I'm currently re-reading the Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. Its a novel I return to at least once every couple of years. Yep, I like the hound a lot.
In fact its the only Conan Doyle book I've ever read despite owning several different copies of the Lost World with the formidable Professor Challenger.
My first encounter with the Baskerville hound, like many of my generation I suspect, was the 1959 Hammer horror film starring Peter Cushing and Andre Morell. Its depiction of the deranged Hugo Baskerville at the start stayed with me, especially his dreadful call to 'release the pack' on the unfortunate village girl who escapes from the Hall only to perish on the Moor.
It was and is a terrific film and Peter Cushing's depiction of Sherlock Holmes, along with Morell's Dr. Watson, remained my favourite movie adaptation until I saw a modern version from 2002 with Richard Roxburgh and Ian Hart. This is truly fine film-making and I always enjoy seeing it again and again.
There are countless TV and film versions of the Hound and I admit I have yet to see many of them including the famous Basil Rathbone outing. There are films akin to the spirit of the curse too and one that springs to mind is the Brotherhood of the Wolf, which struck me as a similar and equally exciting period piece mixing moorlands and hell hound werewolves.
Hammer's own screen Hound was part of that genre-defining flurry of late fifties/ early sixties films they made, directed by the likes of Terence Fisher, which helped to spark the monster craze in Britain, when monster mania landed on our shores from America, itself kicked off by Forry Ackerman's Famous monsters of Filmland and Universal's re-run of classic monster movies. I adored the monster craze and it made me who I am today and who I've always been. A monster nut.
Despite its obvious horror chops and Hammer credentials, the Baskerville Hound never made it as a toy or game as far as I can tell. I certainly didn't have any merchandise as a kid. I know there was a comic version done, maybe Classics Illustrated who covered Frankenstein too. The Hound would have made a great Aurora model kit, the crazed mastiff drooling over Hugo Baskerville on the moors. But we will all have favourite books and films which we think Aurora should have captured in plastic I'm sure - what's yours I wonder readers?
There are some Baskerville inspired figurines I found online. Sarum Soldiers offer a small set of painted figures ....
and fellow blogger's Toy Soldier's and Dining Room Battles own custom diorama of the hell hound.
As regards books, the first edition is a thing of beauty with its gothic swirls and solid lack hound which, alas, most of us can only see online as a copy can cost a King's ransom.
My own favourite ands far more ownable is the 1961 John Murray published paperback, which I have in the Moonbase collection.
So I await bedtime to read another chapter of the Hound of the Baskervilles and follow the progress of Holmes and Watson as they wander the moors at night when the powers of evil are exalted.
Are you equally Baskervilled as I am readers?
