The Hound of the Baskervilles facts for kids
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The cover of the first edition
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| Author | Arthur Conan Doyle |
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| Illustrator | Sidney Paget |
| Cover artist | Alfred Garth Jones |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Sherlock Holmes |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | George Newnes Ltd |
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Publication date
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1902 |
| Preceded by | The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes |
| Followed by | The Return of Sherlock Holmes |
The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the most famous detective novels by the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It features the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend, Dr. John Watson. The story was first published in parts in The Strand Magazine between 1901 and 1902.
The book is mostly set on Dartmoor, a wild and mysterious area in Devon, England. It tells a thrilling tale about a scary, ghostly hound that is said to haunt the Baskerville family. Holmes and Watson must investigate this legend and a possible murder. This novel was important because it was the first time Sherlock Holmes appeared since he was thought to have died in an earlier story. Its huge success led to Holmes being brought back for more adventures.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is considered one of the best stories ever written. In 2003, it was voted one of the UK's "best-loved novels" in a BBC poll. Many fans of Sherlock Holmes also voted it the best of his four full-length novels in 1999.
Contents
The Mystery Begins
The story starts when Dr. James Mortimer visits Sherlock Holmes in London. He needs help because his friend, Sir Charles Baskerville, has died at his home on Dartmoor. Sir Charles was found dead in a path near his house. Doctors said he died of a heart attack.
However, Dr. Mortimer noticed something strange. Sir Charles's face looked terrified, and there were giant dog footprints near his body. An old family legend says that a curse has followed the Baskerville family for centuries. The legend began during the English Civil War. A bad ancestor named Hugo Baskerville harmed a young woman on the moor and was then killed by a huge, devil-like hound. The legend claims this same creature has haunted the family ever since, causing many Baskerville family members to die early.
Sir Charles believed in this curse, and Dr. Mortimer is now worried about the next family member, Sir Henry Baskerville. Sir Henry is coming from Canada to take over the family estate.
Sir Henry Arrives
Holmes doesn't believe in curses, but he agrees to meet Sir Henry in London. Sir Henry is a young, friendly man who doesn't believe the scary legend. He is excited to move into Baskerville Hall. However, he soon receives a mysterious note telling him to stay away from the moor.
When someone tries to follow Sir Henry in London, Holmes asks Watson to go with Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer to Dartmoor. Watson's job is to protect Sir Henry and look for clues about who is threatening his life.
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Life on Dartmoor
The three men arrive at Baskerville Hall. It's an old, large house in the middle of a huge park. A butler and his wife manage the house. The estate is surrounded by the moor and is close to the Grimpen Mire. This mire is a dangerous swamp where people and animals can get stuck and die.
The atmosphere becomes even more gloomy when they hear that a murderer named Selden has escaped from the nearby Dartmoor Prison. He is hiding in the hills.
Strange things happen during their first night, keeping them awake. The next day, Watson and Sir Henry explore the area and meet the unique people living nearby. Watson keeps searching for clues and sends all the details of his investigation to Holmes.
Among the neighbors are the Stapletons, a brother and sister. Jack Stapleton is very friendly but a bit too curious about the new arrivals. His sister, Beryl, is beautiful but seems very tired of the place. She tries to warn Sir Henry, through Watson, about danger.
Watson hears distant howls and sees strange things during his walks on the hills. He also becomes suspicious of the butler, Barrymore. At night, Barrymore seems to be signaling someone on the moor with a candle from a house window. Meanwhile, Sir Henry is drawn to Beryl, but she seems afraid of her brother's opinion.
The mystery gets even more complicated with other characters. Dr. Mortimer is very eager to convince Sir Henry that the curse is real. Frankland is an old, grumpy neighbor who likes to spy on others with his telescope. His daughter, Laura, had some connection to Sir Charles. There's also a bearded man hiding in the hills, living on a rocky hill where ancient tombs were dug up by Mortimer.
Holmes Solves the Case
Unknown to everyone, even Watson, Holmes has been hiding on the moor the whole time. He has solved the mystery! Holmes reveals that the hound is real and belongs to Stapleton. Laura, who liked Stapleton, was convinced by him to trick Sir Charles into coming out of his house at night. Stapleton then used the legendary hound to scare Sir Charles.
Beryl is actually Jack Stapleton's wife, not his sister. He forced her to pretend to be his sister to trick Sir Henry. Stapleton is a descendant of the Baskervilles himself and wants to inherit their fortune.
Sadly, the hound attacks a man it thinks is Sir Henry. But Barrymore had given Sir Henry's old clothes to Selden, his brother-in-law. Selden dies instead of Sir Henry.
Holmes realizes that the evidence they have is not enough to arrest Stapleton. So, Holmes decides to use Sir Henry Baskerville as bait to catch the criminal in the act. Sir Henry accepts an invitation to Stapleton's house and will walk back alone after dark. This gives Stapleton a chance to unleash the hound on him.
Holmes and Watson pretend to leave Dartmoor by train. Instead, they hide near Stapleton's house with Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard. Despite the darkness and thick fog, Holmes and Watson manage to kill the scary beast as it attacks Sir Henry. Stapleton, in his panic, tries to escape but is believed to drown in the dangerous mire.
How the Story Began
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles after returning home from South Africa. He had worked there as a doctor during the Second Boer War. He hadn't written about Sherlock Holmes for eight years, having seemingly killed the character in a story called "The Final Problem" in 1893. Even though The Hound of the Baskervilles takes place before Holmes's supposed death, its success led Conan Doyle to bring Holmes back for good in a later story.
Conan Doyle got help with the legend of the hound and details about Dartmoor from a journalist named Bertram Fletcher Robinson. They explored Dartmoor together in June 1901. Conan Doyle might also have been inspired by his own earlier story, "The King of the Foxes" (1898), which featured a terrifying giant wolf.
What Inspired the Story?
Conan Doyle's ideas came from the legend of Squire Richard Cabell of Brook Hall in Devon. This legend was a key inspiration for the Baskerville story about a scary hound and a cursed country squire. Cabell's tomb can still be seen in the town of Buckfastleigh.
Cabell loved hunting and was known as a very bad person. People said he was immoral and had even made a deal with the Devil. There was also a rumor that he had harmed his wife. When he died in 1677, people claimed that a ghostly pack of hounds howled across the moor at his tomb. From that night on, it was said he led the phantom pack across the moor every year on the anniversary of his death. To try and make his spirit rest, villagers built a large building around his tomb and placed a huge stone slab on it.
Devon's local stories also include tales of a fearsome supernatural dog called the Yeth hound, which Conan Doyle might have heard about.
Many believe that Baskerville Hall, the house in the story, was based on real houses near Dartmoor. Some possible inspirations include Fowelscombe, Hayford Hall, and Brook Hall (where Richard Cabell lived). It's also been suggested that Baskerville Hall was based on Clyro Court in Mid Wales, which was renamed Baskerville Hall in the late 1800s. Arthur Conan Doyle was reportedly a family friend who stayed there often and might have known a local legend about a hound.
Other stories say Conan Doyle was inspired by a holiday in North Norfolk, where the tale of Black Shuck (another ghostly dog) is well known. Cromer Hall, an old house where Conan Doyle stayed, also looks a lot like his descriptions of Baskerville Hall.
How the Book Was Published
The Hound of the Baskervilles was first published in parts in The Strand Magazine in 1901. This way of publishing worked well because each chapter ended with a cliffhanger, making readers eager for the next part. The full novel was printed in the United Kingdom in March 1902 by George Newnes Ltd. It was also published in the United States in the same year.
Film and TV Shows
More than 20 film and television versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles have been made.
| Year | Title | Country | Director | Holmes | Watson |
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| 1914 | Der Hund von Baskerville – 1 Teil |  Germany |
Rudolf Meinert | Alwin Neuß |
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| 1914 | Der Hund von Baskerville – 2 Teil – Das einsame Haus | ||||
| 1914 | Der Hund von Baskerville – 3 Teil – Das unheimliche Zimmer | Richard Oswald | |||
| 1915 | Der Hund von Baskerville – 4 Teil | ||||
| 1920 | Das dunkle Schloß |  Germany |
Willy Zeyn | Eugen Burg |
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| 1920 | Das Haus ohne Fenster | Erich Kaiser-Titz | |||
| 1920 | Dr. MacDonalds Sanatorium | ||||
| 1921 | The Hound of the Baskervilles |  United Kingdom |
Maurice Elvey | Eille Norwood | Hubert Willis |
| 1929 | Der Hund von Baskerville | Germany |
Richard Oswald | Carlyle Blackwell | George Seroff |
| 1932 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | United Kingdom |
Gareth Gundrey | Robert Rendel | Frederick Lloyd |
| 1937 | The Hound of the Baskervilles |  Germany |
Carl Lamac | Bruno Güttner | Fritz Odemar |
| 1939 | The Hound of the Baskervilles |  United States |
Sidney Lanfield | Basil Rathbone | Nigel Bruce |
| 1951 | Jighansa |  India |
Ajoy Kar | Sishir Batabyal as Detective Smarajit Sen |
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| 1955 | Der Hund von Baskerville |  West Germany |
Fritz Umgelter | Wolf Ackva | Arnulf Schröder |
| 1959 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | United Kingdom |
Terence Fisher | Peter Cushing | André Morell |
| 1962 | Bees Saal Baad(based on H. K. Roy's Nishachari Bibhishika, the Bengali adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles) |
India |
Biren Nag | Asit Sen as Detective Gopichand |
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| 1968 | Sherlock Holmes - "The Hound of the Baskervilles" | United Kingdom |
Graham Evans | Peter Cushing | Nigel Stock |
| 1968 | Sherlock Holmes – "L'ultimo dei Baskerville" |  Italy |
Guglielmo Morandi | Nando Gazzolo | Gianni Bonagura |
| 1971 | The Hound of the Baskervilles (Собака Баскервилей) |  Soviet Union |
A.F. Zinovieva | Nikolay Volkov | Lev Krugliy |
| 1972 | The Hound of the Baskervilles |  United States |
Barry Crane | Stewart Granger | Bernard Fox |
| 1978 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | United Kingdom |
Paul Morrissey | Peter Cook | Dudley Moore |
| 1981 | The Hound of the Baskervilles (Собака Баскервилей) | Soviet Union |
Igor Maslennikov | Vasilij Livanov | Vitali Solomin |
| 1982 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | United Kingdom |
Peter Duguid | Tom Baker | Terence Rigby |
| 1983 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | United Kingdom |
Douglas Hickox | Ian Richardson | Donald Churchill |
| 1983 | Sherlock Holmes and the Baskerville Curse |  Australia |
Ian McKenzie & Alex Nicholas | Peter O'Toole (voice) | Earle Cross (voice) |
| 1988 | The Return of Sherlock Holmes – "The Hound of the Baskervilles" | United Kingdom |
Brian Mills | Jeremy Brett | Edward Hardwicke |
| 1995 | Wishbone – "The Slobbery Hound" | United States |
Fred Holmes | "Wishbone" (Soccer the Dog, voice of Larry Brantley) |
Ric Speigel |
| 1999 | Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century – "The Hounds of the Baskervilles" | United States United Kingdom |
Robert Brousseau, Scott Heming | Jason Gray-Stanford | John Payne |
| 2000 | The Hound of the Baskervilles |  Canada |
Rodney Gibbons | Matt Frewer | Kenneth Welsh |
| 2002 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | United Kingdom |
David Attwood | Richard Roxburgh | Ian Hart |
| 2012 | Sherlock – "The Hounds of Baskerville" | United Kingdom |
Paul McGuigan | Benedict Cumberbatch | Martin Freeman |
| 2015 | The Adventure of Henry Baskerville and a Dog (Basukāviru kun to inu no bōken, バスカーヴィル君と犬の冒険) ||  Japan ||Michiyo Morita || Kōichi Yamadera (voice) || Wataru Takagi (voice) |
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| 2015 | Sherloch – "The Cat of the Baskervilles" (Шерлох – "Кішка Баскервілів") |
 Ukraine |
Kyrylo Bin | Evgen Koshevyy | Yuriy Krapov |
| 2014 | Elementary – "The Hound of the Cancer Cells" | United States |
Michael Slovis | Jonny Lee Miller | Lucy Liu |
| 2016 | Elementary – "Hounded" | Robert Hewitt Wolfe |
Audio Versions
The Hound of the Baskervilles has also been adapted for radio many times.
- In 1932, it was made into six episodes for the radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
- Another radio version aired in 1936.
- In 1941, it was adapted for The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone as Holmes.
- The BBC Light Programme aired a version in 1958.
- CBS Radio Mystery Theater had an episode based on the novel in 1977.
- The BBC made two more radio adaptations in 1988 and 1998.
- In 2002, a progressive rock album called The Hound of the Baskervilles was released, with narration.
- The American radio series The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes adapted it in 2008.
- Big Finish Productions released their audio adaptation in 2011.
- L.A. Theatre Works released their audio production in 2014.
- In 2020, Lions Den Theatre released a new audio adaptation on YouTube.
- Audible released an adaptation in 2021.
Stage Plays
- In 2007, Peepolykus Theatre Company created a new play version. It used only three actors and was praised for its funny physical comedy. It toured the UK and played in London's West End.
- Other stage versions have been performed in the UK by different writers.
- Ken Ludwig wrote an adaptation called Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes mystery, which premiered in 2015.
- In 2021, a new adaptation by Steven Canny and John Nicholson toured the UK.
Video Games
- The Hound of the Baskervilles was a main inspiration for the final case in the video game The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures.
- Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles is a casual game by Frogwares. It changes the original story by adding supernatural elements.
Other Related Works
- The movie The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1941) mentions The Hound of the Baskervilles.
- Mad magazine made a funny version called "The Hound of the Basketballs" in 1954.
- Disney cartoonist Carl Barks created "The Hound of the Whiskervilles" (1960), starring Uncle Scrooge.
- A 1965 Walt Disney's Comics and Stories comic featured "The Hound of Basketville," with Mickey Mouse as Sherlock Mouse.
- In 1971, a German music group covered a song with lyrics based on The Hound of the Baskervilles.
- Stapleton appears again in Richard L. Boyer's book The Giant Rat of Sumatra (1976).
- William of Baskerville, a detective character in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (1980), was inspired by Sherlock Holmes.
- The hound from the story has a small role in the animated movie The Pagemaster (1994).
- The hound of the Baskervilles is a character in the Japanese comic series Hellsing (1997–2008).
- Spike Milligan wrote a funny book about the novel in 1997.
- The Moor (1998), a novel by Laurie R. King, uses the setting and parts of the plot.
- Pierre Bayard's book Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong (2008) re-examines the case and argues that the real murderer was never caught.
- The mysterious elements of The Hound of Baskervilles inspired the demon hound Pluto in the anime Black Butler (2011–2017).
See also
In Spanish: El sabueso de los Baskerville para niños
- Baskerville effect
- Edinburgh Phrenological Society
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
- Princetown#Geography
