The Hound of the Baskervilles
remains the most popular Sherlock Holmes story. It is a hair-raising
tale, with the possibility that the murderer is a supernatural beast
wandering a desolate moor and bringing grisly deaths to the heirs of
the Baskerville family.
Sir Charles Baskerville was the latest victim, found dead on his
Devonshire estate near the gate to the moor. Sir Charles's friend and
neighbor, Dr. John Mortimer, doesn't want to believe in supernatural
agents but is concerned about the safety of the remaining Baskerville,
Sir Charles's nephew, who is soon to arrive from America to claim the
inheritance. Mortimer enlists the help of the famous Sherlock Holmes,
who dispatches sidekick Dr. John Watson to Baskerville Hall to keep
guard over Sir Henry Baskerville and do some detecting, about which he
keeps Holmes informed.
Holmes is absent for several chapters while Watson admirably fills in.
These chapters sans Holmes, with Watson the narrator as usual, are slow
moving and melodramatic, creating an ever-growing anxiety about
impending disaster on the moor. But which of the few inhabitants might
be a villain: The Baskerville butler and his weepy wife, who are
keeping a secret? An enigmatic naturalist and his sister, with whom Sir
Henry is falling in love? An escaped convict in the area?
Holmes reappears as the action accelerates, bringing on a final
resolution that satisfies his requirements for rationality yet does not
put down to mere superstition the locals' belief in a demon dog.
Arthur
Conan Doyle, who had trained as a physician, researched the setting for
this novel while working as a general practitioner in Devon. The Hound
of the Baskerville is the only one of Doyle's four detective novels
that is completely concerned with Holmes and Watson. Most of the famous
pair's exploits are in short stories. When Doyle introduced the
character Sherlock Holmes to the Victorian reading public in magazine
short stories, Holmes was huge hit, as he continues to be today.
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