Lot 249 BBC Production (Gatiss)

[Max Magee]

It appears that Mark Gatiss and Co. will be adapting ACD's Lot 249 into a Christmas horror tale.

https://deadline.com/2023/10/sherlock-mark-gatiss-arthur-conan-doyle-bbc-christmas-ghost-story-kit-harington-1235568642/

The special will air as part of the BBC’s winter schedule and comes after Gatiss adapted The Tractate Middoth in 2013, The Dead Room (2018), Martin’s Close (2019) The Mezzotint (2021) and Count Magnus (2022) – four of which were based on works by M.R James. 

There are some big names attached. You may recall that along with The Ring of Thoth, Lot 249 is Conan Doyle's foray into Mummy horror.

The Crew of the Barque Lone-Star has generously made a copy of the (legible) text available online via PDF:
https://www.dfw-sherlock.org/uploads/3/7/3/8/37380505/1892_september_lot_no_249.pdf

The story may be the source of some of the tropes we later witnessed in Universal Pictures' famous Mummy film series starring Boris Karloff, Lon Cheney, and others.

There was a terrific Doings of Doyle podcast episode covering Doyle's (and others Victorian authors') mummy works a month or two ago, it's worth a listen!
https://www.doingsofdoyle.com/2023/08/41-lot-no-249-1892.html

Max