Synopses & Reviews
A centuries-old family curse; an eerie mansion on the windswept Devon moors; a mysterious and violent death; and an urgent summons to London for the aid of "the world's only consulting detective" all combine to set the stage for Sherlock Holmes's most baffling and blood-chilling assignment. Accompanied by his faithful companion, the good Dr. Watson, the immortal master sleuth embarks upon a case whose only clues seem to defy all rational explanation. In this wonderfully wrought novel, the reader will encounter a spellbinding magic that many writers have imitated but none come close to equaling. Here are the singular qualities of narrative, atmosphere, and characterization that have led so eminent a critic as Edmund Wilson to declare, "Sherlock Holmes is literature
The Sherlock Holmes stories have a life of their own." Here is vivid demonstration of Christopher Morley's assertion that "perhaps no fiction character ever created has become so real to his readers." In the words of William S. Baring-Gould, Holmesian expert and author of the definitive "biography" of the great detective, "Read and enjoy. Here you will find Holmes and Watson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at their best."
Synopsis
Holmes and Watson are faced with their most terrifying case yet. The legend of the devil-beast that haunts the moors around the Baskerville family's home warns the descendants of that ancient clan never to venture out "in those dark hours when the power of evil is exalted." Now, the most recent Baskerville, Sir Charles, is dead, and the footprints of a giant hound have been found near his body. Will the new heir meet the same fate?
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.