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Dr Mortimer, a country doctor from Devon, brings Sherlock Holmes an old family legend: in the seventeenth century the wicked Hugo Baskerville was torn apart…
Dr Mortimer, a country doctor from Devon, brings Sherlock Holmes an old family legend: in the seventeenth century the wicked Hugo Baskerville was torn apart on the moor by a gigantic hound from hell. Now Sir Charles Baskerville has been found dead near his house, with the footprints of an enormous hound beside him, and the heir, Sir Henry, is arriving from Canada. Holmes sends Watson with him to Baskerville Hall on lonely Dartmoor, where an escaped convict hides in the hills, the butler weeps at night, a naturalist chases butterflies by the deadly Grimpen Mire, and a howling is heard across the moor.
Context and significance
Arthur Conan Doyle serialised the novel in 1901 and 1902, after the idea came from a friend's Dartmoor legends; he set it before Holmes's apparent death so that he would not have to bring him back. It mixes detection with Gothic horror and is the most loved of the Holmes novels. The last of them is The Valley of Fear.
About the author
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was born in Edinburgh, trained as a doctor and wrote stories while waiting for patients at his practice in Southsea. Sherlock Holmes, modelled partly on his old teacher Joseph Bell, who could diagnose a patient's life at a glance, first appeared in 1887 and soon made Doyle one of the best-paid writers in the world.