The
Doings of Raffles Haw is a short novel written and published in 1891. It is
a little-known moral tale about a secretive alchemist and the impact his wealth
has on those around him. If you want to avoid spoilers, we recommend you read the story here.
The episode can be heard here.
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| Raffles Haw at work Artist: Louis Bailly (1914 French edition) |
Synopsis
The Doings of Raffles Haw opens on a snowy night in the modest and cosy McIntyre household in the Midlands village of Tamfield. The McIntyres, father, son and daughter, live in genteel poverty due to the failure of McIntyre senior's once-prosperous Birmingham gun manufactory. McIntyre is a drunk, but whether this is a cause or effect of the calamity is unclear.
Old McIntyre's son, Robert, is a struggling artist of under-developed talent, whilst his daughter, Laura, keeps their home in order, or at least until she marries her childhood sweetheart, the bluff and hearty naval officer Hector Spurling, son of the local vicar.
On this opening evening, Hector, prior to a Mediterranean tour of duty, and the McIntyre siblings - their father is in the local hostelry - are discussing a mysterious new arrival in the village. Raffles Haw appears to be a very wealthy young man who has built an ostentatious mansion for himself, and Tamfield is alive with speculation as to his character, antecedents and intentions.
Robert soon has a chance encounter with the enigmatic stranger and is invited on a tour of his fantastic home, which proves to be a veritable treasure house and scientific marvel, a dream-palace from the Arabian Nights fitted out with all mod cons.
Haw takes a liking to Robert and encourages his artistic ambitions whilst also engaging him as an agent in his own philanthropic schemes. In time he comes to trust Robert so much that he reveals to him the secret of his wealth. He is an modern alchemist who has discovered an electric process whereby he can turn base metals into gold.
He feels, however, that the fruits of his discovery should be shared and embarks upon a programme of wealth redistribution. But his largesse has unfortunate consequences, not least upon the McIntyres, whose characters are re-shaped negatively by their proximity to limitless wealth. Robert becomes listless and idle. Laura throws over Hector to become engaged to Raffles Haw. Worst of all, old McIntyre's greed and selfishness reach monumental proportions, setting in train a series of events which culminate in tragedy...
The Doings of Raffles Haw opens on a snowy night in the modest and cosy McIntyre household in the Midlands village of Tamfield. The McIntyres, father, son and daughter, live in genteel poverty due to the failure of McIntyre senior's once-prosperous Birmingham gun manufactory. McIntyre is a drunk, but whether this is a cause or effect of the calamity is unclear.
Old McIntyre's son, Robert, is a struggling artist of under-developed talent, whilst his daughter, Laura, keeps their home in order, or at least until she marries her childhood sweetheart, the bluff and hearty naval officer Hector Spurling, son of the local vicar.
On this opening evening, Hector, prior to a Mediterranean tour of duty, and the McIntyre siblings - their father is in the local hostelry - are discussing a mysterious new arrival in the village. Raffles Haw appears to be a very wealthy young man who has built an ostentatious mansion for himself, and Tamfield is alive with speculation as to his character, antecedents and intentions.
Robert soon has a chance encounter with the enigmatic stranger and is invited on a tour of his fantastic home, which proves to be a veritable treasure house and scientific marvel, a dream-palace from the Arabian Nights fitted out with all mod cons.
Haw takes a liking to Robert and encourages his artistic ambitions whilst also engaging him as an agent in his own philanthropic schemes. In time he comes to trust Robert so much that he reveals to him the secret of his wealth. He is an modern alchemist who has discovered an electric process whereby he can turn base metals into gold.
He feels, however, that the fruits of his discovery should be shared and embarks upon a programme of wealth redistribution. But his largesse has unfortunate consequences, not least upon the McIntyres, whose characters are re-shaped negatively by their proximity to limitless wealth. Robert becomes listless and idle. Laura throws over Hector to become engaged to Raffles Haw. Worst of all, old McIntyre's greed and selfishness reach monumental proportions, setting in train a series of events which culminate in tragedy...
Writing
and publication history
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| First UK edition (1892) |
- Commissioned by Alfred Harmsworth for Answers in December 1890.
- Written by Doyle between 6th and 23rd January 1891, during a study trip to Vienna (Doyle produced 30,000 words of finished story in a little over two weeks).
- The Doings of Raffles Haw appeared in Answers between 12 December 1891 and 27 February 1892.
- The first UK book edition was published by Cassell & Co. in March 1892.
- In the USA, The Doings of Raffles Haw was syndicated in Autumn 1891.
- The first American edition was published by Lovell, Coryell & Co. in August 1892 and contained two Sherlock Holmes short stories, The Red-Headed League and The Boscombe Valley Mystery, the rights to which Doyle had not granted (see below).
Alcoholism,
heredity and biographical details
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| Old MacIntyre Artist: Louis Bailly (1914 French edition) |
- Charles Altamont Doyle (1832-1893), Doyle’s father: https://ils.unc.edu/dpr/path/charlesdoyle/index.html
- The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe (c. 1878): https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Haunted_Grange_of_Goresthorpe.
- A Sordid Affair (1891): https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=A_Sordid_Affair
- The Story of the Japanned Box (1899): https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Story_of_the_Japanned_Box
- The Bully of Brocas Court (1921): https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Bully_of_Brocas_Court
- Notable cases of alcoholism in the Sherlock Holmes stories (there are many!): The Adventure of Black Peter (1904); The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (1904); The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger (1927); The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (1893).
Literary
connections
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| Raffles Haw is discovered Artist: Louis Bailly (1914 French edition) |
- H. G. Wells, The Diamond Maker (1894) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Maker
- H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man (1897) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man
- R. L. Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde
- Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth
- E. W. Hornung, Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (
- J-K. Huysmans, Là-bas (1891) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A0-bas_(novel)
- J-K. Huysmans, À rebours (1884) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_rebours
- O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray
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| Robert McIntyre at work Artist: Louis Bailly (1914 French edition) |
- Christopher Morley puts forward the idea that Raffles Haw was Raffles Holmes, a third Holmes brother, in ‘Clinical Notes by a Resident Patient’ in Baker Street Journal, Volume 2, No. 2 (old series).
- The first American edition and the two Holmes stories are discussed by David A. Randall in ‘Biographical Notes’ in Baker Street Journal, Volume 2, No. 4 (old series).
- For more information about the Baker Street Irregulars and The Baker Street Journal, please visit https://bakerstreetirregulars.com/
Miscellaneous
- Sir Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), the founder of Singapore and British Malaya, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford_Raffles
Recommended reading
- The best modern biography of Doyle that covers his whole life is probably Andrew Lycett's Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes (W&N, 2008).
- For contemporary reviews of The Doings of Raffles Haw, take a look at Mattias Bostrum and Matt Laffey's excellent Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle in the Newspapers, Volume 1 (Wessex Press, currently available)
- Alexis Barquin curates The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia which has an immense wealth of information plus the original text and various illustrations.
- For anyone wishing to research Doyle's life and work, Brian W. Pugh's A Chronology of the Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is nothing short of essential.
Next time on Doings of Doyle...
- The Winning Shot - Text from the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia.
Acknowledgements
Image
credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for
permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.
Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod
(incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Great show. I wrote a post on IHOSE on the Sherlockian connections to The Winning Shot--there are many. Looking forward to your take.
ReplyDeleteThanks James. We've already recorded The Winning Shot (we're trying to have a podcast "in the bank" at all times to keep to the monthly timetable) so hopefully we spotted the same things.
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