The Hound of the Baskervilles

The recent death of Sir Charles Baskerville stirs up a dangerous business. For the "luminous, ghastly, and spectral" hound of the family legend has been seen roaming the moors at night, and it appears that the new baronet has inherited, along with the ancient house and vast wealth of his family, a dreadful destiny. . . .

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attended Jesuit boarding schools and then studied medicine at Edinburgh University. He planned to become an eye specialist, but was unsuccessful at establishing a medical practice. In need of additional income, he wrote his first story about Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet. His detective was modeled partly after Dr. Joseph Bell, a doctor from the Edinburgh Infirmary who had extremely keen powers of observation and analysis. After several rejections, a British publisher bought the story, and the world's best-known fictional detective was born. Conan Doyle was knighted in 1902 for writing a defense of the British cause in The Great Boer War. He went on to write fifty-nine more Sherlock Holmes adventures, as well as many other stories. He died in Sussex, England, in 1930.