Terror stalks the Devonshire moors as a long-forgotten horror reawakens to haunt the last remaining heir of Baskerville Manor. Widely considered to be Conan Doyle's finest work, The Hound of the Baskervilles features the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful colleague Dr. Watson as they grapple with a mysterious power from the unseen world. This modern edition by Finisterra Books features original illustrations by Sidney Paget as first published in The Strand Magazine.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer--excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
The Hound of the Baskervilles: Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes. By Arthur Conan Doyle. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 - Mr. Sherlock Holmes Chapter 2 - The Curse of the Baskervilles Chapter 3 - The Problem Chapter 4 - Sir Henry Baskerville Chapter 5 - Three Broken Threads Chapter 6 - Baskerville Hall Chapter 7 - The Stapletons of Merripit House Chapter 8 - First Report of Dr. Watson Chapter 9 - The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. Watson] Chapter 10 - Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson Chapter 11 - The Man on the Tor Chapter 12 - Death on the Moor Chapter 13 - Fixing the Nets Chapter 14 - The Hound of the Baskervilles Chapter 15 - A Retrospection
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring. “Well, Watson, what do you make of it?” Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation. “How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.” “I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it.” “I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.” “Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!” “I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.” “Why so?” “Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it.”“Perfectly sound!” said Holmes. “And then again, there is the ‘friends of the C.C.H.’ I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return.” “Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.” He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens. “Interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions.” “Has anything escaped me?” I asked with some self-importance. “I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?” “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal.”
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson travel to the bleak wastes of Dartmoor to solve the mystery surrounding the late Sir Charles Baskerville and a ghostly hound.
Get ready for a journey to the Baskervilles - the hall shrouded in a fog of sinister mystery, and where the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend Dr. Watson encounter the most terrifying and deceitful of their opponents. Get ready to look directly into the dark soul of crime and let the Gothic atmosphere of one of the best works of the Victorian era carry you away. Can you feel the night fall? Over the countryside? How slowly and quietly the freezing fog opens its cold arms? The birds stop singing. The suffocating silence envelops the neighbourhood. Once again something unnatural and evil walks the house, lurking for unwary souls. Turn on the lights, lock the doors, close the shutters, hide under the bed covers... I'm not saying it will help, but what if?
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson investigate the case. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character's eventual revival
