- Published: 6 November 2012
- ISBN: 9781612192604
- Imprint: RH US eBook Adult
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 224
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child
"It's an ugly business, Watson, an ugly dangerous business, and the more I see of it the less I like it."
Sherlock Holmes had been dead for eight years—killed of in another story—when Arthur Conan Doyle decided to bring the famous detective back for a new story that he told friends was turning into "a real creeper".
The tale about the chilling re-animation of a curse haunting the Baskerville family since Medieval times, wherein a supernatural beast stalks the gloomy moors, would be the most sensationally successful of all the Holmes stories, and a century later, it is still the most thrilling of them all. Full of moody atmospherics, suspicious characters, and dramatic discoveries, The Hound of the Baskervilles also shows off something often overlooked about Doyle: his wonderful prose. Presented here as it first appeared in The Strand magazine in 1901, this great mystery still strikes many as the best ever written.
The Art of The Novella Series
Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.
- Published: 6 November 2012
- ISBN: 9781612192604
- Imprint: RH US eBook Adult
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 224
Other books in the series
About the author
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and began to write stories while he was a student.Over his life he produced more than thirty books, 150 short stories, poems, plays and essays across a wide range of genres. His most famous creation is the detective Sherlock Holmes, who he introduced in his first novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). This was followed in 1889 by an historical novel, Micah Clarke. In 1893 Conan Doyle published 'The Final Problem' in which he killed off his famous detective so that he could turn his attention more towards historical fiction. However Holmes was so popular that Conan Doyle eventually relented and published The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1901. The events of the The Hound of the Baskervilles are set before those of 'The Final Problem' but in 1903 new Sherlock Holmes stories began to appear that revealed that the detective had not died after all. He was finally retired in 1927. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on 7 July 1930.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh into a prosperous Irish family. He trained as a doctor, gaining his degree from Edinburgh University in 1881. He worked as a surgeon on a whaling boat and also as a medical officer on a steamer travelling between Liverpool and West Africa. He then settled in Portsmouth on the English south coast and divided his time between medicine and writing.
Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in A Study of Scarlet, published in 'Beeton's Christmas Annual' in 1887. Its success encouraged Conan Doyle to write more stories involving Holmes but, in 1893, Conan Doyle killed off Holmes, hoping to concentrate on more serious writing. A public outcry later made him resurrect Holmes. In addition, Conan Doyle wrote a number of other novels, including The Lost World and various non-fictional works. These included a pamphlet justifying Britain's involvement in the Boer War, for which he was knighted and histories of the Boer War and World War One, in which his son, brother and two of his nephews were killed. Conan Doyle also twice ran unsuccessfully for parliament. In later life he became very interested in spiritualism.
Conan Doyle died of a heart attack on 7 July 1930.