SOURCE: Bought
TYPE: Paperback
TITLE: Lot No. 249
AUTHOR: Arthur Conan Doyle
SERIES: Little Black Classics (#121)
PUBLISHER: Penguin Little Black Classics
PAGES: 51
GENRE: Horror, Paranormal, Short Stories, Mystery, Classics
RATING: 4.5/5 Stars
Blurb:
'... that strange internal kingdom of which we are the hapless and helpless monarchs.'From the master of the detective story and creator of Sherlock Holmes, the first ever tale to feature a supernatural Egyptian mummy.
What I Liked:
- This was a fantastic story, and certainly intriguing for a number of reasons, but mostly because it's the only story I've ever read to contain an Egyptian Mummy of the paranormal variety. It seems it's the first of it's kind also, and it told the tale surprisingly well as I've never really found Mummies 'scary' up until this point.
- Doyle writes characters very well and I found the same here. Even in this short story, they each had a personality and complexity about them. I was surprised to find the lack of a Sherlock-esque, but also pleased as it was refreshing to see other types of heroes in the story.
What I Disliked:
- I suppose my main issue with this little story were the convoluted, long sentences. My fiancé tells me that serial writers of the time were paid by line or word, which makes a lot of sense. It didn't really bother me too much after I'd had a couple of pages to get used to it.
Overall Conclusion:
Getting through this small read before read was a great decision, and I really enjoyed this short story. It's setting of Oxford University was a fun one, and I loved that it was not only spooky, but had a joviality about it too. I look forward to reading more Sherlock stories in the future, but I'm glad I stumbled upon this one in the process!
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