Doyle was no Shakespeare or Austin, but really, he was the author of mystery short stories that still have world-wide readership, and a cult-like following. The character of Holmes is not only part of the literary landscape, but part of the vernacular in a way that would make Shakespeare jealous. Seriously, no one says "No sh*t Shylock", now do they...so there.
This makes me think of authors who deserve to be respected and aren't, and authors that are respected, but are losers. This in turn, leads to rants about Thoreau. That poser Thoreau goes to live like a part-time nature boy in a cabin on Emerson's land, burns down the freaking woods, has lunch with the Emerson's weekly, and celebrities in this country fall all over themselves to preserve the area on the lake Thoreau wrote about how morally superior he was. At least Doyle's writing is worth reading and no one gets lectured about how inferior they are because they don't walk in the woods for 4 hours each day (it's call having a J O B, Thoreau...oh, sorry I forgot that he transcended the need to work, being a slacker-sponge extraordinairre).
At any rate, Doyle's house looks like hell with plywood windows. Cough up some $ and help restore the house where Arthur Ignacious Doyle wrote the legendary story "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Serious work is needed to restore the house, and it seems to be happening none too soon. While it may be sad to think that the Brits would have let it fall in to such a state of disrepair, methinks that our friends over in England didn't realize the condition of Upshaw since the house has been owned by a developer since 2004. There is a campaign for private funds to restore the house that you can read about it and see images of Doyle's Upshaw here.
In the meantime, Project Gutenberg, has free on-line copies of the "HotB", which can be read here. Enjoy!!!
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