Synopses & Reviews
Perhaps the most popular of all Sherlock Holmes stories,
The Hound of the Baskervilles combines the traditional detective tale with elements of horror. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse-and it is up to Holmes and Watson to solve the mystery of the legend. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural and good against evil, as Sherlock Holmes tries to defeat a foe almost his equal.
Introduction and notes by Christopher Fraying.
Synopsis
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
The Hound of the Baskervilles gripped readers when it was first serialised and remains one of Sherlock Holmes's greatest and most popular adventures.
Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound that is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. And, immersed in another case, he sends Dr Watson to Devon to protect the Baskerville heir and observe the suspects at close hand. With its atmospheric setting on the ancient, wild moorland and its savage apparition, The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the greatest crime novels ever written. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural and good against evil as Sherlock Holmes sets out to defeat a foe almost his equal.
This edition contains a full chronology of Arthur Conan Doyle's life and works, an introduction by renowned horror scholar Professor Christopher Frayling discussing the background to the novel and the legends and events that inspired the story, with further reading and explanatory notes.
'Arthur Conan Doyle is unique ... Personally, I would walk a mile in tight boots to read him to the milkman'
Stephen Fry
Synopsis
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
The Hound of the Baskervilles gripped readers when it was first serialised and has continued to hold its place in the popular imagination to this day. Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound that is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. And, immersed in another case, he sends Dr Watson to Devon to protect the Baskerville heir and observe the suspects at close hand. With its atmospheric setting on the ancient, wild moorland and its savage apparition,
The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the greatest crime novels ever written. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural and good against evil as Sherlock Holmes sets out to defeat a foe almost his equal.
This edition contains a full chronology of Arthur Conan Doyle's life and works, an introduction by renowned horror scholar Professor Christopher Frayling discussing the background to the novel and the legends and events that inspired the story, with further reading and explanatory notes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. xxxvi-xxxvii).
Synopsis
Perhaps the most popular of all Sherlock Holmes stories,
The Hound of the Baskervilles combines the traditional detective tale with elements of horror. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse-and it is up to Holmes and Watson to solve the mystery of the legend. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural and good against evil, as Sherlock Holmes tries to defeat a foe almost his equal.
Introduction and notes by Christopher Fraying.
About the Author
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. After nine years in Jesuit schools, he went to Edinburgh University, receiving a degree in medicine in 1881. He then became an eye specialist in Southsea, with a distressing lack of success. Hoping to augment his income, he wrote his first story,
A Study in Scarlet. His detective, Sherlock Holmes, was modeled in part after Dr. Joseph Bell of the Edinburgh Infirmary, a man with spectacular powers of observation, analysis, and inference. Conan Doyle may have been influenced also by his admiration for the neat plots of Gaboriau and for Poe’s detective, M. Dupin. After several rejections, the story was sold to a British publisher for £25, and thus was born the world’s best-known and most-loved fictional detective. Fifty-nine more Sherlock Holmes adventures followed. Once, wearying of Holmes, his creator killed him off, but was forced by popular demand to resurrect him. Sir Arthur—he had been knighted for this defense of the British cause in his The Great Boer War—became an ardent Spiritualist after the death of his son Kingsley, who had been wounded at the Somme in World War I. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in Sussex in 1930.
Christopher Frayling teaches at London's Royal College of Art.