Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

So, an American, a Scotsman and an Irishman went into a bar.

A rather nice one, the Langham Hotel,

just across the road from where I'm talking to you now.

The American was an editor from Lippincott's magazine.

The Irishman and the Scotsman were both writers.

One, the son of an eye doctor,

the other a GP on his way to study ophthalmology

at the University of Vienna.

And on this night in 1889, somewhere between the soup and the nuts,

both agreed to write something for serial publication in Lippincott's.

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle pitched the sign of four,

which begins with Sherlock Holmes rolling back his sleeve to administer a shot of cocaine. Oscar Fingle

O'Flaherty Wills Wilde promised to deliver the story of a hero with stranger, less definable

addictions and a supernatural strategy for escaping their consequences, a work of art, the picture

of Dorian Gray, which was also the name of the book,

a book that turned out to be rather more than a book.

Oscar Wilde's only novel gave the world a modern archetype and a huge number of adaptations.

This picture will always remain young. It will never be older than this particular day in June.

If only it could grow old instead of me, I would give

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