The Hound Of The Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not invent what we now consider to be the classic detective novel. That claim can be forcefully made by Wilkie Collins with his novel 'The Moonstone', but Doyle more than anyone else developed the genre and with Sherlock Holmes the original gentleman amateur detective, he created one of the most enduring characters in literature and cinema. 'The Hound Of The Baskervilles' published in 1902 was the third Sherlock Holmes novel and in many ways is the most well written and ambitious of all. It is not only a brilliantly crafted detective story but also crosses over in to the realm of the supernatural and horror, an early ...  Read the complete review

. . . in a literary sense, that is. Reading some of the excellent existing reviews nearly put me off writing mine. But I must have my say, and will therefore take a slightly different approach. Doyle's background and the story's background have been covered in great detail. So I'll dwell on the points that set it apart from anything else of this kind. First a quick summary of the story itself. The Baskerville family has been hounded, pun intended, for hundreds of years by the family curse, in the shape of a hell hound. It began with the depraved Hugo Baskerville, and most of his descendants have died violent and unnatural deaths. This includes the ...  Read the complete review

'Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish, be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.' Originally serialized in 1901, The Hound of the Baskervilles is a classic mystery novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his legendary fictional creation Sherlock Holmes. The story begins with a Dr Mortimer visiting Baker Street to seek the help of great detective in a very strange case indeed. Mortimer believes that the death of his friend Sir Charles Baskerville is connected to an old family legend about a ghostly demon hound that roams the moors ...  Read the complete review

The Hound of the Baskervilles is Sherlock Holmes most famous case, its usually the one that gets made first as a film or television series, personally its not my favourite but has all the elements of a classic Holmes mystery. Whats the story? Well this is a classic Holmes novel in that the story has some ancient aspect too it but there is a modern reason for fearing what is going to happen next. Basically the rich landowner Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on his front drive apparently from a heart attack, his face has a look of shot and there are mysterious animal tracks near the body. The tracks bring up the old myth concerning an ancestor ...  Read the complete review

For lovers of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, this is an absolute treat. It opens in classic Conan Doyle style with Holmes & Dr Watson trying to guess the identity of a visitor to their rooms from the clues on his walking stick. When the visitor returns we find Homes has it spot on, of course - & there are Holmes trademarks like this a-plenty. The visitor is a young Devonshire doctor, & the tale he tells of hellhounds & dead lords sets the scene brilliantly with a perfect atmosphere of tension & mystery. Sir Charles Baskerville has been found literally scared to death at his manor house on bleak Devonshire moorland, & the ...  Read the complete review