Hound of the Baskervilles

Key Facts

full title ·  The Hound of the Baskervilles

author · Arthur Conan Doyle

type of work · Novel

genre · Mystery

language · English

time and place written · Returning from the Boer War in South Africa, Doyle wrote and published Hound of the Baskervilles in England in 1901.

date of first publication · 1901, serialized in The Strand; 1902, published by Newnes

publisher · George Newnes, Ltd.

narrator · Dr. Watson

climax · Holmes' secret plan comes to fruition when a guileless Sir Henry heads home across the moor, only to be attacked by the hound. Hindered by a thick fog and sheer fright, Holmes and Watson nonetheless shoot the beast and solve the mystery.

protagonist · Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes

antagonist · Jack Stapleton

setting (time) · 1889. Holmes notes that the date 1884, engraved on Dr. Mortimer's walking stick, is five years old.

setting (place) · The novel starts and ends in London, in Holmes' office at 221b Baker Street. Most of the rest of the novel takes place in Devonshire, at the imposing Baskerville Hall, the lonely moorlands, and the rundown Merripit House where Stapleton lives.

point of view · The mystery is told entirely from Watson's point of view, although the author regularly switches from straight narrative to diary to letters home.

falling action · Holmes explains the intricacies of the case; Sir Henry and Mortimer head off on vacation to heal Henry's nerves

tense · Modulates from past (as in Watson's narration of London events) to recent past (as in Watson's diary and letters)

foreshadowing · The deaths of some wild horses prefigure Stapleton's own death by drowning in the Grimpen mire. There is a sense in which all the clues serve as foreshadowing for later discoveries.

tone · At different times, the novel's tone is earnest, reverent (of Holmes), uncertain, and ominous.

themes · Good and evil; natural and supernatural; truth and fantasy; classism, hierarchy, and entitlement

motifs · Superstition and folk tales; disguised identities; the red herring

symbols · The moor (the mire); the hound