"Philipp Poringer" <dr.poringer@salzburg.co.at>
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Canon Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. As the son of a civil servant, he was educated at Stonyhurst
School
and then spent a year in Austria, before taking a dergree in medicine at Edinburgh University. Later he began to
write
detective stories and became the author of more than 50 books, including historical novels, science fiction,
poetry an
other subjects.His most famous books with Sherlock Holmes are "A Study in Scarlet", "The Sign of Four"and
"The
Hound of the Baskervilles".
In 1902 he was knighted Sir Arthur for his work in war propaganda "The War in South Africa: Its Cause and
Conduct"
After the death of his son, as a result of a wound in the First World War, Conan Doyle became spiritualist, and
his later
work, "The Wanderings", became heavily concerned with this subject.
Sir Arthur died in 1930.
Characters:
Sherlock Holmes:
Dr.Watson: Assinstant of Holmes; he does the most work to solve the case.
Sir Charles Baskerville: was a very rich man, who lived in Devon, a moorland in Southengland.
Sir Henry Baskerville: the brother of Sir Charles who comes from America to take over the family estate in
Devon
Mr. Stapleton: Neighbor of the Baskervilles in Devon
The Plot:
Sir Charles Baskerville dies in mysterious circumstances, apparently run to death by a ghost hound from the
foggy
moors of England. Baskerville`s face bore an expression of terror and his body showed signs of
exhaustion.Sherlock
Holmes and Dr. Watson are called in by Sir Henry, the brother of Sir Charles, to solve the difficult case. Holmes
is
afraid, that when Sir Henry moves into Baskerville Hall, he could also be attacked by the hound. That`s why he
sends
his friend Watson with Sir Henry so that he could protect him and that he could find out more clues for the case.
Holmes
stays at first in London and gets letters from Watson: descriptions of neighbors, of the servants and of anything
that
might be of relevance there.
Meanwhile in Devon, strange things occur to Watson: The servant of the Baskervilles behaves strange and in the
night
he often hears strange noises.
Some days later Watson discovers Holmes in an old hut near the moor, who secretly came to Devon, because he
thought it would be
better in order to solve the case and to find out more about the hound.
Holmes and Watson go to the Baskerville Hall and while looking at family portraits, they realize that Stapleton,
who lived near the
