Lowk wish Watson’s hand woulda slipped and gotten Rucastle instead… Violet’s with me.

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Lowk wish Watson’s hand woulda slipped and gotten Rucastle instead… Violet’s with me.
Warm, Pond, Copp, Sand and Yeepun (Pun) -- Perfect 10 Liners (EP 1)
My favorite secondary characters who deserves a single post just for them.
"'You villain!' said he, 'where's your daughter?'" The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. Published in The Strand Magazine. Sidney Paget, 1892.
Sources 1 2
How much money does Sherlock spend on chemicals? He's studying acetones (now ketones) before the method for industrial production of acetone was developed, so his chemical was obtained by dry distillation of acetates.
Now I understand why he spent all the night working with his chemicals, he is like a kid with a new and expensive toy.
For those who want to know more there's a paper from 1895 about improvement in the manufacture of acetone
Character Bingo for Violet Hunter!
omgomgomgomOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG YES YES YES YES YES!!!! Violet Hunter really is one of my favorite clients in all of Sherlockania, she is absolutely brilliant and I would read so many detective stories with HER being the detective!! :D
She is my roman empire <3 Bingo here!
The Copper Beeches
Published in June 1892, this is the final story from the first volume of short stories.
Winchester is located 60 miles SW of London. The "old English capital" status is now seriously disputed by historians, as there wa no fixed capital, but it was one of the premier cities in England before the Norman Conquest.
Montague Place is a street in Holborn, at the back of the British Museum.
Governesses are not the same as nannys - they also served as tutors for their charges. They generally found themselves in an odd place - too posh for the servants, but not posh enough for the families. They were typically single women - in any event, meeting suitable men was hard.
Trains to Winchester take just over an hour today from London Waterloo. The section of the main line that included Winchester was electrified in 1967 and was in fact the last main line in Southern England to operate steam trains, these operating until the electric ones took over.
We've had quite a few houses with disused wings so far, haven't we?
Mastiffs were common guard dogs - they had also been used for hunting and other animal "sports", like bear-baiting.
Wahey, we got to 'isolated country houses' finally! This letter is an absolute gem overall - we have Violet doing some Detectiving of her own, the reveal of Mr Rucastle's actual temperament (and that he's cruel to his dog!), the surreal moment of finding the braid of hair in the locked drawer... and Holmes and Watson looking out of a train window at some farms:
"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."
Now this may just be Holmes making one of his usual points: that you can't judge things entirely on how nice they look. (Pretty girls, especially. Hint hint, Watson.) And that would go well with this week's villain, who practically looks like Santa Claus and still had a smile on his face when he explained he was going to feed Violet to the mastiff.
But. It's always very tempting to read things into what Holmes expresses strong feelings about (do we all agree that he's frightened of snakes?) and filled with horror is pretty strong for him. It seems unlikely he's lived in the country after turning 18, as we know from Gloria Scott that during his university years he had rooms in London and did not go home for the summer. And we also know that Gloria Scott was the first time he thought of detective work as a career - he had not been investigating crimes as a consultant before he went away to university. So a lot of readers suggest that he witnessed one, instead. Or was the victim of one.
Past that, entirely conjecture. I think 'his father killed his mother' is fairly popular as explaining his seeming lack of family connections other than Mycroft. I'm with Katie Forsythe and Jonny Lee Miller on the 'I'd trade my dad for a Tictac' platform.
WIP Wednesday #2 fashionably late (humour me):
The Collision Of Promised Paths
Chapter 3, Bitter Cold
I’ve been wanting to write this conversation between this pair for so, so long. No idea if it’s come out right because it’s massive to me, but I’m trying 🫡