Boekverslag : Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound Of The Baskervilles
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 2314 woorden.
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 2314 woorden.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The hound of the Baskervilles
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1859-1930), British physician, novelist, and detective-story writer, creator of the unforgettable master sleuth Sherlock Holmes.
Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh and educated at Stonyhurst College and the University of Edinburgh. From 1882 to 1890 he practiced medicine in Southsea, England. A Study in Scarlet, the first of 68 stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, appeared in 1887. The characterization of Holmes, his ability of ingenious deductive reasoning, was based on one of the author's own university professors. Equally brilliant creations are those of Holmes's foils: his friend Dr. Watson, the good-natured if bumbling narrator of the stories, and the master criminal Professor Moriarty. Conan Doyle was so immediately successful in his literary career that approximately five years later he abandoned his medical practice to devote his entire time to writing. Conan Doyle, like the detective he created, helped the police solve murder cases. He was knighted in 1902.
Some of the best known of the Holmes stories are The sign of four (1890), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), and His Last Bow (1917). They made Conan Doyle internationally famous and served to popularize the detective-story genre (see Detective Story; Mystery Story). A Holmes cult arose and still flourishes, notably through clubs of devotees such as the Baker Street Irregulars. Conan Doyle's literary versatility brought him almost equal fame for his historical romances such as Micah Clarke (1888), The White Company (1890), Rodney Stone (1896), and Sir Nigel (1906), and for his play A Story of Waterloo (1894).
Conan Doyle served in the Boer War as a physician, and on his return to England wrote The Great Boer War (1900) and The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Conduct (1902), justifying England's participation. For these works he was knighted in 1902. During World War I he wrote History of the British Campaign in France and Flanders (6 vol., 1916-20) as a tribute to British bravery. An advocate of spiritualism since the late 1880s, his lectures and writings on the subject increased markedly after the death of his eldest son in the war. His autobiography, Memories and Adventures, was published in 1924. Conan Doyle died in Crowborough, Sussex, England, on July 7, 1930.
The hound of the Baskervilles: The story
Chapter One: Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is famous for his scientific method of deduction.
In this chapter you find a example of this. Dr. Mortimer has left his stick at Holmes house.
Holmes asks Watson to reconstruct the man by an examination of his stick.
After that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson receive a visit from Dr Mortimer, who comes to ask Holmes advice. Dr Mortimer has got the stick on occasion of his marriage.
Chapter Two : The Curse of the Baskervilles
Mortimer tells Holmes and Watson about the legend of the curse of the Baskervilles. He has got an early eighteenth century manuscript of this legend that runs in the Baskerville family. Sir Charles Baskerville gave it to him.
The legend describes Hugo Baskerville, a wanton and cruel man who felt in love with the daughter of a yeoman. He kidnapped the girl to Baskerville Hall, but the maiden escaped. She tried to run home across the more (heide). Hugo chased her and put the dogs upon her. Later his friend try to find him. They talk to a shepard, who tells them he saw the maiden with the hounds upon her track. He also saw Hugo and a hound of hell running behind him. In a valley they find the body of the maid, dead of fear and fatigue. The body of Hugo was lying near her. Over Hugo there stood a great black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger then any hound they had ever seen. That was the story and the hound has plagued the family ever since.
Many of the family have been unhappy in their deaths, wich have been sudden, bloody and mysterious. Sir Charles Baskerville has recently been found dead near the Hall with a horrible expression on his face and the footprints of an enormous beast not far away.
Chapter Three : The Problem
Dr Mortimer explains that he is afraid that something will also happen to Sir Henry, the new heir of the estate who is just arriving from Canada.
He also tells that before the death of Sir Charles several people had seen a creature upon the moor which looked like the Hound of the Baskervilles, and wich could not possibly be any animal known to science.
For the rest of the day Holmes smokes and thinks about the matter.
Chapter four Sir Henry Baskervilles :
The next day Dr Mortimer brings Sir Henry to meet Holmes and Watson. Sir Henry has received a mysterious note warning him to stay off the moor, and one of his new boots has been stolen. The letters in the note had been cut out the Times. Later he is followed by a man in a black beard. Holmes goes to the district messenger office (besteldienst) and asks for a boy named Cartwright. He asks Cartwright to look for the centre page of the Times by hotels in the immediate neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Holmes and Watson are going to try to find out the identity of the cabman that followed Sir Henry.
Chapter Five : Three broken threads
Another boot has been stolen from Sir Henry.
First a new boot was stolen, but now some of his old boots is stolen. Holmes asks Dr Mortimer if he knows somebody with a black bearth. Mortimer tells him that Barrymore ( Sir Charles butler ) has got a black bearth.
To check out if Barrymore is in town, Holmes sends a telegraph to Baskerville Hall, adressed to Barrymore. He sends a second wire to the postmaster wich says that the telegraph has to be delivered into his own hand, and when he is absent, the wire has to be returned. In spite of all the events and the legend, Sir Henry decides to leave for his estate, accompanied by Dr Mortimer and by Dr Watson, who is to keep an eye on him.
Chapter Six : Baskerville Hall
On the way to the Baskerville Hall they hear that a dangerous convict has escaped from Princetown.
At the Baskerville Hall they are greeted by Barrymore, the servant, who informs Sir Henry that he and his wife want to leave as soon as possible. The convict is Seldon, the Notting Hill Murderer, who has committed a brutal crime. At night they hear the sob of a woman.
Chapter Seven : The Stapeltons of Merripit House
In the morning Watson sees that Mrs. Barrymore has red eyes with swollen lids, while Mr Barrymore said that his wife didn't cry the night before Watson meets some neighbours, Mr Stapelron of Merripit House and his beautifull sister Beryl. Since his boarding school proved to be unsuccesfull, Stapelton has become a naturalist. He has come to know the moors very well while collecting butterflies.
Stapelton and Watson hear a moan. Stapelton says that it is the mud settling or the water rising in the bogs.
Beryl tells Watson he should leave Baskerville.
Chapter Eight : First report of Dr. Watson
In a letter to Holmes, Watson reports that Sir Henry is falling in love with Beryl Stapelton. Watson also describes another neighbour, Mr Frankland (a choleric man with a passion for the Brittisch law), and writes that Barrymore has been acting mysteriously at night.
Chapter Nine : Second report of Dr. Watson
In a second letter to Holmes, Watson describes how Sir Henry meets Beryl on the moor and proposes to her, but Stapelton interrupts them angrily and takes Beryl home. Later Strapleton comes to apologize to Sir Henry for his conduct. By spying Barrymore in the night, Watson and Sir Henry discover that Mrs Barrymore's brother is the escaped convict and that he is hiding from the police on the moors. Barrymore provides him with food at night. Sir Henry and Watson go after the man, but cannot catch him.
Later on they see a man standing on a jagged pinnacle of a granited tor.
It wasn't the convict.
Chapter ten : Extract from the diary of Dr Watson
This chapter is an extract from the diary of Watson wich he kept at the time at the Baskerville Hall. Barrymore appeals to Sir Henry not to turn Selden in. To show his gratitude Barrymore tells him that, on the day of his death, Sir Charles had received a letter from a woman who signed herself L. L. asking him to meet her that night. The letter was burned, but he could read from this it. Mortimer suggests that the woman could have been Laura Lyons, Mr Frankland's unhappily married daughter. Mortimer worries about the disappearence of his spaniel. Barrymore also tells Watson that Selden has often seen a mysterious man hiding in one of the stone huts on the moor.
Chapter Eleven : The man on the tor
Watson visits Laura Lyons, who reluctantly admits that she wrote to Sir Charles on the day of his death, asking him to meet her. But she did not go to meet him, she says, because the financial help she needed was meanwhile promised by someone else. Then Watson goes to the stone hut on the hill determined to find out who the mysterious stranger is.
Chapter Twelve : Death on the moor
The stranger turned out to be Sherlock Holmes who is taking an eye on things in his own way. He tells Watson that Beryl is really Stapleton's wife. He suspects the naturalist of being the person they are looking for.
At that moment they hear a horrible cry and then the howl of a dog. On the moor they find a dead man (wearing the clothes of Sir Henry (he gave some clothes to Barrymore, who had give them to Selden)) who turns out to be Selden. Short after this, Sapleton arrives.
Chapter Thirteen : Fixing the nets
In Baskerville Hall Holmes sees portrets of the family.
In one of the portrets he recognizes Sapleton !
Holmes tells Sir Henry that he must dine with Sapleton at Merripit House as planned, and walk home alone across the moor afterwards. Then Watson and Holmes say goodbye to Sir Henry, telling him to return to London. However, they do not leave. Instead they pau a visit to Laura Lyons. Laura is schocked by the news that Sapleton is married; she confesses that she had planned to marry him after her divorce. He had dictated her the letter asking Sir Charles to meet her on the moor, near the place he was found dead later. After this visit they meet with Lestrade.
Chapter Fourteen : The Hound of the Baskervilles
That night Holmes and Watson, together with Lestrade, a reliable police detective, wait for Sir Henry to leave Merripit House. A fog makes it difficult for the three man to see him. Suddenly they hear the howl of an enormous dog, and a moment later they see a huge, terrible hound chasing Sir Henry.
Holmes succeeds in killing the beast with his revolver. Sir Henry is not wounded, but suffers a severe shock.
They find Beryl, who has refused to help her husband in the murder attempt, tied up in an upstairs room.
The next day Mrs. Sapleton guides them to the point where they had found a pathway through the Mire.
They find the missing boot of Sir Henry.
There was no change of finding any footsteps.
If the earth could told a true story, then Stapleton never reached that island.
On the island they find a skeleton from Dr Mortimors spaniel.
In a tin they find the luminous mixture (lichtgevend mengsel) with wich the hound was daubed.
Chapter 15 : A Retrospection
Back in Londen, Sherlock Holmes explains the entire case to Dr Watson.
Stapleton was really a Baskerville. He was a son of Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact marry and had one child ("Stapleton"). His son (also named Rodger) married Beryl Garcia (from Costa Rica, and, having stolen a sum of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to England, where he started a school. The school sank from disrepute to infamy. Then they changed their name into Stapleton.
Sir Charles himself told him about the hound. Stapleton knew about his weak heart and about his fear.
Stapleton bought a dog in London. He brought it down by the North Devon line, and walked a great distance over the moor to get it home (without exciting any remarks). He had found a hiding-place in the Grimpen Mire where he kenneld it. He used artificial means to make the dog diabolical. He represented himself as a single man to Mrs. Laura and told her to write the letter to Sir Charles. He treated the dog with infernal paint. He instructed the dog to go to the gate where Mrs. Laura had told Sir Charles to meet her.
The dog jumped after Sir Charles.
That's why Sir Charles died of a heart-disease.
Stapleton needed one of the boots of Sir Henry, so he could instruct the dog to go after him. He went to London to where he (disguised in a beard) followed Dr Mortimer. His wife tried to warn Sir Henry and made the letter.
There only remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came into the succesion, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir had been living under another name so close to the property ? There where 3 possible ways:
- claim the property from South America, establish his identity before the British authorities there, and so obtain the fortune without ever coming to England.
- adopt an elaborate disguise during the sort time that he need be in London
- give the proofs and papers to an accomplice, putting him in as heir, and retain a claim upon some proportion of his income.
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