The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Review on The Hound Of The Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle

The novel, in the beginning, shows the home of Sherlock Holmes where Dr. Edward Mortimer, who is worried of the safety of Sir Charles’s nephew Sir Henry coming to London, appeals for help to Sherlock Holmes. Sir Charles was found dead in the yew valley due to heart attack. Mortimer reads to Holmes and Watson a description of the curse. The curse centres around an evil man with a sadistic streak named Sir Hugo Baskerville who was devoured by a giant spectral hound.

Dr. Mortimer then deduced that Sir Charles' face was contorted into a ghastly expression. His footprints suggested that he was desperately running from something. Mortimer also reveals that he observed the footprints "of a gigantic hound" near Sir Charles' body. Meanwhile Sir Henry is delivered to his hotel room an anonymous note warning him to avoid the moor. When Holmes and Watson join Sir Henry at his hotel, they learn one of his new boots has gone missing for which no good explanation could be found for the loss.

Despite the note's warning, Sir Henry insists on visiting Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry leaves Holmes and Dr Watson follow him and spy a man with a fake-looking black beard in a cab also following him. He escapes when chased but Holmes notes the cab number. By the time they return to the hotel, Sir Henry has another old boot of his, stolen. At the end of the meeting, it is decided that Watson will accompany Sir Henry to the Hall and report back by telegram in detail. A visit from John Clayton, who was driving the cab with the black-bearded man, is of little help.

Soon Mortimer, Watson, and Sir Henry set off for Baskerville Hall but are intervened by the news of an escaped convict Selden. The next day Watson meets Jack Stapleton, a naturalist. Watson is not alone for long before Beryl Stapleton, Jack's sister, approaches him. Mistaking him for Sir Henry, she urgently warns him to leave the area, but drops the subject when her brother returns. Watson notices that the brother and sister don't look very much alike.

Sir Henry soon meets Miss Stapleton and becomes romantically interested. Barrymore draws increasing suspicion, as Watson sees him late at night walk with a candle into an empty room, hold it up to the window, and then leave. Realising that the room has a view out on the moor, Watson and Sir Henry determine to figure out what is going on. When Sir Henry and Watson walk in on Barrymore, catching him at night in the room with the candle, Mrs. Barrymore answers their questions and tells them that the runaway convict Selden is her brother.

Sir Henry and Watson go off to find and chase the convict but he escapes. When an agreement is reached to allow Selden to flee the country, Barrymore, who was upset with Selden being chased, tells them about a mostly burnt letter asking Sir Charles to be at the gate at the time of his death. It was signed with the initials L.L. Mortimer tells Watson the next day those initials could stand for Laura Lyons, Frankland’s daughter. When Watson goes to talk to her, she admits to writing the letter in hopes that Sir Charles would be willing to help her divorce her finance, but says she never kept the appointment.

Later Watson comes to know that another man lived out on the moor besides Selden, and Watson goes off to find the unknown person. The unknown man proves to be Holmes. He has kept his location a secret so that he would be able to appear on the scene of action at the critical moment. Holmes tells Watson that Stapleton is actually married to Miss Stapleton, and was also promising marriage to Laura Lyons to get her cooperation. As they bring their conversation to an end, they hear a ghastly scream.

They run towards the sound and find the dead man to be the escaped convict Selden, dressed in the baronet’s old clothes (which had been given to Barrymore). Then Stapleton appears and he makes excuses for his presence. Holmes and Watson return to Baskerville Hall and after dinner Holmes calls out to Watson and tells him to observe the portrait of Sir Hugo Baskerville and they find a close resemblance of Stapleton in the portrait. This provides the motive in the crime – with Sir Henry gone, Stapleton could lay claim to the Baskerville fortune, being clearly a Baskerville himself. When they return to Mrs. Lyons’s apartment, Holmes' questioning forces her to admit Stapleton’s role in the letter that lured Sir Charles to his death.

Under the threat of advancing fog, Watson, Holmes, and Inspector Lestrade lie in wait outside Merripit House, where Sir Henry has been dining. When the baronet leaves and sets off across the moor, Stapleton looses the hound. It really is a terrible beast, but Holmes and Watson manage to shoot it before it can hurt Sir Henry seriously, as well as discovering that its hellish appearance was acquired by means of phosphorus. They discover the beaten Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged in an upstairs room of Merripit House. When she is freed, she tells them of Stapleton’s hideout deep in the Great Grimpen Mire. They look for him next day, unsuccessfully, as he is dead, having lost his footing and being sucked down into the foul and bottomless depths of the mire. Holmes and Watson are only able to find and recover Sir Henry's boot used by Stapleton to give the hound Sir Henry's scent.

Climax

Though the novel is full of twists and turns, the climax of the novel could only probably start when Sherlock Holmes and Watson comes to know who Stapleton really is and the motive in the crime - with Sir Henry gone, Stapleton could lay claim to the Baskerville fortune, being clearly a Baskerville himself. Throughout the novel, the author is able to keep up the suspense. When I read the scene where Sherlock Holmes and Watson shoot the hound I doubted if it was really dead. There comes the power of the writer. The author takes us to an imaginary world.

My Views

The Hound of the Baskervilles is quite unique and different from the other stories and Holmes’ novels.Here Holmes takes a big risk of fighting a criminal about whose existence everyone has a doubt, who is believed to be a supernatural element.For once, we see Watson taking over the case(or so he thinks), as Holmes says he is too busy to come down to the place of action, and we see Watson showing his deduction skills.The Hound Of the Baskervilles is bound to send a chilling sensation down your spine.At one point in the book, you even find the invincible Holmes enthralled by the sight which had caused two deaths upon the moor.The way the moor has been described by the author at night, the sounds that come from the moor which correspond a hound’s baying, the sobbing of a woman at night, or even the description of Watson’s looking through his window towards the moor freezes the very blood of your veins.If it doesn’t–well then you must be a scary spirit yourself.