EDITORIAL & NEWS

In the Manner of the Empire

by Margie Deck & Nancy Holder

In our last installment, we discussed Dr. Hardcastle’s descent into total darkness and fear, his finding of the sublime state. Here now, we find him calmer, more accepting of his situation, and in what is perhaps considered the way of a British gentleman, stoically attempting to solve his own immediate problems while working to make things right in the world around him—even if his efforts result in a temporary period of failure while in the pursuit of his lofty goal.

Arthur Conan Doyle created this kind of British man in many of his fictional works—a man, like Doyle, clearly in the mindset of the Victorian British Empire. In the Blue John Gap, our hero is in a foreign place, uninvited, with the thought that he, with the power of his convictions, can make things as they should be; he can determine if a beast exists in the cave and then determine what must be done about it in order to bring the site to normalcy. This assured sense of helping by changing otherness is a part of the Empire’s ethos.

As David Cannadine wrote in Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire, “... the British Empire was about the familiar and domestic, as well as the different and the exotic: indeed, it was in large part about the domestication of the exotic—the comprehending and the reordering of the foreign in parallel, analogous, equivalent, resemblant terms” (Cannadine, p. xxi).

Dr. Hardcastle is not quite ready to face whatever is lurking in the cave but he soon will be. For now: a biscuit, a drink, a nap (however uneasy), and then courage for what comes next, however foreign to him it may prove to be.

Copyright 2024 Margie Deck & Nancy Holder

COMMENTARY & CREATIVITY

Is Dr. Hardcastle “the last man”?

by Gareth Reeves

Although in his letters Arthur Conan Doyle does not mention Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), the urtext of this kind of story, the trope is nonetheless evident in this page, since Dr. Hardcastle’s initial relation to the caverns is that of the last man, although there are other equally valid interpretations—for example, the protagonist is 35 years old and descending into a hellish underground cavern, which invites comparison with Dante’s Inferno.

continued . . .

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page of the manuscript of The Terror of Blue John Gap

The autograph manuscript of “The Terror of Blue John Gap” reproduced above is courtesy of Dartmouth College Library, Rauner Special Collections, MS-93: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Transcription


of finding my way back in absolute darkness through that


limestone labrynth was clearly an impossible one,


I sat down upon a boulder and reflected upon my


unfortunate plight. I had not told any one that I proposed to


come to the Blue John mine, and it was unlikely that [deleted: any / inserted: a] search


party would come after me. Therefore I must trust to [deleted: myself / inserted: my own resources] to get


[deleted: myself out / inserted: clear] of the danger. There was only one hope and that was


that the matches might dry. When I fell into the river only half


of me had got [deleted: throug] thoroughly wet. My left shoulder was


perfectly dry. I took the [inserted: box of] matches therefore and I put [deleted: them / inserted: it] into


my left armpit. The moist air of the cavern might possible be


counteracted by the heat of my body, but [inserted: even so] I could not hope to get a


light for many hours. Meanwhile there was nothing for it but to


wait.


By good luck I had slipped several biscuits into my


pocket before I left the farmhouse. These I now devoured and


washed them down with a draught from that wretched stream


which had been the cause of all my misfortunes. Then I felt


about for a comfortable seat among the rocks, and having


discovered a place where I could get a support for my back I


I stretched out my legs, and settled myself down to wait. I


was wretchedly damp and cold but I tried to cheer myself


with the reflection that modern science prescribed open


windows and walks in all weather, for my disease.


Gradually, lulled by the monotonous gurgle of the stream, and


by the absolute darkness, I sank into an uneasy slumber


How long this lasted I cannot say. It may have


been for one hour, it may have been for several. Suddenly I


sat up on my rock couch with every nerve thrilling and


every sense acutely on the alert. Beyond all doubt I had


heard a sound, some sound very distinct from the


gurgling of the waters. It had passed, but the reverberation of


it still lingered in my ear. Was it a search party? They would

The full story as it was printed in The Strand is available at
The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia.