Arthur Conan Doyle’s work ethic was formidable. In 1892, the same year in which The Strand Magazine published seven new Sherlock Holmes stories, Lot No. 249 made its public bow. This Gothic tale riffing off Egyptomania – the late 19th-century craze for all things pharaoh – has long been a favourite story of actor and writer Mark Gatiss. It is, he says, “a ripping yarn packed with ghastly scares and who-knows-what lurking in the Victorian closet” – and he’s now adapted it for television as a Christmas ghost story.
In BBC Two’s adaptation of Lot No. 249, Colin Ryan, Kit Harington and Freddie Fox encounter an Egyptian mummy
It follows on from Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle (BBC iPlayer), in which the writer and historian reflects on Conan Doyle’s love-hate relationship with his most famous creation.