Full Description
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-02) is Arthur Conan Doyle's most celebrated Sherlock Holmes adventure. At the end of the yew tree path of his ancestral home, Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead. Close by are the footprints of a gigantic hound. Called to investigate, Holmes seems to face a supernatural foe. In the tense narration of the detective's efforts to solve the crime, Conan Doyle meditates on late Victorian and early twentieth-century ideas of ancestry and atavism, the possible biological determination of criminals, the stability of the British landed classes, and the place of the supernatural.
Historical documents included with this fully-annotated Broadview edition help contextualize the novel's debates and reveal its cultural and literary significance as a supreme instance of early detective fiction. Also included is the Conan Doyle short story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band."
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Arthur Conan Doyle: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
The Hound of the Baskervilles: Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes
"Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band"
Appendix A: "Curiosities," The Strand Magazine (April 1901)
Appendix B: From Francis Galton, "Composite Portraits" (1879)
Appendix C: From Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius (1892 ed.)
Appendix D: From Jack London, The People of the Abyss (1903)
Appendix E: Crime reporting from The Times (14 April 1901)
Appendix F: From Edgar Allan Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (April 1841)
Appendix G: From Adam Badeau, "The Land," Aristocracy in England (1886 ed.)
Appendix H: From Edward B.Tylor, "The Development of Culture," Primitive Culture (1873 ed.)
Appendix I: From Arthur Conan Doyle, The New Revelation (1918)
Selected Further Reading and Filmography
