The Narrative of John Smith would not have considered publishing this work, he continued to use quotes, character frames, and themes of "The Narrative of John Smith" in many of his other works, such as "The Stark Munro Letters", "Through the Magic Door", "A Study in Scarlet", and "The Hound of the Baskervilles". In 2004, the then untitled manuscript of Arthur Conan Doyle's rewritten unpublished first novel was purchased at auction by The British Library. It was first published in 2011 by The British Library, edited by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Rachel Foss. At the age of twenty-three when Conan Doyle wrote "The Narrative
The Hound of the Baskervilles of the Empty House" that Holmes had faked his own death. He was assisted with the plot by a 30-year-old "Daily Express" journalist named Bertram Fletcher Robinson (1870–1907). His ideas came from the legend of Richard Cabell (d.1677), of Brook Hall, in the parish of Buckfastleigh, Devon, which was the fundamental inspiration for the Baskerville tale of a hellish hound and a cursed country squire. Cabell's tomb survives in the village of Buckfastleigh. Squire Richard Cabell lived for hunting and was what in those days was described as a 'monstrously evil man'. He gained this reputation for, amongst other things,