The Lost Special | Arthur Conan Doyle | A Bitesized Audiobook

Video Description

How could an entire train – engine, carriages, passengers and all – vanish from the face of the earth on a straight line of track between stations? The best brains in England, including the most celebrated amateur detective of the day, are baffled by the mystery... Story begins at 00:01:20 Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content): * Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio * Monthly support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bitesizedaudio * Donate via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A * Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: https://bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com/ * Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month: https://www.youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:20 The Lost Special 00:50:02 Credits, thanks and further listening About the author: Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish doctor and author, celebrated for his world-famous creation Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective who set the standard for crime fiction into the 20th century and beyond. In addition to his Holmes stories, Conan Doyle is also remembered for his fantasy and science fiction novels and stories, including 'The Parasite' and 'The Lost World' series of novels, his historical fiction, and for numerous short stories contributed to magazines over a 40 year period. He was knighted by King Edward VII in the 1902 Coronation Honours. From his debut in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887, in 'A Study in Scarlet', Sherlock Holmes established himself as the first, the best and the most famous of all private consulting detectives. His serialised adventures in The Strand Magazine, starting with 'A Scandal in Bohemia' in 1891, developed the character into a literary sensation and in the 20th century he was to become the most portrayed character in screen history. The enormous impact of the character of Dr Watson should also be noted: the narrator/companion figure became a staple of detective fiction in future generations. 'The Lost Special' is not a Sherlock Holmes story, although it is sometimes referred to as an unofficial "bonus" Holmes case, due to the solution to the mystery proposed in the narrative by "an amateur reasoner of some celebrity at that date" (1890) – could this be the great detective himself? (Let me know what you think in the comments!) The story was originally published in 'The Strand Magazine' in August 1898, the third in a series of 12 unrelated short stories by Conan Doyle under the umbrella title 'Round the Fire Stories'. This was during the decade of "hiatus" after Conan Doyle had killed Holmes off at Reichenbach in 'The Final Problem' (1893) and before he resurrected him in 'The Empty House' (1903); however as 'The Lost Special' is specifically dated as taking place in 1890, he leaves open the possibility that the amateur reasoner might be Holmes. Interestingly, the previous month's instalment in the 'Round the Fire' series was another train-based mystery featuring an intervention from "a well-known criminal investigator": 'The Man with the Watches' is an interesting companion piece to this tale – you can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/WwpVEvAvLMc Recording © Bitesized Audio 2023; remastered 2024