds an hospitable enough household but one wrapped in an intense gloom, whose source he cannot fathom. Until, that is, Sir Dominic shows great interest in Hardacre’s ghost-hunting exploits with the Psychical Research Society…

Next time on Doings of Doyle…

We will be joined by a mystery interview guest…

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

YouTube video created by @headlinerapp.

Hello and welcome to Episode 63. This episode we travel to the very north of mainland Scotland where one man’s solitude is interrupted by two mysterious castaways, in ‘The Man from Archangel’ from 1885.

You can read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Man_from_Archangel

Or listen to a Librivox reading here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts2yXxclU-c

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/doingsofdoyle.com). We don’t do Twitter no more.

Synopsis

Having come into an unexpected inheritance, the morose and misanthropic John McVittie is able to give up his unrewarding legal practice in the English Midlands and retire to a remote coastal estate in Caithness in eastern Scotland. Here he pursues his esoteric scientific and philosophic interests, with only his aged housekeeper for company. But his quiet existence is disrupted when a Russian schooner is wrecked in a storm and McVittie rescues a young woman from the doomed ship. Apparently, however, she is not the only survivor as shortly afterwards McVittie discovers that his lonely house is under observation from a mysterious bearded stranger…

Next time on Doings of Doyle…

We discuss ACD’s unconventional ghost story, ‘The Story of the Brown Hand’ (1898), from his Round the Fire Stories.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

YouTube video created by @headlinerapp.

This episode, we welcome to the podcast journalist and author Andrew Finkel to talk about his debut novel The Adventure of the Second Wife (2024), a multi-layered mystery in which an avid Sherlockian investigate a missing Sherlock Holmes story…

About Andrew Finkel

Based for many years in Istanbul, Andrew Finkel has corresponded for international media including The Times, The Economist, TIME, CNN and for the Latitude section of The New York Times. He is also a contributing editor and restaurant critic for Cornucopia Magazine. His articles, editorials and broadcast commentaries have appeared in an equal variety of media that includes The Washington Post, The Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, The Art Newspaper, The Spectator and the BBC. His experiences of working in the Turkish language press, in newsrooms, as a columnist and on television, prompted him some ten years ago to co-found Platform24 (P24) a human rights NGO that supports independent journalism and free expression. Among its projects is the popular Kıraathane, the Istanbul Literature House. He is the author of scholarly articles on press capture and media integrity as well as the Oxford University Press handbook, Turkey, What Everyone Needs to Know. His recently published debut novel The Adventure of the Second Wife revolves around the well-documented obsession which Abdülhamid II, the last great Ottoman Sultan, had for the stories of Sherlock Holmes.

The Adventure of the Second Wife (Even Keel Press, 2024)

Strange that Abdülhamid II, the last great Ottoman Sultan, would have Sherlock Holmes stories read to him before he went to sleep. Even stranger is that his obsession helped change the course of history.

The explanation lies in the mystery of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s dying words, that the one Sherlock adventure still to intrigue him was that of ‘The Second Wife’. For no such story exists… Or does it?

The Adventure of the Second Wife is the debut novel of renowned journalist Andrew Finkel – a clever, compelling mystery about a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast who with the help of a brilliant Turkish professor, tries to solve the enigma of Arthur Conan Doyle’s dying words only to upend his life in the process.

Purchase from Cornucopia Press here.

Next time on Doings of Doyle

We head back into Gothic territory with ‘The Man from Archangel’ (1885), claimed to be one of Conan Doyle’s favourite stories. You can read the story here.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

YouTube video created by @headlinerapp.

Hello and welcome to Episode 61. Today, we return to Baker Street – or should that be Montague Street? – for another memoir of Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’ (1893).

Read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Adventure_of_the_Musgrave_Ritual

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/doingsofdoyle.com). We don’t do Twitter no more.

Synopsis

Whilst tidying his papers in the Baker Street flat, Sherlock Holmes unearths some relics of one of his earliest cases. His client, an old university associate called Reginald Musgrave, hires the nascent detective to investigate the recent disappearances of Hurlstone’s butler and one of the housemaids. It is quite clear, however, that this is no elopement, and central to the mystery is the old family catechism known as the Musgrave Ritual…

Next time on Doings of Doyle...

We hope to be joined by journalist and author Andrew Finkel to discuss his novel The Adventure of the Second Wife…

Support the podcast

Please help us reach new listeners by leaving a rating or view on the podcast platform of your choice. And if you want to sponsor the podcast, please check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/doingsofdoyle

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Hello and welcome to Episode 60. Today, we conclude our three-part discussion of The Lost World, Conan Doyle's classic novel from 1912.

Read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Lost_World

Read the show notes here: https://www.doingsofdoyle.com/2025/02/60-lost-world-1912-part-3.html 

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us @doingsofdoyle.com on BlueSky. We don’t do Twitter no more.

Synopsis

Having allied themselves with the Indian population of the Lost World and defeated their ape man oppressors, the Challenger expedition can now explore this strange realm in greater safety, although much of their energy is also expended in working out ways to escape from the mysterious plateau. Various elaborate methods are experimented with, but there may yet be a simpler route back to civilisation where they should reap the rewards of their hardships and discoveries. And they might not be leaving entirely empty handed…

Next time

We hope to be joined by an interview guest, or else we will dip into another  case of Sherlock Holmes... 

Support the podcast

Please help us reach new listeners by leaving a rating or view on the podcast platform of your choice. And if you want to sponsor the podcast, please check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/doingsofdoyle

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Hello and welcome to Episode 59. Today, we rejoin Professor Challenger and his party of intrepid adventurers as they reach The Lost World, in part two of our three-part discussion of the celebrated novel.

Read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Lost_World

Read the show notes here: https://www.doingsofdoyle.com/2025/01/59-lost-world-1912-part-2.html 

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us @doingsofdoyle.com on BlueSky. We don’t do Twitter no more.

Synopsis

After the scientific and media establishments of London have dismissed the claims of the eccentric and controversial Professor Challenger to have discovered a hidden South American plateau where prehistoric signs of life still exist, he has assembled a small team of independent observers to test his assertions: the journalist-narrator Edward Malone, the comparative anatomist Professor Summerlee, and the hunter-adventurer Lord John Roxton duly cross the Atlantic aboard the liner Francisca to Manaos from where they will retrace Challenger’s route into the Amazonian interior. But upon arrival, when they open the envelope containing his instructions, a surprise awaits them, and this is only the first of many unexpected developments to welcome them into this strange new world…

Next time

We return to the Lost World for the final instalments...

Support the podcast

Please help us reach new listeners by leaving a rating or view on the podcast platform of your choice. And if you want to sponsor the podcast, please check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/doingsofdoyle

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Hello and welcome to Episode 58. Today, we are delighted to welcome to the podcast Phil Cheadle and Edward Bennett, the director and star respectively of ‘Selecting a Ghost’, a stage adaptation of the Conan Doyle short story which was performed in Norwood, South London, in November 2024.

Listen to our episode about ‘Selecting a Ghost’ here: https://www.doingsofdoyle.com/2023/12/46-selecting-ghost-ghosts-of.html

Read the Conan Doyle short story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Selecting_a_Ghost

Listen to the podcast here:

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us @doingsofdoyle.com on BlueSky.

Philip Cheadle

Phil trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) and has an extensive range of theatre, television, and film credits. His notable stage roles include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (West End), Mrs. Affleck (National Theatre), Henry IV Part I & Part II, and Bedlam (Shakespeare’s Globe), as well as The Changeling (Cheek by Jowl), Reasons to Stay Alive and Far from the Madding Crowd (ETT), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sheffield Crucible), and Breaking the Code (Royal Exchange). On television, Phil has appeared in Harlots, Dark Angel, Crimson Fields, New Worlds, and Silent Witness. His film work includes 1917, John Carter, and the upcoming independent film Shalbourne, in which he plays the title role.

In addition to his acting career, Phil is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Two Lines Productions. He recently adapted and directed Arthur Conan Doyle's short story Selecting a Ghost as an immersive, site-specific production for Stanley Arts’ Day of the Dead festival.

Website: https://www.twolinesproductions.com/

IMDB for Phil Cheadle.

Edward Bennett

Ed’s diverse and extensive theatre work has seen him perform with some of the country’s leading companies and directors, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Theatre Royal Bath and Chichester Festival Theatre. On the small screen, Edward stars most recently in Joan for ITV and in Series 3 of Bridgerton for Netflix. You can also watch him in Series 1 and 2 of Sky drama Cobra as Peter Mot, Max Owen in Sky Atlantic’s Save Me Too, Industry for the BBC, Pennyworth for Warner Bros, Poldark for the BBC and Series 2 of ITV’s Victoria.

Ed’s feature film work includes The Laureate directed by Jonathan Cape, Napoleon directed by Ridley Scott and as T E Lawrence in Benediction directed by Terence Davies. 

IMDB for Edward Bennett.

Photograph credit

Photographs by Cecilia Costello Photography.

Next time

We rejoin the intrepid Challenger expedition (not that one) as they journey further into The Lost World.

Support the podcast

Please help us reach new listeners by leaving a rating or view on the podcast platform of your choice. And if you want to sponsor the podcast, please check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/doingsofdoyle

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Hello and welcome to Episode 57. Today, we begin our long-awaited journey into The Lost World, Conan Doyle’s celebrated adventure novel which introduced Professor George Edward Challenger to the reading public.

Read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Lost_World

The episode will be uploaded to our YouTube channel soon, where you can listen with closed captions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle

And follow us @doingsofdoyle.com on BlueSky.

Synopsis

Edward Dunn Malone is a lowly young journalist at the Daily Gazette whose heart’s desire is to win the hand of the beautiful but exacting Gladys Hungerton. She, however, finds Malone lacking in ambition and the requisite spirit of manly competitiveness. She will only bow before another Burton or Stanley, and Malone must venture into the world to discover and conquer before she will consider his approaches. Luckily, his editor, McArdle, gives him the ideal opportunity by introducing him to the irascible, combative and press-hating Professor George Challenger who claims to have found evidence of the continued existence of prehistoric life in South America. Upon first approaching Challenger, Malone is thrown down the professor’s stairs. Then, in a surprising turn of events, he is given the opportunity to join a new expedition to the Amazon to prove – or refute – Challenger’s outlandish assertions…

Next time

We hope to be joined by an interview guest before we return to The Lost World in the new year.

Support the podcast

Please help us reach new listeners by leaving a rating or view on the podcast platform of your choice. And if you want to sponsor the podcast, please check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/doingsofdoyle

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.