Chapter 1: Mr.

Sherlock Holmes

Summary: On a morning in 1879, John Watson, M.D., awakes to find the private detective
Sherlock Holmes, with whom he shares lodgings at 221-B Baker Street, unexpectedly seated at
the breakfast table. Holmes invites Watson to examine a walking stick left behind by an unmet
visitor the previous night. What, Holmes wonders, can Watson deduce about the stick’s owner?
Watson hazards his observations, only to have them clarified and corrected by Holmes, his
deductive superior. Shortly thereafter, the walking stick’s owner, one James Mortimer, M.R.C.S.
(Member of the Royal College of Surgeons), arrives. After exclaiming his delight at having the
chance to observe Holmes’ skull (for he has heard of the detective’s brilliant intellect), he
proceeds to tell Holmes and Watson why he is seeking the master detective’s help.

Analysis: Having grown tired of writing the adventures of the world’s first consulting detective
and eager to turn his attention to more “serious” literature, Arthur Conan Doyle attempted to
finish off his most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, by sending him over the Reichenbach
Falls as the detective grappled with his arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty, in a short story entitled
“The Final Problem” (December 1893). The title would, of course, prove overly optimistic!
Enthusiastic readers of the Holmes tales clamored for the sleuth’s return. Conan Doyle obliged
with The Hound of the Baskervilles, the third—and still hailed by many critics as the best—
Sherlock Holmes novel. Conan Doyle did, however, carefully label the book as “another
adventure” of Holmes of the first edition’s title page—an indication that the events in its pages
took place prior to “The Final Problem,” and that the reading public should not expect any
further stories. When the novel proved an instant success, however, readers pressed for more.
Conan Doyle relented and engineered Holmes’ “resurrection” in 1903.

The first chapter of the present work appropriately bears Holmes’ name as its title, for it is
largely a brief character sketch of the detective, introducing him or reintroducing him to the
book’s audience through the eyes of his erstwhile companion, Dr. John Watson. The chapter also
introduces James Mortimer, an adherent of phrenology, the now-discredited belief prevalent in
Victorian science, that study of the shape of the skull indicates mental capacity and even moral
character. “You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes,” Mortimer announces. “I had hardly
expected so dolichocephalic [i.e., relatively long] a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital [i.e.,
above the eyeballs] development” (p. 18). The comment is exactly the kind of thing one would
expect a self-professed (and perhaps not a little self-important) “dabbler in science” to say (p.
18). Mortimer also manages the relatively uncommon feat of being able to wound Holmes’ pride
when he declares Holmes “the second highest expert in Europe” (p. 19). Mortimer ranks Holmes
behind Alphonse Bertillon, “chief of criminal investigation for the Paris police from 1880”
(Klinger, 397). Bertillon’s method of photographing and measuring the distinctive physical traits
of criminal suspects—in profile and full-on views, the basis for the modern “mug shot”—proved
highly influential in police practice worldwide, only to be superseded by the advent of
fingerprinting at the turn of the 20th century. Fortunately for Mortimer, his conviction that
Holmes remains the most knowledgeable “practical man of affairs” (p. 19) ensures that Holmes
will give Mortimer’s case a hearing.

Mortimer demurs when Holmes addresses him as “doctor.” According to Klinger, Mortimer’s
M.R.C.S. credentials are today “regarded as a specialist higher qualification in surgery, awarded
to doctors who have already qualified in their profession and have elected to practice in the
surgical branch of it… In Mortimer’s day [, however], the M.R.C.S. was the surgical half of the
standard qualification to practice, not an advanced degree, and surgeons in fact occupied a lower
position in the medical hierarchy than physicians, who diagnosed patients and prescribed
medication” (pp. 388-89).

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Novel

Summary: Chapter 2 - 5
 

Summary: Mortimer reads to Holmes and Watson an early 18th-century manuscript that tells of
how, in the time of the “Great Rebellion” , Hugo Baskerville, progenitor of the ancient and
wealthy Baskerville line and a “wild, profane and godless man,” kidnapped the maiden daughter
of a yeoman who held lands near his estate. For this crime, the document claims, Hugo
Baskerville died, ravaged by “a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound
that ever mortal eye has rested upon.” The Baskervilles thus believe a curse has been placed
upon their family. Holmes dismisses the story, but is more intrigued when Mortimer reads a
recent newspaper account of the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. A generous philanthropist and
a potential candidate for Parliament in an upcoming election, Sir Charles (descendant, of course,
of the notorious Hugo) had restored much of his famly’s greatness after it had fallen upon hard
times by capitalizing on financial speculations in South Africa. A widower, Sir Charles lived
only with his servants at Baskerville Hall, a married couple, the Barrymore’s, who worked as
butler and housekeeper. He lived near Mortimer, who was his personal physician; as well as one
Mr. Frank land of Lifter Hall and Mr. Stapleton, a naturalist. Sir Charles was keenly interested in
the legend of the Baskerville curse, asking Mortimer several times whether he ever saw or heard
strange creatures and noises, especially “the baying of a hound.” Each night before retiring to
bed, Sir Charles would walk the Hall’s “famous yew alley.” He never returned from that walk on
the evening of May 4; at midnight, Mr. Barrymore found his master lying dead at the alley’s end,
past its gate that opens onto the moor surrounding the Hall. Sir Charles’ face wore a terrifyingly
distorted expression (attributed in the autopsy to cardiac exhaustion). Barrymore noted that the
appearance of Sir Charles’ footprints altered once he had passed that gate, but reported no other
physical clues to the inquest. Information that the newspaper account does not include, but what
Mortimer now tells Holmes, is that, three weeks prior to Sir Charles’ death, Mortimer had visited
the nobleman and caught a glimpse of some large, unknown black animal—the sight of which
visibly shook Sir Charles. Furthermore, in the yew-alley, Mortimer saw the “fresh and clear”
footprints of a gigantic hound.

Analysis: Conan Doyle effectively creates a mood of suspense and fear in this chapter: even
though it is set in Holmes and Watson’s Baker Street apartment, it is filled with evocative,
atmospheric descriptions of Baskerville Hall, the site of strange—and, perhaps, supernatural—
occurrences. The novel is a work of mystery, not horror; nevertheless, this chapter contains
 elements that might equally be at home in a Gothic tale of terror: the ancient family manor,
recently refurbished but still bearing marks of “evil days” gone by (p. 26); a secret, shameful
family history in the tale of Hugo Baskerville and his fellow drunken revelers who are struck by
terror on the moonlit moors, only to be pursued by evil and misfortune until their (sometimes
untimely) deaths; and, of course, our first description of the titular hound, with “its blazing eyes
and dripping jaws” (p. 24)—“such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels” (p.
23). The circumstances surrounding Sir Charles’ death, as well, laid out in careful detail by
Conan Doyle as he sets the stage for the detective tale to follow, inspire feelings of dread, which
culminate in Mortimer’s nearly whispered revelation that he has seen “the footprints of a gigantic
hound” (p. 30). (Indeed, we will read at the beginning of the next chapter that Mortimer’s words
gave Watson, a man of science, “a shudder,” p. 31!) Some critics have pointed out that, in real
life, one cannot tell the breed of dog merely from its pawprints; but, as Baker Street Journal
editor Edgar W. Smith noted, Mortimer’s frequently quoted, chapter-concluding line is all about
maximum artistic impact: “I remember one of my sons, when he was very young, going about
the house muttering: ‘Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic cocker-spaniel!’ That, I
am sure, would not have had quite the same dramatic effect…” (Klinger, p. 414).

Chapter 3: The Problem

Summary: Holmes questions Mortimer and establishes that the dog he saw was not a sheep dog that the wicket-gate is the
only exit from the yew-alley that leads to the moor, and that Sir Charles had apparently stood there for some time; that the
hound’s footprints were clearly on the path and not on the surrounding grass; and that three people report having seen the
hound prior to Sir Charles’ death, but none have reported seeing it since. For all this attention to the details of the night in
question, however, Mortimer reveals that he does not wish Holmes to investigate Sir Charles’ death. Rather, he has
approached the detective for advice about what to do when Sir Charles’ only heir, one Henry Baskerville, returns from
abroad. (The only other kinsman was one Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles’ youngest brother and “the black sheep of the
family,” who is reported to have died in Central America in 1876.) Mortimer wants the charitable work begun by Sir
Charles to continue, and knows that, to that end, Baskerville Hall must have a squire; but he does not want Sir Henry to go
to Baskerville Hall for fear of the curse upon the family. Holmes is, of course, deeply skeptical of all such supernatural
beliefs; he recommends that Mortimer simply meet Sir Henry at Waterloo Station upon his arrival, yet not tell him
anything of the current situation. Mortimer departs, as does Watson, who knows that his friend needs isolation in which to
reflect upon the facts of the case. When Watson returns several hours later, he finds Holmes poring over a topographical
map of the Baskerville estate and the surrounding lands. Holmes has also concluded that, contrary to Sir Charles’ usual
routine, the squire of Baskerville Hall was waiting at the wicket-gate; and that the shifting shape of Sir Charles’ footprints
as reported by Mortimer must be due to the fact that Sir Charles began running away from something in terror.

Analysis: Conan Doyle created one of the most famous rationalists in world literature, yet he
himself remained very open to “supernatural explanation[s]” of worldly phenomena (p. 38). The
author was a committed Spiritualist (including his adherence to the belief that the dead could
communicate with the living), and is also remembered as one of the more famous defenders of
the “Cottingley fairies,” a 1917 incident in which two young girls purported to have taken
photographs of fairies in their garden (later proved to be cardboard cutouts). Sherlock Holmes
would never for a moment have been taken in by such a ruse, as this chapter makes plain. “We
are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses,” he tells Watson, “before falling back upon”
supernatural ones (p. 38). Although Holmes demonstrates some respect for Mortimer—when the
physician notes the two separate droppings of ash from Sir Charles’ cigar, Holmes proclaims him
to be “a colleague, Watson, after our own heart” (p. 33)—he clearly rejects Mortimer’s eager
embrace of the paranormal and the otherworldly. As Holmes correctly points out, such an
attitude does not quite seem to befit “a trained man of science” (p. 34). Holmes points out
inconsistencies in supernaturalism’s own internal logic: for example, he seeks to disarm
Mortimer’s fear for Sir Henry’s fate were the scion of the family to return to the state by pointing
out that “surely, if your supernatural theory be correct, it could work the young man evil in
London as easily as in Devonshire” (p. 35). And whereas Mortimer gives easy credence to
reports of “several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature” (p. 33),
Holmes makes it his life’s work to achieve such reconciliations. In maxim-like fashion, Holmes
declares to Watson (who is very often the recipient of such lessons in the Holmes stories), “The
world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes” (p. 37). Observation
and logic, not a resort to supernatural hypotheses, prove critical to Holmes’ success.

The detective concerns himself with the real world: “The devil’s agents may be of flesh and
blood, may they not?” he asks (p. 38). As one who has apprehended many criminals prior to this
case, Holmes knows the answer must be affirmative!

Chapter 4: Sir Henry Baskerville

Summary: At ten the next morning, Mortimer arrives at Baker Street with Sir Henry
Baskerville, who has already experienced a singular occurrence. Although no one should have
known that he had stayed the night at the Northumberland Hotel, he received a letter addressed
to him there: a single sheet of paper containing a message composed of words—all but the last
one—clipped from a printed source and affixed to the sheet: “As you value your life or your
reason keep away from the moor.” To everyone’s astonishment, Holmes immediately identifies
the source of the clippings as the lead article from the previous day’s Times. (The word “moor”
had to be supplied by hand in ink because it is a less common word.) Holmes further deduces
(from the ink splotches, indicative, he says, of a hotel fountain pen) that the sender of the letter
assembled it in a hotel near Charing Cross (from the envelope’s postmark). Whether the letter is
warning or threat, no one seems sure. Sir Henry is still unaware of the circumstances surrounding
Sir Charles’ death; Mortimer gives him the same account he gave Holmes and Watson the
previous day. Sir Henry reports that he bought a new pair of boots upon his arrival in London,
and, never having worn them, left them outside his hotel room in order to be varnished
overnight. That morning, he discovered one of the boots, and one only, had been stolen.
Mortimer and Sir Henry begin walking back to the hotel; allowing them a lead of two hundred
yards, Holmes and Watson follow them, unbeknownst to the baronet and the physician. Holmes
spies a bearded man in a hansom cab also shadowing the pair; unfortunately, the bearded man
notices Holmes and Watson in return, and urges his driver to move quickly on, so that Holmes
and Watson cannot catch up. They lose the trail of the hansom cab; they lose track of Mortimer
and Sir Henry; but Holmes did note the number of the cab (No. 2704). He plans to send a
telegram to ascertain the identity of the driver of that cab; meanwhile, he hires a teenager named
Cartwright to inspect the garbage from the 23 hotels in the Charing Cross area, looking for a cut-
up front page of yesterday’s Times. This evidence, Holmes reasons, will lead them to the person
who sent Sir Henry his mysterious letter.
Analysis: As a character, Sir Henry is not yet well-developed in this chapter; however, that is
due to the fact that he serves mainly as a way for Conan Doyle to introduce deeper levels of
mystery into the tale (the enigmatic letter and the stolen boot). We do, however, read that Sir
Henry has “the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open
air”—indicative, as he says, of having spent most of his life in the United States and Canada (p.
46)—but also “the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman” (p. 41). Sir
Henry is both rugged and genteel, civilized and of the frontier. He also intends to continue the
good works of his uncle: he intends to fully embrace his role as “squire” (p. 47) of Baskerville
Hall. “There is no devil in hell, Mr. Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me
from going to the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final answer” (p. 48).
This resolve speaks to Sir Henry’s “fiery temper,” a family trait (p. 48). Therefore, although we
do not yet know much about him, he emerges from this chapter as a sympathetic character in
whose fate readers will be interested.

This chapter also, of course, serves to further dazzle Conan Doyle’s readers with Holmes’ logical
prowess. His knowledge of various typefaces (although he allows that, as a younger man, he
“confused the Leeds Mercury with the Western Morning News,” p. 44—surely a fully self-aware
statement of false humility, since most ordinary people would not even begin to know how to
distinguish the papers’ typography), his immediate recall of the number of hotels in the Charing
Cross area, his identification of the kind of scissors used by the letter’s compositor, his
knowledge of the traits of hotel fountain pens—all these instances further establish Holmes (as
though he needed any such establishment in the minds of Conan Doyles’ reading audience!) as
master of his “special hobby” of detection (p. 44). We also learn, however, that Holmes does not
rely solely on his own efforts. His employment of young Cartwright hearkens back to his use of
“the Baker Street Irregulars”—a ragamuffin group of street urchins, who perform various tasks
and find out information for Holmes for a shilling reward—in the Conan Doyle’s two previous
Holmes novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four.

Chapter 5: Three Broken Threads

Summary: At the Northumberland Hotel, Holmes and Watson find Sir Henry distraught because
an old black boot was returned to him in place of the new brown one that was stolen. At lunch,
Sir Henry announces his intention to go to Baskerville Hall at the week’s end, a decision Holmes
affirms. When Sir Henry asks Holmes to accompany him, Holmes regrets that he cannot, but
suggests that Watson go in his stead. Holmes tells Sir Henry and Mortimer that they were
followed yesterday; he learns that Barrymore, the butler at Baskerville Hall, has a full, dark
beard, as did Sir Henry and Mortimer’s unknown follower. Barrymore and his wife were left
£500 each in Sir Charles’ will. Other beneficiaries include £1000 to Mortimer and numerous
other individuals and charities. Sir Henry is inheriting £740,000. In all, Sir Charles’ estate is
valued “close on to a million.” Holmes learns that, had Sir Henry been unable to inherit the
estate, it would have passed to one James Desmond, an elderly clergyman. As the group rises
from lunch, Sir Henry spies his missing new brown boot under a cabinet in a corner of the dining
room, even though all previous searches had not located it.

Upon returning to Baker Street, Holmes receives telegrams informing him that Barrymore the
butler is at Baskerville Hall, and that Cartwright was unable to locate the cut-up front page of the
previous day’s Times. Also, he and Watson receive a visit from John Clayton, the driver of
hansom cab no. 2704. Clayton tells them that his fare, so interested in trailing Sir Henry and
Mortimer, was a detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes! Holmes is amused at having been
bested by their unknown opponent, but warns Watson that the case is rapidly developing into “an
ugly dangerous business.”

Analysis: The chapter title is metaphorical, of course: when the interview with Clayton fails to
yield the name of his fare, Holmes laments, “Snap goes our third thread [of investigation], and
we end where we began” (p. 63). (The other two threads were the location of Barrymore—his
presence at Baskerville Hall would seem to argue against his being the bearded man who
followed Sir Henry and Mortimer—and Cartwright’s failure to find the mutilated newspaper.)
Notice, however, how Holmes often takes setbacks in stride. He greets Clayton’s revelation that
his fare was “Sherlock Holmes,” for instance, with “a hearty laugh,” proclaiming (using a
metaphor from the sport of fencing), “A touch, Watson—an undeniable touch!” (p. 61). (Klinger
notes that Holmes is here alluding to Hamlet, Act V, Scene ii: “Is this further evidence of
Holmes’ acting career or merely of his knowledge of literature?”, p. 457.) Holmes is secure
enough in his own intellectual ability to recognize when others have bested him (a trait we see in
other Holmes stories; for example, his respectful appellation of Irene Adler as “The Woman” in
“A Scandal in Bohemia”)—even if, in the end, he has every reason to believe he will gain the
upper hand (as he does in this case—else he would not have been able to display what Watson
describes as that “remarkable” ability of “detaching his mind at will” in order to enjoy the art
exhibition prior to the trip to the Northumberland Hotel, p. 53). In fact, Holmes relishes
matching wits with opponents who can challenge him; in several Holmes stories, we see that he
cares little for common, unimaginative criminals. No: Holmes is far happier, far more
intellectually stimulated, when he is placed in a contest with, as he says here, “a foeman who is
worthy of our steel” (p. 63—and one almost senses that the use of the plural pronoun refers not
to himself and Watson, but the “royal we”!)

For all that it reinforces Holmes’ high opinion of himself, however, this chapter also shows us
the true friendship and regard in which he holds his confidante and chronicler, Dr. Watson.
When he suggests that Sir Henry take “a trusted man” with him to Baskerville Hall (albeit after
begging off being that man himself because of a highly important and delicate case in which he
is already involved—an explanation of which readers should make a mental note), he commends
Watson to Sir Henry: “there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a
tight place. No one can say that more confidently than I” (p. 58). The detective may not always
acknowledge it openly, but he knows Watson is much more than (as he said in Chapter 1) “a
conductor of [Holmes’ own] light.” The good doctor is a man of practical common sense and
also capable of direct action; as Watson himself says, “The promise of adventure had always a
fascination for me…” (p. 59). The recommendation that Watson accompany Sir Henry also
marks a transition to the next portion of the narrative, in which Watson will be much more
directly involved in the action.

Novel Summary: Chapter 6 - 10

 
Summary: Holmes urges Watson to report any even possibly relevant fact about the situation at
the Baskerville estate back to him. After eliminating the elderly clergyman Desmond, Holmes
enumerates those who live at and around Baskerville Hall whom he does consider suspects in Sir
Charles’ death: the Barrymores, Dr. Mortimer and his wife, the naturalist Stapleton and his sister,
Mr. Frankland of Lafter Hall and a few other neighbors.” Watson takes a revolver with him. At
the platform, Mortimer avers that he and Sir Henry have not been followed again. He says he and
the baronet remained together during the previous two days, save for the time Mortimer spent at
the Museum of the College of Surgeons and Sir Henry spent in a park (probably Hyde Park,
according to Klinger, 462). Sir Henry reports that he never got his other boot back. Holmes urges
Sir Henry not to travel the moors alone or at night. The train arrives in Devonshire after only a
few hours’ time, and Sir Henry is quite moved by the impressive and imposing sight of
Baskerville Hall and its lands, which he has never visited. The company learns that a convict has
escaped from the nearby prison at Princetown; armed soldiers keep watch, but the fugitive—the
notorious (and possibly insane) Notting Hill murderer, named Selden—has not yet been spotted.
Barrymore the butler greets Sir Henry and the others at the Hall, but does announce that he and
his wife plan to leave once the Hall’s new master is settled; he says they were greatly devoted to
Sir Charles, and cannot stay on comfortably as a result of his death. As Watson tries to sleep that
night, he hears the muffled sobbing of a sorrowful woman.

Analysis: This chapter largely serves an atmospheric purpose, further establishing the ominous
tone and sense of foreboding that hang over Baskerville Hall and its ill-fated residents as we see
the familial estate for the first time, through the eyes of our narrator, Dr. Watson. “My word, it
isn’t a very cheerful place,” says Sir Henry, in a masterful understatement (p. 72). Indeed,
Baskerville Hall and its environs seem to be, in the topography of Conan Doyle’s novel, the one
blemish on an otherwise pleasant stretch of the British countryside. “I never saw a Devonshire
man who did not swear by his own country,” remarks Watson (p. 66)—but surely very few, and
certainly none who did not hail from the Baskerville line, would swear by this estate! We see it
first in “fading light” (p. 70)—a symbolic description, also, of the faded glory of the Baskerville
line. Watson’s description of the Hall and its setting—evocative of similar literary houses in
decay such as Poe’s House of Usher—not only sets a tone of dread and danger, therefore, but
also establishes Baskerville Hall as a liminal location—a “thin place” (as ancient Celts termed
them), in “limbo” between two worlds or two realities.

In fantasy, the presence of liminal beings in liminal locations often serves to signal that a
protagonist will learn a lesson that could not be taught otherwise. In his book How to Read
Literature Like a Professor (Quill, 2003), Thomas C. Foster argues that every trip in a work of
fiction is really a quest, and that “the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Foster, p.
3). It is not immediately clear that such is the case in Conan Doyle’s novel, although the
hypothesis is not without merit. One might argue, perhaps, that Sir Henry is in a sense “coming
of age” as he comes into his own as squire of Baskerville Hall (e.g., “I was a boy in my teens at
the time of my father’s death and had never seen the Hall,” p. 66), and is thus recapitulating in
some small sense “the hero’s quest.” Watson certainly provides a heroic description of the
baronet in this chapter: “as I looked at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true
a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men” (p. 67; see also
his comment in the next chapter that it is Sir Henry’s way to live in “the place of danger,” p. 86).
And the good doctor himself might be considered a potential candidate for liminal instruction,
although Conan Doyle’s intent with the character seems to have been never much more than to
provide an accessible narrator with whom readers could identify as, together, narrator and
audience marvel at the deductive prowess of Sherlock Holmes! (It is no small testament to
Conan Doyle’s skill, therefore, that The Hound of the Baskervilles—“another adventure of
Sherlock Holmes” in which Holmes himself is absent for such a long stretch of the narrative—
continually ranks among readers’ favorites in the Sherlockian “canon.”)

Thomas Foster also rhetorically asks, “What… does geography mean to a work of literature?
Would everything be too much?... Geography in literature can… be revelatory of virtually any
element in the work” (Foster, p. 164, 166). This thesis holds true for The Hound of the
Baskervilles. The physical setting of Baskerville Hall does more than establish a mood or tone; it
also establishes thematic material. Readers can clearly see this dynamic at work as Watson
writes of Selden, the escaped murderer who is believed to be running loose among the moors:
“Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was lurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow like
a wild beast, his heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast him out” (p. 68).
To judge from Watson’s words, Selden sounds the equal of such famous, outcast literary
monsters as Grendel and Frankenstein’s Creature!

There may yet be hope for the Baskerville house, both the estate and the lineage: Facing the
black and forbidding manor house “is a new building, half constructed, the first fruit of Sir
Charles’s South African gold” (p. 69). The half-completed new building reperesents all the good
that Sir Charles was doing with his wealth, and the good works that Sir Henry has announced his
intention to continue. The new and the old are almost in conflict at Baskerville Hall—e.g., the
“twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes” are athwart “more modern
wings of black granite” (p. 70); or the contrast between the old dining hall, complete with
portraits of a “dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the
buck of the Regency” and the “modern billiard-room” (p. 72)—all further evidence of the place’s
liminal nature. When Sir Henry sees the house, despite the solemn atmosphere, “his dark face
[lights] up with a boyish enthusiasm” as he contemplates plans for its improvement (p. 71).
(Note how he proposes to bring electricity—British inventor Joseph Swan received a patent for a
lightbulb in 1878, a year before Thomas Alva Edison received his patent in America—to the hall
“inside of six months,” p. 69—his role, both literally and figuratively, is that of a bringer of light
into darkness.) The fact that all is not lost for the Baskervilles lends a sense of urgency to the
solution of the mystery. Much is at stake, not only for Sir Henry, but for the disordered, chaotic
society around him.

Chapter 7: The Stapletons of Merripit House

Summary: In the morning, Watson learns that the weeping woman he heard the previous night
was Mrs. Barrymore, even though her husband denied the fact. He also learns that the telegram
Holmes sent from London to Mr. Barrymore was not delivered directly into the butler’s hands,
meaning that Barrymore could have been in the city, after all, trailing Sir Henry and Mortimer.
While Sir Henry sorts through necessary paperwork, Watson goes walking upon the moor, where
he meets the naturalist Jack Stapleton, who lives nearby at Merripit House in the hamlet of
Grimpen. His house is an old residence now refurbished for modern living. Mortimer is hunting
butterflies, and tells Watson several curious details about the moor, including the fact that the
apparently lush and fertile mire around Grimpen is actually a treacherous place, where one “false
step… means death to man or beast.” Indeed, the two men watch a pony sucked down into the
mire as it attempts to gallop through. The mire has encroached upon the hills over the years,
essentially transforming them into highly inaccessible islands; Mortimer, however, goes to the
islands to seek his rare specimens. As he is pursuing an especially unusual butterfly, his sister,
Beryl Stapleton, approaches Watson and, thinking the doctor is Sir Henry, urges him to return to
London as soon as possible. Jack returns and introduces the two; later, Beryl meets Watson on
the road back to Baskerville Hall, asking him to forget her warning, which Watson is
understandably loathe to do. Beryl tells Watson that she believes in the curse of the Hound, and
cannot understand why Sir Henry wishes to place himself in danger. Watson cannot ascertain
from Beryl why she could not tell him this in her brother’s hearing; she refuses to elaborate, and
returns to Merripit House quickly, before she can be missed.

Analysis: Conan Doyle introduces two new characters in this chapter, Jack and Beryl Stapleton.
Mentioned earlier (see Ch. 2, p. 29), Jack Stapleton is a naturalist, as were many well-educated
men of means in the Victorian era: not a formally trained scientist as we understand that
distinction today, but one well versed in such natural sciences as botany and zoology. Jack was
formerly a teacher, but a “serious epidemic” claimed the lives of three boys in his school,
causing it to close and “irretrievably swallow[ing] up” much of Jack’s investment in the
institution (p. 84). He relates this history in a remarkably casual way; Conan Doyle may be
attempting to plant a seed of doubt in readers’ minds, as any good mystery writer does. Part of
the author’s task is to cast the gloom of suspicion upon as many characters as possible,
heightening suspense and keeping readers guessing about the solution of the mystery. (Note also
how, in this chapter, the butler Barrymore engages in suspicious behavior, denying that his wife
was crying the night before, even though Watson sees for himself that she was. This fact causes
Watson to reflect upon Barrymore’s reliability: “It was he who had been the first to discover the
body of Sir Charles, and we had only his word for all the circumstances which led up to the old
man’s death,” p. 75).

Jack Stapleton makes repeated references to the unusual nature of the location of Baskerville
Hall. He expresses surprise that Sir Henry would “bury himself in a place of this kind” (p. 77)—
a striking choice of language, given that Sir Charles has only recently been literally buried! He
calls the moor a “queer” and “uncanny place altogether” (p. 81), and states—in a knowing way,
which may also raise readers’ suspicions—that Watson “will find some very singular points”
about it (p. 82). Yet Jack also seems to enjoy the locale in a way that his sister clearly does not.
Even though the moor is “hard to know” (p. 79), Jack knows his way to and from the islands in
“the great Grimpen Mire… a bad place” (p. 80). He actively dissuades Watson (who, in several
of the Sherlock Holmes stories, establishes himself also as active and witty) from seeking to
reach the islands himself—perhaps another point of suspicion? Why does Jack spend so much
time upon the moor—solely to add to his impressive butterfly collection?  And why does he react
so casually to the drowning of the pony in the mire? As Watson points out, the sight of the
horse’s death “turned [him] cold with horror, but [Jack’s] nerves seemed to be stronger” (p. 80).
Jack’s reaction to the dead pony is not, in fact, unlike his reaction to his three dead students:
author Frederick Ryan-Brown questions how Jack could possibly have felt “simultaneously…
uninterested and privileged, and suggests that, based on how the reader eventually comes to
understand the character, Stapleton’s first thought is far truer than the second” (Klinger, 485).
Certainly, readers may conclude there is more to Jack than meets the eye—as, indeed, is the case
with the moor itself. We learn in this chapter that the moor and the Grimpen mire are places
where appearances can be deceiving. The mire, for instance, looks to Watson like “a rare place
for a gallop” (p. 79), but it is actually treacherous ground. What appear to be “sheep-pens” (p.
81) are actually the huts of Neolithic ancestors (another example of the moor’s liminality,
“mired,” as it were, in between the past and the present; according to Klinger, “Baedeker’s Great
Britain (1894) characterizes the moors as abounding in menhirs, stone circles, and ‘other relics
of the ancient Brtions,” p. 482).

Altogether, the chapter compounds the mystery surrounding Baskerville Hall. Readers may feel
as disoriented as Watson: “Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green
patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track” (p. 86). To his
credit, however, Watson does not shrink from the mystery in the way that Sir Henry seems to. By
the light of the morning, the baronet is able to dismiss his misgivings about Baskerville Hall as
the effect of being “tired with [the] journey and chilled by [the] drive,” and he dismisses the
sound of Mrs. Barrymore’s weeping as a dream; Watson, in contrast, steadfastly maintains, “I
heard it distinctly” (p. 74). The good doctor may be confused at the moment, but readers
nevertheless have reason to believe that Sherlock Holmes’ confidence in him as his proxy has
been well-placed.

Chapter 8: First Report of Dr. Watson

Summary: Watson writes a letter to Holmes, reporting that Selden, the escaped convict, is
believed to have left the area entirely. He also reports that Sir Henry has begun to express an
attraction to Miss Beryl Stapleton—a development that appears to cause her brother, Jack, some
consternation. Watson has also now seen the yew alley, the scene of Sir Charles’ death, for
himself; and has met Mr. Frankland of Lafter Hall, an elderly man who spends most of his time
filing lawsuits and surveying the moor with a telescope. Sir Henry has asked Barrymore about
Holmes’ test telegram from London: Barrymore confirms that the message was not delivered
into his hands; he claims his wife—whom Watson thinks aloof and puritanical—brought it to
him and relayed his answer. Watson concludes his letter by reporting that, around two o’clock
that morning, he saw Barrymore walking stealthily through the corridors and peering out the
window onto the moor, impatiently.

Analysis: This chapter is presented as a letter from Watson to Holmes. There is some irony in
the fact that much of Watson’s letter is concerned with matters of the heart, as he tells Holmes of
Sir Henry’s “considerable interest in our fair neighbour,” Miss Stapleton (p. 90). Readers may
wonder whether Holmes would have observed this development as keenly as Watson does: the
good doctor notes, “From the first moment that [Sir Henry] saw her he appeared to be strongly
attracted by her, and I am much mistaken if the feeling was not mutual” (p. 91). Watson is also
able to discern Jack Stapleton’s disapproval of the baronet’s romantic attentions to his sister, as
well as to surmise an explanation: “He is much attached to her… and would lead a lonely life
without her” (p. 91). Although readers cannot know whether Holmes would or would not have
ascertained these affairs of the heart for himself, they can have no doubt that, know that he
knows of them, he will take them into consideration. Holmes’ confidence in sending Watson to
Baskerville Hall in his stead is thus further justified. The doctor is developing his own “theories”
about the “secret business going on in this house of gloom” (pp. 96, 95); and, indeed, has devised
a plan of action in cooperation with Sir Henry to test them; but he, as well as the readers, know
that the ultimate solution must await Holmes’ arrival.

Only briefly introduced in this chapter, Frankland nevertheless makes a striking impression,
thanks to Watson’s economical but well-chosen words of description: “he fights for the mere
pleasure of fighting” (p. 92). How true such motivation seems to be behind so much litigious
action, not only in Victorian Britain but also in modern America! Frankland is in Watson’s view
a comic character, for his continued engagement in lawsuits seems a reckless waste of his fortune
and results in equal amounts praise and disapprobation for him: Frankland “applies his
knowledge sometimes in favour of the villagers of Fernworthy and sometimes against them, so
that he is periodically either carried in triumph down the village street or else burned in effigy,
according to his latest exploit” (p. 93). (According to Klinger, “there was no village of
Fernworthy, [but] there was a substantial farming district of that name” in Dartmoor, p. 494.)
Readers may also infer that Frankland will prove important for his ongoing observation of the
moor, looking for the escaped convict Selden—Watson’s theory that the criminal must be far
away, due to lack of food on the moor, seems overly optimistic (and Conan Doyle would not be
making so much of the fact were it not to figure into the story at some future point, in some
way). Readers will also note that Frankland is one of two people we see watching the moor: the
other, of course, is Barrymore, whom Watson secretly spies “crouching at the window with the
candle held against the glass… as he stared out into the blackness of the moor… watching
intently” (p. 95). It is a suitably Gothic image for this tale of suspense and suggested supernatural
mystery—as well as, of course, a potential clue in its ultimate resolution.

Chapter 9: Second Report of Dr. Watson: The Light upon the Moor

Summary: Watson and Sir Henry plan to follow Barrymore on his nocturnal walk that evening,
in order to discovery why he stands at the particular window he does, the window “which
commands the nearest outlook upon the moor.” In the meantime, Sir Henry asks Watson to leave
him alone as he goes down to the moor to visit Miss Stapleton. Watson, torn between his desire
to respect his new friend’s privacy and his promise to Holmes to not leave the baronet alone,
follows from a distance. Thus he sees Sir Henry and Beryl Stapleton’s animated conversation
(which he cannot hear) interrupted by Jack Stapleton, brandishing his butterfly net. After more
apparently heated conversation, brother and sister leave Sir Henry. Watson reveals himself to the
baronet, who tells him that he was in the midst of proposing marriage to Miss Stapleton. Her
brother objected, expressing anger with both his sister and Sir Henry. The baronet cannot
understand why Beryl’s brother should possibly object to the match. That afternoon, however,
Jack Stapleton visits the Hall, explaining that he is simply upset at the thought of losing his sister
to marriage after so many years of togetherness. He asks Sir Henry to wait three months before
pursuing any more talk of marriage, in order to give him time to acclimate to the idea. Sir Henry
agrees.
For the next two nights, he and Watson carry out their plan of tracking Barrymore to the
window. On the first night, they hear no sound of the butler; on the second, however, they do
follow him to the window. They watch as Barrymore holds a candle to it, and see a
corresponding, answering light on the moor. When they confront Barrymore, they learn from
him and his wife that Eliza Barrymore’s younger brother is none other than the escaped convict,
Selden. They had taken him in and cared for him prior to Sir Henry’s arrival at Baskerville Hall;
once Sir Henry returned, they arranged to signal him privately, every other night, to see if he
needed food and provisions. If he answered their signal, they would set out goods for him.
Watson and Sir Henry resolve to capture Selden and turn him in to the authorities. When they
reach the light on the moor, however—it is a candle so set in the cleft of a tor (an outcropping of
rock formed by weathering, usually located at or near a hill’s summit) that it can only be seen on
a direct line-of-sight from the window at which Barrymore stood—they are not able to catch
Selden, although they see (presumably) the criminal’s “evil yellow face… all seamed and scored
with vile passions.” Selden outruns the two men. They hear a terrible crying sound, the sound
Watson has heard once previously and which residents of the moor believe to be the baying of
the Baskerville Hound; furthermore, Watson alone catches a glimpse of a man atop the tor a
taller man than Selden, standing silent and still. Before Watson can point this mysterious figure
out to Sir Henry, the stranger is gone. Watson again writes to Holmes, relating all these events to
him and urging him to come quickly to Baskerville Hall.

Analysis: As he concludes his second epistle to Holmes, Watson confidently asserts, “We are
certainly making some progress” (p. 115). Certainly, several mysteries at Baskerville Hall seem
to have been explained. But readers of the detective genre in general and of Sherlock Holmes
stories in particular may well intuit that Watson’s confidence in his own investigative abilities
may yet prove premature. The good doctor asks Holmes to “congratulate” him, “and tell me that
I have not disappointed you as agent” (p. 105). And Holmes may not “regret” sending Watson
(p. 105)—yet Watson may discover, as he did in the first chapter, that Holmes values Watson for
reasons other than those Watson would presume! It is unlikely, for example, that the detective
will be content with Jack Stapleton’s explanation of his behavior toward Sir Henry and his sister,
even though Watson and Sir Henry accept this explanation straightaway. Even so, Watson’s
work will prove valuable in providing Holmes with “all the facts”—as the doctor himself
realizes: he “feel[s] that it is best” that Holmes “select for [him]self those [facts] which will be of
most service” (p. 115). Sir Henry’s question regarding his and Watson’s outing in pursuit of
Selden—“I say, Watson… what would Holmes say to this?” (p. 111)—in some respect applies to
Watson’s entire account of the matter. What would Holmes say? Readers can expect that he will
see the same facts as Watson, as well as many others, and yet arrive at different and more fully
correct conclusions.

Jack Stapleton’s account of his emotional state, as well as his request that Sir Henry wait three
months before officially courting Beryl, rings a bit hollow (not least because, sad to say, it is an
explanation Watson had already constructed as a possibility, in his first letter to Holmes-cf. p.
91). More convincing—again, in no small part because it comes as a surprise, and since they
have no obvious incentive to manufacture such a tale—is the Barrymores’ revelation that Eliza is
Selden’s sister. Conan Doyle has thus established two unusual brother-sister relationships in the
novel: Jack and Beryl Stapleton, and John and Eliza Barrymore. These relationships, each one
conflicted in some way—Jack’s displeasure at Sir Henry’s attentions to Beryl; the strain John
and Eliza bear and the risk they run in supporting their brother who “dragged [their family] name
in the dirt” (p. 109)—reinforce the novel’s preoccupation with the influence of family and the
inescapable power of lineage, which is, after all, what Sir Henry is reckoning with, as well. The
baronet, Watson reports, is sparing no expense to refurbish the Hall and thus “restore the
grandeur of his family” (p. 99). Restoring family fortunes—both literal and metaphorical—are
emerging as one of the novel’s major thematic concerns.

Regarding Selden’s physical appearance as described by Watson, Klinger notes, “Watson

seems… to embrace the popular conception… that criminals could be identified by certain
physical characteristics” (p. 515). The irony is that this prevailing medical-physiological theory
of the day is no more sound than Mortimer’s devotion to phrenology—or, indeed, than the
commoners’ superstitious belief in the Baskervilles’ hell-hound (of which more in the next
chapter). Conan Doyle’s novel thus seems to have a thematic interest, at least from a modern
perspective, of the way preconceived ideas can limit our perception of reality.

Chapter 10: Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson

Summary: At breakfast, Barrymore implores Sir Henry and Watson to pursue Selden no more,
stating that Selden will shortly be leaving the country, heading to South America where he will
trouble England no more. Sir Henry agrees not to inform the police of Selden’s location. In
gratitude, Barrymore reveals that, the morning of his death, Sir Charles had received a letter from
a woman whose initials were “L.L.” and who lived in nearby Coombe Tracey. The letter-writer
asked Sir Charles to meet her at the yew-alley gate that evening, and to burn the letter;
Barrymore’s wife only later discovered the charred remnant in Sir Charles’ hearth. The next day,
Watson visits the tor where he spied the unknown man the night he and Sir Henry chased Selden.
He encounters Mortimer, searching for a lost spaniel (whom Watson fears has been absorbed by
the Grimpen Mire). Mortimer tells Watson about Laura Lyons, the daughter of the litigious Mr.
Frankland. Laura married an artist who deserted her, and her father has practically disowned her
—although Mortimer hints that she may not be without blame in these strained relations. He also
states that Selden told him of another man on the moor. He does not know who this man is, but
he doesn’t believe he is another convict, nor is he police. He knows, from Selden, that this
second man has a “lad” who supplies his wants from Coombe Tracy.

Analysis: This chapter is replete with further examples of the “pathetic fallacy”—the use of
natural setting to reflect emotional and psychological realities behind the story. Watson, indeed,
makes this external-internal connection explicit when describing October 16 as a “dull and foggy
day”—referring not only to the physical fog but his own mental fog and “weight of heart”,
perplexed by the mystery of Baskerville Hall; cf. also Sir Henry’s “black reaction,” mirroring the
gloom of the weather—“…melancholy outside and in” (p. 116). The chapter ends as it begins,
with an explicit connection between setting, character, and theme: Watson watches the driving
rainstorm and allows it is “a wild night [even] indoors, and what must it be in a stone hut upon
the moor. What passion of hatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in such a place at such a
time?” (p. 125). The confused violence of the storm reflects the confusion of Sir Henry and
Watson as well as the violence of Selden and his (as yet) unknown confederate. Chaos is
reigning supreme (in Western literature, from the Bible on, water and storms routinely symbolize
chaos and disorder). Small wonder Watson again wishes Holmes were present (p. 121), as the
detective has a way of ordering chaos. In an endearing passage in this chapter, Watson states, “I
am certainly developing the wisdom of the serpent”—an allusion to Matthew 10.16, where Jesus
instructs his disciples to be “as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves”—“I have not lived for
years with Sherlock Holmes for nothing,” p. 123. Yet even he knows, once more, that he is no
match for his friend. Watson resolves “to reach the heart of the mystery” the next day, p. 125, but
he will, in the end, be well-intentioned but as “harmless as a dove”!

Watson laments—in yet another example of the pathetic fallacy—“God help those who wander
into the great mire now, for even the firm uplands are becoming a morass” (p. 121): a statement
not only about the physical location but also about the precarious situation of those, such as
Watson, who wander into the “mire” of the Baskerville Hall mystery; and, further, who are
confronted by, seemingly, the very grounds of civilized society shifting beneath their feet. This
fin de siecle malaise gripped Britain (and much of the rest of Europe) as the era of Victoria
ended, and the 19th century gave way to the 20th (appropriately, Queen Victoria died in the year
1900 itself). In 1895, Max Nordau, literary and social critic, described the fin de siecle thus: “The
disposition of the times is curiously confused… The prevalent feeling is that of imminent
perdition and extinction. Fin de siecle is at once a confession and a complaint… [M]ankind with
all its institutions and creations is perishing in the midst of a dying world” (quoted in Bernard
Bergonzi, The Early H.G. Wells, Manchester University Press, 1961, p. 5). Readers can find
traces of this mindset permeating the pages of The Hound of the Baskervilles. As already alluded
to, the once-stately, now-in-disrepair Baskerville Hall itself symbolizes this sense of decline. In
this chapter, too, we find Watson evoking a classism that will not accord well with the modern
era to come: to believe in the superstition of the spectral Hound, he declares with no small
measure of self-congratulatory pride, “would be to descend to the level of these poor peasants…”
(p. 117). And we are reminded again of the evidence of prehistoric—and, hence, pre-civilized—
man around the moor: Selden’s unknown ally lives among “the stone huts where the old folk
used to live” (p. 125), a powerful reminder of what many Victorians feared as the encroaching
lack of civilization. Further evidence of the Victorian preoccupation with preserving what they
perceived as an increasingly fragile society may be found in Watson and Sir Henry’s attitude
that, so long as Selden is heading for South America, he does not need to be turned over to
authorities. Klinger points out that Watson’s attitude “is reminiscent of the English penal policy
of ‘transporation,’ the government program of removal of criminals from England and shipping
them to America or the Australian colonies… Both Dr. Watson and the government seem to
believe that so long as a criminal is removed from England, it little matters where he or she goes
or whether the convict continues in his or her criminal ways” (p. 524). If so, such an attitude
reflects a limited worldview of extreme self-interest, an attempt to preserve one’s own
comfortable social order rather than engage in true reform of it. As Klinger goes on to point out,
“Mrs. Barrymore certainly never suggested that Selden had repented or changed in any way. Sir
Henry’s condonation here seems incredible” (p. 525). Less incredible, perhaps, if understood as
unwittingly revelatory of fin de siècle malaise. So long as the criminal will not be “in my
backyard” (to borrow a modern idiom), all will (purportedly) be well. Sir Henry and Watson are,
in effect, washing their hands of the matter of Selden. Whether this decision is wise remains to
be

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Novel

Summary: Chapter 11 - 15
 

Summary: Watson questions Laura Lyons, who reluctantly tells him that she wrote to Sir
Charles on the day of his death. Persecuted by her husband and her father (Frankland), she was
seeking further assistance toward her financial independence (she has also been receiving help
from Stapleton). Mrs. Lyons insists, however, that she never went to Baskerville Hall that day;
she claims to have received help from elsewhere, and planned to commence divorce proceedings
against her husband, a claim Watson intends to verify—although he must admit to himself that
her story hangs together. He still intuits, however, that she may be hiding some truth from him.
The doctor then turns his attention to seeking the man he saw on the Black Tor; he receives
unexpected help from Frankland, who claims to have seen the messenger boy who takes Selden
his food. Watson knows the truth: the boy is supplying food to the unknown man upon the moor,
and not to Selden (who has been supplied by the Barrymores). Frankland shows Watson the boy
through his telescope, as he is delivering one of his bundles. Watson goes to the same old stone
hut as the boy. It is empty at the moment but shows signs of being recently inhabited, chief
among them a surprising note: “Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey.” Watson fears that this
stranger is pursuing him rather than Sir Henry until the hut’s inhabitant returns, revealing himself
to be none other than Sherlock Holmes.

Analysis: Poor Dr. Watson—his efforts are admirable, but he will never be able to outshine
Holmes! Which is, of course, only as it should be: having Watson as an affable foil to the often
abrasive but indisputably brilliant Holmes is the chief way in which Conan Doyle characterizes
his most famous character. We see Holmes through Watson’s admiring eyes, and thus come to
admire him ourselves. Thus we can forgive the master detective his dramatic entrance, in which
he has some fun at Watson’s expense. Holmes’ arrival even has a slight air of justice about it, for
Watson has earlier speculated, “It would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run [the man on
the tor] to earth where my master had failed” (p. 132). Were Watson to best Holmes, things
would be even more out of joint than they already are! Conan Doyle’s use of “master” language
may seem odd, smacking as it does of Victorian British class structure; it implies that Holmes
and Watson are not equals. While they are equal in a socio-economic sense (they do, after all,
share the flat at Baker Street), they are not equal in their deductive ability. And so we also likely
feel some of Watson’s relief that Holmes has, at last, arrived—for Watson has been effectively
stymied in his own detecting work: “Once again,” he laments after his interview with Laura
Lyons, “I had reached that dead wall which seemed to be built across every path by which I tried
to get at the object of my mission” (p. 131). For all these reasons, then, readers may fairly
anticipate that Holmes’ arrival on the scene marks the beginning of a “re-ordering” of the
disordered social world of the novel.
The marital status of Laura Lyons reflects some of the social disorder with which Victorian
society was grappling. As Klinger points out, “Victorian society had little regard for divorced (or
separated) women” (p. 538), and so both Watson’s and the reader’s sympathies for Laura Lyons
are to be assumed as she faces the predicament of dealing with an abusive father on the one hand
and an abusive husband on the other. Nonetheless, Mortimer has previously stated that he does
not believe Mrs. Lyons to be completely blameless, and so some prejudice toward her has
already been injected into the narrative. Certainly, Watson’s suspicions about her are not
completely allayed after his interview with her. In the original manuscript of this chapter
(Chapter 11 is the only portion of the work, aside from single pages, still known to exist in
manuscript form), Watson’s suspicions are voiced somewhat more strongly: “Either she was an
accomplished actor and a deep conspirator, or Barrymore had misread the letter, or the letter was
a forgery…” (p. 539). As the text stands, however, we are left with Watson’s grudging
conclusion that Mrs. Lyons’ “story hung coherently together, and all my questions were unable
to shake it” (p. 131). (For his own part, Conan Doyle proved an advocate of divorce law
reformation, seeking to improve the ease with which women could be granted a divorce, not just
a separation.)

Chapter 12: Death on the Moor

Summary: Once Watson has recovered from the shock of the detective’s self-revelation,
Holmes explains that he has not, in fact, been occupied with a blackmail case in London; he has
been secretly investigating the Baskerville case on his own. (The boy who has been supplying
him is Cartwright, from the telegraph office in London.) Watson tells Holmes about his interview
with Laura Lyons; Holmes informs Watson that the woman is intimate with Jack Stapleton, and
that Beryl Stapleton is, in fact, Jack’s wife and not his sister. Holmes did not know that Lyons
was planning to divorce her husband; he surmises that she planned on marring Stapleton, whom
she did not know was already married. Holmes has also concluded that Jack was their
mysterious, bearded pursuer in the city, and that Beryl sent Sir Henry the cut-and-paste letter of
warning. Holmes and Watson hear a terrible scream; they discover a corpse with an expression
of terror on its face whom they initially believe to be Sir Henry, based on its clothing, broken
upon a rocky ridge. Upon closer examination, however, they discover that the dead man is
Selden. Watson recalls how the Barrymores had given Sir Henry’s old clothes to Selden as part
of their support for the fugitive. Holmes deduces that the hound—a real hound, not the Hound of
legend—must have been trained to track Sir Henry based upon an item of his clothing (likely the
boot stolen from Sir Henry at the hotel in London). Jack Stapleton approaches Holmes and
Watson and expresses shock at Selden’ death. He claims to have been concerned for Sir Henry
because he had invited the baronet to come to the Stapletons’ home that night, and he never
arrived; when he heard the screams, he says, he grew worried.

Analysis: This chapter provides some additional insights into Holmes’ characters, showing us as
it does the detective’s obvious enjoyment of having befuddled Watson with his unexpected
appearance. Watson describes Holmes’ voice as “cold, incisive, [and] ironical” (p. 139),
adjectives that could as easily describe the man himself as well as his manner of speaking! And
yet perhaps not entirely cold: although surely Holmes is pleased with himself at having surprised
the good doctor, he is also concerned (albeit to a lesser extent) with his colleague’s feelings.
When Watson complains that he thinks he should “have deserved better [treatment] at [Holmes’]
hands,” Holmes assures Watson that his “zeal and intelligence” while on his own have “been
invaluable” (p. 141). Knowing that Watson is “rather raw over the deception” (p. 141), Holmes
praises him—not, it seems, insincerely—and seems genuinely pleased to see “the shadow rise
from [Watson’s] face” as a result (p. 142). Thus, while Holmes does remain primarily concerned
with his own methods and the mystery at hand, readers see that he is not completely without
human feeling and sensitivities. They are simply not his normal modus operandi! As he tells
Stapleton at the chapter’s end, “[a]n investigator needs facts and not legends or rumours” (p.
150)—nor, it seems, undue emotional material, except insofar as it may explain the motives of
those involved in a case. (For example, he does understand that Laura Lyons may be more
forthcoming when she “is undeceived” of the notion that Beryl Stapleton is Jack’s sister, p. 144).
The chapter also shows us that Holmes is not infallible (merely nearly so!). He makes the same
mistake Watson does when finding the body upon the moor: he initially identifies it as Sir Henry
simply because the corpse wears the baronet’s clothing. Nor is Holmes completely unflappable:
when he and Watson hear Selden’s dying screams, Watson notes that Holmes, “the man of iron,
was shaken to the soul” (p. 145).

Chapter 13: Fixing the Nets

Summary: Holmes instructs Watson to keep all knowledge of the hound that tracked Selden a
secret from Sir Henry, in order that the baronet may be better prepared to face dinner with the
Stapletons the next evening. Holmes has a plan that hinges upon Sir Henry’s attendance. At
Baskerville Hall, Watson tells the Barrymores of Selden’s death; the husband seems relieved, but
his wife, Selden’s sister, weeps with grief. While speaking with Sir Henry, Holmes takes notice
of the portraits of his ancestors, including a portrait of Hugo Baskerville, who seems, to Holmes’
eyes, “a quiet, meek-mannered man enough,” and not the reprobate of legend whose exploits
supposedly brought the curse of the Hound upon his line. When Sir Henry leaves, Holmes points
out to Watson how much Stapleton resembles Hugo. Holmes concludes that Stapleton must be,
in fact, a member of the Baskerville family, scheming to take Sir Henry’s inheritance. The next
morning, Holmes announces that he and Watson will be returning to London prior to the dinner
engagement with the Stapletons. Holmes insists that Sir Henry relay the message to the
Stapletons that he and Watson hope to return soon, and also to drive to Merripit House but then
announce his intention to walk home across the moor, alone, after dinner. Sir Henry does not
understand why Holmes is reversing his previous counsel, but agrees to do so. Later, in Coombe
Tracey, Holmes instructs young Cartwright to send a telegram in Holmes’ name to Sir Henry,
requesting the baronet return a dropped pocketbook by registered mail to Baker Street. When
Cartwright returns from the telegram office, he brings a wire from Inspector Lestrade for
Holmes, indicating that the police officer is on his way with an unsigned warrant. Holmes and
Watson visit Laura Lyons, telling her the truth about Stapleton and learning from her that Jack
Stapleton’s dictated the letter she sent to Sir Charles, but also telling her not to keep the
appointment with him (protesting that he alone wanted to give her financial assistance, that they
might be married).

Analysis: This chapter’s events and revelations contribute to readers’ sense that we are
approaching the dénouement, chief among them the fact that Stapleton is, in fact, a Baskerville.
This identity supplies him with a motive for mischief and murder, as Watson realizes: “designs
upon the succession” to Baskerville Hall (p. 156). Laura Lyons’ information, too, clarifies
matters: Stapleton was arranging a way to lure Sir Charles to a secret meeting, a meeting at
which he could take action against him. As Holmes says, “Our case becomes rounded off, and
difficulty after difficulty thins away in front of us” (p. 162). His confidence, indeed, borders on
hubris, as befits his character: “I shall soon be in the position of being able to put into a single
connected narrative one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times” (p. 162). It
only borders on that overweening pride, however, because, of course, Holmes will be proven
correct (in fact, within the narrative’s world, the very existence of the story bears out his
judgment—else Watson would not be reporting it!). This lesson is one that Inspector Lestrade of
Scotland Yard has long since taken to heart. Lestrade is a recurring chacter in Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes “canon.” At his initial meeting with Holmes (in the very first story, A Study in
Scarlet), he did indeed express “scorn” at Holmes’ theories; now, however, he has “learned a
good deal” and is “reverential” toward the detective, eager to assist him (p. 162).

One notable passage in this chapter preserves the humanity of Selden, the dead criminal, as his
sister, Mrs. Barrymore, grieves for him: “To all the world”—and, indeed, to Watson, when he
spotted the escaped convict on the moor—Selden “was the man of violence, half animal and half
demon; but to her he always remained the little willful boy of her own girlhood, the child who
had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him” (p. 153).
Watson’s words are a touching reminder of the common humanity uniting all people. (Another
reminder may be seen in Holmes’ laughter, ominous though it is for such criminals! Watson
remarks that Holmes’ laughter is rare, and, indeed, it seems to be so. According to Klinger [p.
27], one Sherlock Holmes enthusiast has found 65 instances of a laugh and 31 instances of a
“chuckle” in all 60 Holmes stories!)

Chapter 14: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Summary: Holmes, Watson and Lestrade return to Dartmoor and walk through a fog-covered
night upon the moors to Merripit House, where a concealed Watson observes Sir Henry and Jack
Stapleton alone, conversing over cigars, coffee and wine after their dinner. Watson watches as
Stapleton leaves the room and goes to an out-house which he enters and from which Watson
hears “a curious scuffling noise.” He rejoins Sir Henry, and Watson reports what he has seen to
the detective and the police inspector. The three wait, in suspense, for Sir Henry to begin his way
back to Baskerville Hall. When he finally does so, they see a terrifying hound, apparently
glowing with unearthly fire, chasing the baronet. Holmes and Watson fire revolvers at the beast,
but not before it attacks Sir Henry, going for his throat. Empting his gun’s chamber into the
hound, Holmes kills it before it can kill Sir Henry. The animal is a bred combination of
bloodhound and mastiff, its mouth and eyes having been made up with phosphorous. Upon
entering Merripit House, the men find Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged; when they free her, she
tells them that Jack has fled to a tin mine on an island in the middle of Grimpen Mire. The dense,
rolling fog prevents Holmes and his party from giving chase. The next morning, they discover
Sir Henry’s missing boot—which Stapleton used to put the hound on the baronet’s scent and
then flung away as he fled, having heard Holmes’ and Watson’s pistol shots—and traces of
Stapleton’s presence in the tin mine where he housed the ferocious animal, but no sign of
Stapleton himself. He is presumed to have sunk deep into the miry bog.
Analysis: The penultimate chapter of Conan Doyle’s novel is a classic of suspense. As
previously, the author here again uses his story’s setting for its fullest effect, creating an
appropriately tense atmosphere: The fog “was drifting slowly in our direction… [Holmes]
muttered impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift” (p. 165); “So as the fog-bank flowed
onward we fell back before it… that dense white sea, with the moon silvering on its upper edge,
swept slowly and inexorably on” (p. 166). Further tension is created by Sir Henry’s delay at
leaving Merripit House: “the baronet looked pale and distrait. Perhaps the thought of that lonely
walk across the ill-omened moor was weighing heavily upon his mind” (p. 165). Both elements
create the sense that time is standing still, and this narrative delay increases the suspense to the
fullest possible degree before it is resolved. Additionally, this chapter is remembered for its
remarkable revelation of the hound: “A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not
such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen” (p. 167). Watson’s initial descriptions of the beast
—“Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and
hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame” (p. 167)—create a kind of cognitive
dissonance in the first-time reader: could this actually be the supernatural monster long feared by
the Baskervilles and their neighbors on the moor? No; we soon learn that the animal has been
bred for size and ferocity, and made-up with a “cunning preparation” of phosphorous material (p.
168). Nevertheless, for the moment in which the hound attacks Sir Henry, readers will have to
concede that Watson (thus, of course, Conan Doyle!) has achieved the stated aim of making
them “share those dark fears and vague surmises which clouded our lives so long and ended in so
tragic a manner” (p. 171). The novel thus illustrates the literary principle of catharsis: a
cleansing, purifying emotional release, intended to refresh the spirit. Indeed, Holmes’ words to
Mrs. Stapleton (whom her abusive husband has, in cruel irony, treated no better than one of his
butterfly specimens) hint at catharsis—the re-ordering a disordered world, both social and
emotional—as one of the book’s concerns (a concern it has in common with much detective
fiction): “If you have ever aided him in evil, help us now and so atone” (p. 171).  The novel’s
social world is now set right. The mystery of the hound has been explained in a rational manner;
Sir Henry’s life has been spared (indeed, we learn that after world travel the young baronet
becomes again “the hale, hearty man that he had been,” p. 171); and, although Stapleton is not
made to stand trial for his crime of murdering Sir Charles and Selden, and attempting to murder
Sir Henry, he nonetheless faces a certain poetic justice in meeting his fate on the moor:
“Somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime of the huge morass
which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel-hearted man is forever buried” (p. 173). (Of course,
as some Holmes enthusiasts have pointed out, it may be “premature to announce Stapleton’s
death”—see Klinger, p. 600—as any good mystery fan knows, no one can safely be presumed
dead without a corpse!)

Chapter 15: A Retrospection

Summary: Some time later, Watson and Holmes review the facts of the Baskerville case. The
detective gives final clarification to several points. Stapleton was the son of Sir Charles
Baskerville’s brother Rodger, who had fled to South America. After having embezzled public
money, Stapleton moved, with his bride Beryl Garcia, to England, where, having changed his
name, he established his school (the one true point of his biography that Stapleton had revealed
to Watson). Changing his name for the last and final time, he and Beryl moved to Devonshire.
Learning that only Sir Charles and Sir Henry stood in the way of his family fortune, he made
plans to kill them, using his wife as a decoy and a hidden hound, disguised to look like the
Hound of legend, as his weapon. He won the affections of Laura Lyons, whose unkept
appointment (at Stapleton’s arranging) with Sir Charles gave Stapleton the chance to unleash the
hound upon him. The hound ran on the grass, leaving no tracks behind and thus contributing to
the suggestion of a supernatural event. Now turning his attention to Sir Henry, Stapleton took his
wife to London with him—not trusting her enough to leave her alone—where he shadowed
Mortimer and Sir Henry in his bearded disguise—and where Beryl sent her warning letter to the
young baronet, fearing what her husband might do. Stapleton bribed the hotel staff in order to
obtain an article of Sir Henry’s clothing, the boot, that the hound could use to track the heir.
(While Stapleton was in the city, he left the hound in the care of Anthony, an elderly servant who
had been connected with Stapleton for several years, since his stay in South America.) Holmes
then conducted his secret surveillance of Stapleton, claiming a non-existent blackmailing case
demanded his attention; when ready, he revealed himself to Watson, and the case entered its final
phase. When Stapleton learned that Beryl knew of Selden’s death and held him responsible, he
beat and bound her so that she would have no chance to warn Sir Henry. Holmes regrets having
felt compelled to use Sir Henry as “bait,” but takes comfort in the fact that the baronet will
recover in time. The case thus satisfactorily resolved, Holmes and Watson prepare for dinner and
an evening at the opera.

Analysis: The novel’s final chapter admirably accomplishes the purpose of detective fiction,
mentioned earlier: of putting a disordered society back to order, of restoring ease to a dis-eased
world. Much of the information Holmes covers is, of course, already known to careful readers by
this point (although there is some new information included, such as the introduction of
Stapleton’s servant Anthony, and the speculations about how Stapleton would have claimed
Baskerville Hall had his plot succeeded). Nonetheless, logical and aesthetic gratification is to be
found in Holmes “kindly giv[ing Watson] a sketch of the course of events” (p. 175). The
summary gives the readers a final opportunity to put all the details of the case in order, to
distinguish between true clues and false leads (for instance, the litigious character of Frankland
emerges as largely irrelevant, save for his role in exacerbating his daughter Laura’s plight), and
thus either reassuring themselves that they have successfully matched wits with Holmes (and, by
extension, the author), or—more likely Conan Doyle’s intent—having one more chance to
marvel at his abilities. Holmes speaks with the barest possible amount of false modesty—e.g.,
“That Sir Henry should have been exposed to this [trauma] is, I must confess, a reproach to my
management of the case,” pp. 181-82; and, in fact, some readers have concurred: “Ian McQueen
chides Holmes for not having anticipated the overwhelming possibility of sudden fog, and for
taking his oversight lightly,” Klinger, p. 610); but on the whole it is clear that Holmes is satisfied
with his investigation—as is evident in the fact that, by the time Watson inquires about it at the
chapter’s outset, Holmes has already moved on to more pressing matters: “the case has now been
so entirely cleared up that I am not aware that there is anything which has remained a secret to
us” (p. 175). And although he indirectly thanks Watson again for his role (particularly the
information that Stapleton used to be a headmaster), he stresses, “I had already come to the same
conclusions from my own observations” (p. 181). It is thus both curious and ironic that the great
detective, who so clearly views himself as self-sufficient, should be forever linked in the popular
imagination with the man he once called “my Boswell” (“A Study in Scarlet”): readers cannot
think of Sherlock Holmes without also thinking of the character through whose writings
(ostensibly) we come to know him, Dr. John Watson. The two are an inseparable pair, and thus it
is pleasing to see them planning to enjoy a night in London society together as the book draws to
its close. That detail, too, reinforces the satisfactory sense of proper resolution to all things, that
sense of well-being and order that is one of the enduring appeals of the Sherlock Holmes
“canon.” As author and Holmes enthusiast Vincent Starrett wrote in his poem, “221B”:

Here dwell together still two men of note

Who never lived and so can never die:

How very near they seem, yet how remote

That age before the world went all awry.

But still the game’s afoot for those with ears

Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:

England is England yet, for all our fears–

Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane

As night descends upon this fabled street:

A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,

The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive,

And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

elief te Ѣlles’ hell-hound (of which more in the next chapter). Conan Doyle’s novel thus seems
to have a thematic interest, at least from a modern perspective, of the way preconceived ideas
can limit our perception of reality.
The Hound of the Baskervilles: Character
Profiles
 
Sherlock Holmes – The world’s first consulting private detective (as he described himself in his
initial adventure, A Study in Scarlet). Possessed of a keen intellect and a master of rational,
deductive thought (as opposed to giving any credence to superstition or supernatural
explanations, as others in The Hound of the Baskervilles do), Holmes may sometimes prove
lacking in ordinary interpersonal relationships, but does understand the place and power of
human emotions as motivating factors in criminal cases—and manages to maintain a close
friendship with his roommate, Dr. John Watson. 
 
Dr. John Watson – A physician who served the British Army in Afghanistan (as established in
A Study in Scarlet) but who, at the time of this adventure, is sharing rooms with Holmes at 221B
Baker Street, London. (In other Holmes stories, which occur after this one according to internal
chronology, Watson has moved out of Baker Street to marry and resume private medical
practice.) In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson proves his loyalty and utility to Holmes
(although the detective seems to grant it slightly begrudgingly) by accompanying Sir Henry
Baskerville to his family estate to investigate the death of Sir Henry’s predecessor, Sir Charles.
 
Sir Henry Baskerville – The young nobleman who has inherited Baskerville Hall following the
mysterious death of its former master, Sir Charles. Sir Henry is dedicated to rebuilding both the
family manor and the family reputation, and refuses to be scared away from doing so by the
legend of a supernatural “hell-hound” that haunts the family in retribution for an ancestor’s long-
ago crimes.
 
Mr. and Mrs. Barrymore – Two long-time personal servants to the Baskerville family, who
plan to leave Baskerville Hall once Sir Henry has established himself as lord of the manor.
Unbeknownst to anyone, they are giving assistance to Selden, an escaped convict from a nearby
prison who is, in fact, Mrs. Barrymore’s brother.
 
Jack Stapleton – A naturalist with a special interest in catching and collecting butterflies.
Stapleton is secretly a member of the Baskerville clan. He is responsible for unleashing his
specially bred and phosphorous-decorated hound upon Sir Charles, causing Sir Charles’ death;
and is scheming to kill Sir Henry as well when Holmes and Watson become involved in the case.
He enlists as his unwilling accomplice his wife, Beryl (Garcia) Stapleton, originally of Costa
Rica, whom Jack presents to the world as his sister. Beryl eventually fears for Sir Henry’s life
and attempts to warn him of her husband’s plot. 
 
Mrs. Laura Lyons – A young wife who suffers an estranged relationship from her father, the
litigious Mr. Frankford, and an abusive relationship with her husband, whom she is attempting to
divorce (a bold move for women in Victorian Britain). At the suggestion of Jack Stapleton—she
believed him to be single and intending to marry her once her divorce was final—she had made
an appointment to meet with Sir Charles the night of his death in order to discuss any financial
assistance he might render her; however, she canceled the appointment, again at Jack’s
suggestion, unwittingly giving Jack the opportunity to arrange Sir Charles’ murder.

Quotes
 

1. “You know my methods. Apply them!” – Holmes to Watson, Ch. 1 (p. 15)
 
Holmes challenges Watson to emulate his methods of observation in order to ascertain facts
about a walking stick’s owner. The incident, in the book’s first chapter, serves to establish
Holmes as a master of logical reasoning and mental agility.
 
2. “Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair
which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill” – Holmes to
Watson, Ch. 1 (p. 17)
 
Somewhat pretentious language from Holmes that nonetheless captures the excitement
generations of readers have felt upon beginning any new adventure with the detective and Dr.
Watson. The quote sets the stage for the mystery to follow, inviting readers to set aside
presuppositions and to be open, as is Holmes, to the different and unusual (but always,
ultimately, the reasonably explained).
 
3. “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes” –
Holmes to Watson, Ch. 3 (p. 37)
 
One of Holmes’ maxims, a guiding principle that leads him to unravel mysteries that others
cannot, or incorrectly attribute to supernatural explanations.
 
4. “I think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth reporting.” –Holmes to
Sir Henry, ch. 4 (p. 46)
 
These words, too, could well serve as a mission statement for the consulting detective. They
reinforce the paramount importance he places on observation. Careful observation is usually the
key to solving the mysteries with which he is confronted.
 
5. “Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate game.” – Holmes,
Ch. 5 (p. 57)
 
Holmes articulates one of the eternal motivations for crime: wealth. Sir Charles’ estate is a prize
a criminal might well take great risks to gain.
 
6. “I tell you, Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our steel.” –
Holmes, Ch. 5 (p. 63)
 
Holmes expresses admiration for their anonymous adversary. The words reflect the detective’s
ability to appreciate intelligence, even when it is used to nefarious ends. 
 
7. “Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches everywhere into
which one may sink and with no guide to point the track” – Watson to Beryl Stapleton (Ch.
7, p. 86).
 
Watson is commenting on his confusion when confronted, not only with Beryl’s refusal to fully
explain her urgent warning to leave, but also the state of affairs surrounding the Baskerville
family in general. He is using the moor and mire as a metaphor for his lack of certainty and his
inability to determine in which way to continue his investigation. His words may also reflect a
broader fin-de-siècle (end of the century) malaise as the late Victorian society in which Conan
Doyle wrote struggled to move from the inherited certainties of the past to the unknowns of a
new century.
 
8. “It is murder, Watson—refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder.” – Holmes to Watson,
Ch. 12 (p. 144)
 
Holmes summarizes the crime at the heart of the Baskerville mystery. Although in its
“particulars” the case has proved vexing, Holmes’ words show that, at its core, it is one of the
oldest crimes known to humankind. These words (some of the most often quoted from the book)
display the detective’s talent for incisively determining the crux of the cases that confront him.
 
9. He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter… I have not heard him laugh often, and it
has always boded ill to somebody. – Watson about Holmes, Ch. 13 (p. 156)
 
Watson gives a sharp insight into Holmes’ character, painting him as a man not given to
merriment, but who does find delight in pursuing and capturing criminals, ensuring that justice is
meted out to them.
 
10. “The more outré and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be
examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered
and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.” – Holmes to Watson,
Ch. 13 (p. 179)
 
These words articulate one of Holmes’ guiding investigative principles. His maxim means that
the unusual or bizarre details involved in a mystery generally contribute to arriving at its proper
solution. The words reinforce Holmes’ faith in the rational, scientific method, and thus contribute
to the triumph of reason and critical thinking over superstitious fear and belief in the
supernatural, a conflict that runs throughout the novel
The Hound of the Baskervilles: Theme
Analysis
 
The Pressure of the Past: “The past is never dead,” wrote William Faulkner; “it’s not even
past.” His sentiment certainly captures one of the thematic preoccupations of The Hound of the
Baskervilles: the pervasive presence of what has gone before. Various characters in the book are
coping (or, in some cases, failing to cope) with the burdens of their past. Sir Charles and Sir
Henry, for instance, are both confronted with the legacy of their family name: the purported
ribaldry of Hugo Baskerville, who looms large in family lore as a “wild, profane and godless
man,” has cast a blight upon the Baskerville reputation and, of course, is the ostensible basis for
the “curse” of the hell-hound. Baskerville Hall lies in disrepair, a visual reminder of the family’s
disrepute, which Sir Henry is motivated to attempt to rebuild. That decision brings his course
into collision with that of Jack Stapleton—of course, we learn at the novel’s end, is in fact
another member of the Baskerville line—who is also attempting to escape his past as a criminal
(his embezzlement of public funds) but who can only plot to do so through further criminal
activity (his plots to kill both the masters of Baskerville Hall in order to inherit their legacy). The
setting of the novel’s events itself reminds us of how the past is always with us, since Baskerville
Hall is built on a moor that is populated by huts dating back to Britain’s Stone Age. Thus, in its
plot and its setting, Conan Doyle’s novel asserts that none can escape the task of dealing with the
unfinished business of one’s personal past as well as that of past generations—one can only
choose how one will do so. 
 
The Uncertain Future: A further temporal theme in The Hound of the Baskervilles is the
anxiety with which Britain faced the dawning of the 20th century. The age of the British Empire,
upon which once “the sun had never set,” was ending; society was shifting; the old certainties no
longer proved true. As Watson tells Beryl Stapleton, “Life has become like that great Grimpen
Mire, with little green patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point
the track” (p. 86). With its vivid depiction of an ancient family line facing a crisis from which,
were it not for the interventions of Sherlock Holmes, it might not have recovered, Conan Doyle’s
novel perfectly captures the sense of social dis-ease and disorder permeating Victorian England
as the 19th century drew to its close. As a PBS Masterpiece essay on The Hound of the
Baskervilles argues, “Holmes offered readers reassurance about traditional English values,
especially useful at a time when England was beginning to feel uncertainty about its place in the
world. With each crime he solves, the social order is restored, and proper class values are
reaffirmed” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/hound/tg_era.html). 
 
The Triumph of Reason: Closely related to the fin de siecle concerns of the novel, then, is its
celebration of Sherlock Holmes as a rational hero. Not for nothing does Beryl Stapleton’s
warning to Sir Henry tell him to stay away from the moors “as he value[s] [his] life or reason”
(emphasis added), for the moors around Baskerville Hall, “haunted” as they supposedly are by a
demonic, spectral Hound, challenge Victorian society’s faith in the power of the intellect. Both
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and the Industrial Revolution created a sense of
inevitable human progress in Victorian Britain, carried forward by the power of the human mind.
Such “fairy tales” (as Holmes dismisses the story of the family curse) as haunt the moors only
threaten that sense of stability and that faith in rational progress. Holmes exists, however, to
reinforce it, encouraging readers not to shy away from the irrational but to confront it for the
purpose of refuting it. As he famously tells Watson, “The more outré and grotesque an incident is
the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a
case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to
elucidate it.”

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Biography:

Arthur Conan Doyle
 

Arthur Conan Doyle (born in Edinburgh, May 22, 1859) studied medicine in Scotland under the
tutelage of one Doctor Joseph Bell. In later years, Conan Doyle would remain greatly impressed
by Dr. Bell’s ability to deduce facts about his patient through careful observation. Dr. Bell, said
the author, “would sit in his receiving room… and diagnose the people as they came in, before
they even opened their mouths. He would tell them details of their past life; and hardly would he
ever make a mistake.” Conan Doyle received his medical degree in 1885 and established a small
private practice in Southsea, specializing in opthamology; however, in his spare time (and, for
lack of patients, he seems to have had a fair amount of it), he began writing fiction.
 
Although Conan Doyle always said he hoped he would be remembered for such historical fiction
as The White Company (1890), his fame today is due almost entirely to his creation of Sherlock
Holmes. Like Dr. Bell, Holmes was a master of observation and deductive reasoning.
Literature’s first private consulting detective made his debut in the novel A Study in Scarlet
(1887 in Beeton’s Christmas Annual) and reappeared in the novel The Sign of Four (1890). It
was, however, in a series of short stories that appeared in the Strand magazine, beginning with
“A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891), that Holmes really became a sensation among Britain’s reading
public. By 1893, Conan Doyle had grown tired of writing the Holmes stories, convinced as he
was that they stole his time and energy away from more serious matters. He attempted to “kill
off” Holmes in the short story he (no doubt optimistically) entitled “The Final Problem.” Readers
would have none of it, however. Not only was Conan Doyle obliged to bring Holmes back for an
adventure set preceding his death—the present work, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902),
which most readers, both general and Holmes enthusiasts alike, regard as the greatest of the
Holmes mysteries—but also the author would “resurrect” his most famous creation for more
Strand stories, commencing with “The Empty House” in 1903. When the final Holmes story did
appear, in 1927, Conan Doyle had written 60 stories featuring this immortal character and his
faithful companion, Dr. Watson.
 
Conan Doyle returned to military medical service in the Boer War in 1900; after the war, he ran
for Parliament twice, both times unsuccessfully. He left the Roman Catholic Church in which he
had been born and raised and became a spiritualist, keenly interested in such supernatural
phenomena as speaking with the dead in séances. He was touring the world to promote
spiritualist beliefs when exhaustion led him to return home to England in 1929. He died the next
year on July 6.

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Essay Q&A

 

 
1. What does a close reading of Chapter 1, “Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” reveal to readers about the
character?
 
In Chapter 1, Watson tells us that Holmes is characteristically a night owl and a late riser, though
not on this particular day; but most of what we learn about Holmes in this chapter we learn (as
Holmes himself would doubtless approve) through observation and logical inference. We hear,
for example, that Holmes is capable of a subtle and wicked wit: when he tells Watson that the
doctor “is not [him]self luminous, but [is] a conductor of light” (p. 14), Watson takes it for a
compliment, while readers understand that Holmes is damning the doctor with faint praise—as
Holmes himself admits a few moments later. We also see that Holmes is not above indulging a
sense of superiority: when Watson reads Mortimer’s biography from the Medical Directory and
fails to find mention of a hunting club to which Watson had incorrectly assumed their visitor
belonged, Holmes does not pass up the chance to remind Watson of his error: “‘No mention of
that local hunt, Watson,’ said Holmes with a mischievous smile” (p. 16). We see Holmes both
delighting in his mastery of deductive reasoning—“You know my methods. Apply them!” he
instructs Watson, knowing full well that Watson will not be able to do so in any degree rivaling
Holmes’ own (p. 15)—and enjoying the “elementary” ways in which he can confirm his
hypotheses: for instance, he announces that Mortimer’s dog must be “a curly-haired spaniel,” to
Watson’s amazement, before revealing that he knows this fact because he sees “the dog himself
on [their] very door-step” (p. 17). In this brief chapter, then, Conan Doyle deftly sketches again
the intelligence and the arrogance, as well as the flashes of humor and the flair for the theatrical,
that characterize this most memorable of characters.
 
2. How and why does Conan Doyle present Baskerville Hall as a liminal space?
 
In contrast to “green squares of the fields” that are nearby, the lands on which Baskerville Hall is
situated feature “a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague… like
some fantastic landscape in a dream” (p. 66). Such liminal locations, or thresholds, are common
in fantasy literature; readers may be somewhat more surprised to encounter the motif here in a
work of detective fiction. Liminality, however, has its place in this genre, as well. Sir Charles’
murder has, after all, thrown the social order of the Baskerville family out of alignment; indeed,
any crime is a dis-ordering of society. It is fully appropriate, then, that this disorientation would
be reflected in Baskerville Hall’s status as a liminal location, between the worlds of justice and
criminality, social order and social chaos. The legend of the ghostly Hound, in fact, only
accentuates its liminality, since such spectral appearances are, in themselves, liminal beings. 
 
3. Briefly discuss an example of how and why Conan Doyle uses the weather in his novel as a
thematic device.
 
Weather features prominently at several points in the book. Watson, for instance, states that news
of Selden’s escape completes “the grim suggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind,
and the darkling sky” (pp. 68-69). Conan Doyle comes close to indulging in what literary critics
identify as the pathetic fallacy, the attribution of emotions or characteristics to the natural world.
Watson does not quite do so, but without doubt the physical setting is here reflecting moral and
psychological dimensions of the story. Selden is as “barren” of human sentiment as the moor is
of vegetation; the murderer’s malignant heart is as “chilling” as any icy gale. Similarly, when
Watson hears a crying woman late during his first night at the manor, he can only determine that
the sound “could not have been far away and was certainly in the house” (p. 73). Although we
will learn the identity of the weeping woman in the next chapter, at this moment, it is almost as
though Baskerville Hall itself is crying, mourning and keening for the loss of life, the loss of
future, that has occurred.
 
4. How does Conan Doyle’s use of an epistolary format in the middle of the novel contribute to
our understanding of the relationship between Holmes and Watson?
 
The epistolary format allows us understanding of the differences between the two men. We see,
for example, that Watson is far more concerned with and attuned to the non-rational, emotional
aspects of life: he begins his letter with reflections upon the liminal nature of Baskerville Hall
and the moor—it is a place, he says, where “you have left all traces of modern England behind
you” and are “conscious everywhere of the homes and the work of the prehistoric people… you
leave your own age behind you” (p. 88)—before allowing that such matters are probably “very
uninteresting to [Holmes’] severely practical mind” (p. 89). Watson also reminds long-time
readers of Holmes of the revelation, in the very first Sherlock Holmes story, the novel A Study in
Scarlet, that the world’s greatest consulting detective expressed “complete indifference as to
whether the sun moved round the earth or the earth round the sun” (p. 89)! Holmes is no doubt
brilliant, but these two examples from Watson’s letter show us that he lacks a certain amount of
commonplace knowledge and also of emotional intelligence, lacunae which keep Holmes at
some distance from his fellow human beings. 
 
5. How does Jack Stapleton’s first appearance prepare the readers for the revelation of his real
involvement in the case at the novel’s end?
 
Clearly, Jack thinks highly of himself: when he indulges in some subtle boasting about his
knowledge of the moor and the mire, he remarks how only “a very active man” and one with
“wit” can reach the islands (p. 80). Watson seems to have some uneasiness about Jack: the doctor
wonders why “this highly educated man and this beautiful woman” have chosen “to live in such
a place” as Grimpen (p. 84), although he does not express any explicit doubts about their
connection to Sir Charles’ death. Beryl certainly knows more than she is willing to share with
Watson. Not only does she have “no ring of conviction in her words” when she professes
happiness in Grimpen (p. 84), but also she attempts, unsuccessfully, to retract her urgent warning
to Watson, claiming only she “was distressed… when another member of the [Baskerville]
family came down to live here… [and should therefore] be warned of the danger which he will
run” (p. 86). Beryl is in some respects a stock figure of Gothic tales, a mysterious woman with a
secret who combines elements of such familiar archetypes as the madwoman or the persecuted
maiden. Interestingly, Watson remarks upon her first appearance that she seems “a strange
apparition upon a lonely moorland path” (p. 82). The explicit comparison to a ghost not only
resonates with descriptions of the spectral Baskerville hound, but further contributes to the
strange, liminally-charaged atmosphere of Baskerville Hall and its environs. All of these details
throw the reader slightly off balance, thus preparing us for the ultimate revelation that Stapleton
is the criminal mastermind behind Sir Charles’ death.