Geographica Baskervillia. A rare publication? Maybe, maybe not.

I've been doing a LOT of Sherlockian reading on the Hound of the Baskervilles. There are a few reasons for this. It's certainly my favorite Sherlock story! I was lucky enough to visit Devon and the moors district for a day during the past summer including Buckfastleigh and the Cabell sepulchre (see information here : https://221bcooee.blogspot.com/2023/08/richard-cabells-sepulchre-in.html). Another reason I've been reading through articles and books stiuying HOUN is because I'm researching and writing a Sherlockian article... of course my goal is that it would be published in an eminent journal, but I recognize that I'm not amazing at writing 'studies' and we will see what happens. Anyway I'm reading a lot!!

That Cabell post mentioned above includes a list of HOUN studies, with my absolute favorite being The Hound of the Baskervilles, Hunting the Dartmoor Legend, by Philip Weller, and published in Devon, 2001. In my opinion the book is an absolute tour de force covering every aspect of the HOUN story, ACDs sources and inspirations, the Dartmoor setting, and color photographs of the Cabell sepulchre. I cannot recommend this book enough, and it includes the HOUN story itself. I should add there is a STRONG emphasis on identifying the real geographic locations in which the HOUN is set.

A lot of material has been published by Weller, and in seeking other studies by Weller that might exist on my obscure HOUN-related topic, and innocent search at Abebooks.com unearthed this publication, in a three-ring folder, of about 170 pages.

Geographica Baskervillia, A Dartmoor Workbook

Compiled by Philip Weller 

from The Hound of the Baskervilles

Published 2000

As can be seen above, the folder includes a cover letter that outlines the notation strategy. The 'Dartmoor Sherlock Holmes Study Group' appears to have been a sub-group of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company - a British society. A sample of Weller's textual analysis of location is shown below. It is incredibly detailed, with each phrase highlighting any locatino comments in purple, followed by commentary in green. Line by line!

The folder and document itself doesn't provide a great deal of detail on the context or background to this publication. Nor does the 'volume' provide any insight into the 'print run' for this compiled folder.

I turned to the publications of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company (FMHC) to find some information. I believe that Weller was the head of the FHMC (called the Managing Director of FHMC), and it published a dizzying number of different publications - including a "Memo" and "Newsletter" and a "Report" series. Sure enough, the August 2000 issue of the 'FHMC Memo' includes notes on books, including the Geographica Baskervillia. I've pulled out some quotes from the publication announcement in 'The FMHC Memo' for August 2000 (issue 7). As a side-note, my copy of the August 2000 Memo has an insert from 2002 apologizing about inactivity in publications of the FMHC.

Bolded emphasis in the quotes below are mine:

"The MD (Weller) has clearly written more about HOUN than anyone else in the world, and he has a greater knowledge of Dartmoor than any other Holmesian, having spent more than 40 yeras exploring the Moor, with the last 12 years of that exploration being primarily devoted to Holmesian exploration, including visits being made to every single building on the 369 square miles of the Moor... 

"Some of those taking part in the Hound Centenary Convention on Dartmoor have asked for copies of the MD's own special reference work on the canonical references to locations in the HOUN. This volume consists of 120 large-format (A4) pages and 50,000 words of text. Some 375 quotations are extracted from HOUN, each of which provides a clue to the geography of the case. The nature of the clue, or clues, in each quotation is/are discussed and cross-linked to other quotations bearing upon that aspect of the geography, and to real locations on Dartmoor which may have inspired the quotation. This is done using colour codings and page references to the Doubleday and Oxford editions of the case.

"It would be prohibitively expensive to have this material printed commercially, because of the colour-coding, but we are willing to produce copies of this unique reference work directly from a computer printer at cost price, for storage within a loose-leaf filing system. This is, in any case, the best way of storing this material, to allow for updates and the inclusion of other material. A lot of preparatory work will be required to set up this project, and we are only going to make this offer once, so this is your only chance of obtaining a copy of this work. 

"Please note that we originally had no intention of publishing this material, as it really is a labour of love, which has involved many thousands of hours of work to produce, so we really do not mind if nobody actually wants a copy.

This announcement provides context for the incredible research and effort that Weller put into his 'passion project'. How many people purchased copies? I doubt there were many, as it was only announced once in the 'FHMC Memo', but I'm pleased to have one to add to my small collection of HOUN-related Sherlockian publications.