Dr James Mortimer arrives at Baker Street with an old manuscript describing a curse on the Baskerville family: a gigantic, hellish hound said to have hunted down a wicked ancestor in the seventeenth century. Sir Charles Baskerville has just been found dead in the grounds of his Devon estate, with the footprints of an enormous dog nearby, and the new heir, Sir Henry, is on his way from Canada.
Holmes, claiming other business, sends Watson to Dartmoor to guard Sir Henry and report back. Watson finds a landscape of mists, ancient stone huts and treacherous bogs, an escaped convict at large, a butler and his wife behaving suspiciously, a naturalist and his sister living nearby, and an unexplained light on the moor at night.
Serialised in 1901 and 1902, the novel brought Holmes back after Conan Doyle had killed him off, though it is set before his apparent death. It balances rational detection against an atmosphere of supernatural dread and is often considered the finest Holmes novel.
Book details
| Author | Arthur Conan Doyle |
|---|---|
| First published | 1902 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Mystery |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 256 |
| Setting | Dartmoor, Devon, and London, 1880s |
Themes
- Reason versus superstition
- Inheritance
- Deception
- Landscape
- Family curse
Who should read it
Readers who want a full-length Sherlock Holmes mystery with a gothic atmosphere and a moorland setting.