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The Hound of the Baskervilles (Penguin Classics) Paperback – October 1, 2001
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This edition contains a full chronology of Arthur Conan Doyle's life and works, an introduction by renowned horror scholar Professor Christopher Frayling discussing the background to the novel and the legends and events that inspired the story, with further reading and explanatory notes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Classics
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2001
- Dimensions5.1 x 0.5 x 7.7 inches
- ISBN-10014043786X
- ISBN-13978-0140437867
- Lexile measureGN430L
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About the Author
Professor Christopher Frayling is Rector of the Royal College of Art, an expert on horror fiction and has published widely on the subject.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band, nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring. “Well, Watson, what do you make of it?” Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation. “How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.” “I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it.” “I think,” said I, following so far as I could the methods of my companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful elderly medical man, well-esteemed, since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.” “Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!” “I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.” “Why so?” “Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one, has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it.” “Perfectly sound!” said Holmes. “And then again, there is the ‘friends of the C.C.H.’ I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return.” “Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.” He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then, with an expression of interest, he laid down his cigarette, and, carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens. “Interesting, though elementary,” said he, as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions.” “Has anything escaped me?” I asked, with some self-importance. “I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?” “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal.” “Then I was right.” “To that extent.” “But that was all.” “No, no, my dear Watson, not all—by no means all. I would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from an hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed before that hospital the words ‘Charing Cross’ very naturally suggest themselves.” “You may be right.” “The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our construction of this unknown visitor.” “Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘Charing Cross Hospital,’ what further inferences may we draw?” “Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!” “I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised in town before going to the country.” “I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be made? When would his friends unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start in practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion of the change?” “It certainly seems probable.” “Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff, he could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician—little more than a senior student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.” I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling. “As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I, “but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about the man’s age and professional career.” From my small medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his record aloud. “Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor,Devon. House surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Winner of the Jackson Prize for Comparative Pathology, with essay entitled ‘Is Disease a Reversion?’ Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Society. Author of ‘Some Freaks of Atavism’ (Lancet, 1882). ‘Do We Progress? (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883). Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow.” “No mention of that local hunt, Watson,” said Holmes, with a mischievous smile, “but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As to the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable, unambitious, and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who abandons a London career for the country, and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room.” “And the dog?” “Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master. Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog’s jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been—yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.” He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he halted in the recess of the window. There was such a ring of conviction in his voice that I glanced up in surprise. “My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?”
Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Classics (October 1, 2001)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 014043786X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0140437867
- Lexile measure : GN430L
- Item Weight : 6.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.5 x 7.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #477,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,930 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)
- #11,825 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #24,506 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and died in 1930. Within those years was crowded a variety of activity and creative work that made him an international figure and inspired the French to give him the epithet 'the good giant'. He was the nephew of 'Dickie Doyle' the artist, and was educated at Stonyhurst, and later studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where the methods of diagnosis of one of the professors provided the idea for the methods of deduction used by Sherlock Holmes.
He set up as a doctor at Southsea and it was while waiting for patients that he began to write. His growing success as an author enabled him to give up his practice and turn his attention to other subjects. He was a passionate advocate of many causes, ranging from divorce law reform and the Channel Tunnel to the issuing of inflatable life-jackets to sailors. He also campaigned to prove the innocence of individuals, and his work on the Edjalji case was instrumental in the introduction of the Court of Criminal Appeal. He was a volunteer physician in the Boer War and later in life became a convert to spiritualism.
His greatest achievement was, of course, his creation of Sherlock Holmes, who soon attained international status and constantly distracted him from his other work; at one time Conan Doyle killed him but was obliged by public protest to restore him to life. And in his creation of Dr Watson, Holmes's companion in adventure and chronicler, Conan Doyle produced not only a perfect foil for Holmes but also one of the most famous narrators in fiction. Penguin publish all the books about the great detective, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes and The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes.
Photo by Walter Benington (RR Auction) [US Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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I recommend it if you are a fan of classical detective stories, or even like a little scare in your stories.
I enjoyed the book, the characters, and scenery.
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the moors near his estate, it's assumed he died of a heart attack. But the esteemed detective Sherlock Holmes suspects foul play, and so when Baskerville's nephew goes to claim the estate as the last surviving heir, Holmes sends his assistant Watson to accompany him and gather clues. Watson dutifully records the goings-on and the intrigues surrounding the estate and the surrounding farms and moors... but it will fall on Holmes to finally piece together the mystery. And when a dark legend surrounding the Baskervilles -- a legend concerning a demonic hound -- rears its ugly head once again, it remains to be seen if the famed detective can stop the legend from claiming another life...
Surprisingly, Sherlock Holmes is absent for a good chunk of this book. But Watson is a surprisingly likable protagonist, an everyman who may lack Holmes' brilliant mind but is still analytical enough to pick up clues, and who has a sense of empathy and kindness that Holmes can occasionally lack. And there's a surprisingly eclectic and fun cast of characters to be had in this story, from the hapless American transplant trying to get settled in a dreary English estate to the servants with their own dark secrets to the doctor with an eccentric obsession with skulls.
While I was familiar with this story going in (not surprising, as it's one of the most famous Holmes stories), it still managed to be a nicely chilling and suspenseful read. The writing style can feel a little antiquated compared to a lot of modern writing, especially thrillers, but it still manages to hold a lot of suspense and creeping horror, as well as some genuinely witty and humorous moments to lighten the mood as necessary.
The Sherlock Holmes stories have managed to stand the test of time, and for good reason. Hound of the Baskervilles is still a creepy and enjoyable read decades after it was first written, and is a great mystery story with a dash of possibly-supernatural elements to liven it up.
That being said I will mention for those new to this story. That it was first published in 1902 and does have 2 instances of describing two peoples racial demographic in ways that are no longer socially acceptable in 2023. However, wrong today and wholeheartedly I agree they are wrong. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had passed away long before these social standards changed. Sherlock Holmes is one of the best mystery genres series in spite of this blemish our more intelligent era must put on it.
As for the story of a supernatural curse that befall generations of the Baskerville family and the superstitious beliefs of a isolated community. It is especially spine tingling and could inspire one to sleep with the lights on. For those reasons alone. I would highly recommend it to others.
Fry does a very good job, and seldom mixes his accents when speaking in the American accent of Henry Baskerville and then switching back to Dr. Watson.
One thing about all these Fry cds is that whether MP3 or regular cds the track listings is a bit weak.
Here are the listings for HOUND
Chapter 1: Mr Sherlock Holmes (CD 1: tracks 1-8)
Chapter 2: The Curse of the Baskervilles (CD 1: tracks 9-12)
Chapter 3: The Problem (CD 1: tracks 13-22)
Chapter 4: Sir Henry Baskerville (CD 2: tracks 1-10)
Chapter 5: Three Broken Threads (CD 2: tracks 11-18)
Chapter 6: Baskerville Hall (CD 2: tracks 19-27)
Chapter 7: The Stapletons of Merripit House (CD 3: tracks 1-10)
Chapter 8: First Report of Dr. Watson (CD 3: tracks 11-16)
Chapter 9: The Light Upon the Moor [2nd Report of Dr. Watson] (CD 3: tracks 17-24) (CD 4: tracks 1-7)
Chapter 10: Extract from Diary of Dr. Watson (CD 4: tracks 8-14)
Chapter 11: The Man on the Tor (CD 4: tracks 15-23)
Chapter 12: Death on the Moor (CD 5: tracks 1-9)
Chapter 13: Fixing the Nets (CD 5: tracks 10-19)
Chapter 14: The Hound of the Baskervilles (CD 6: tracks 1-10)
Chapter 15: A Retrospection (CD 6: tracks 11-19)
Top reviews from other countries
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🇪🇸 Una de las historias clásicas de Sherlock Holmes, tengo varias ediciones tanto por separado como integradas en tomos con más historias, pero una más nunca viene mal. Esta, en concreto, es un libro muy pequeño, pero muy bonito y a muy buen precio. Perfecto para fans de Holmes, ya sea para ti o para regalar. 10/10
Reviewed in Spain on February 19, 2024
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🇪🇸 Una de las historias clásicas de Sherlock Holmes, tengo varias ediciones tanto por separado como integradas en tomos con más historias, pero una más nunca viene mal. Esta, en concreto, es un libro muy pequeño, pero muy bonito y a muy buen precio. Perfecto para fans de Holmes, ya sea para ti o para regalar. 10/10
Reviewed in India on December 9, 2023