Boekverslag : Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound Of The Baskervilles
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1729 woorden.
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1729 woorden.
1 Author
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).
His autobiography, Memories and Adventures, was published in 1924. Conan Doyle died in Crowborough, Sussex, England, on July 7, 1930.
2 & 3Title and Theme
I think that the title of the book is what it is all about. The whole book is about this mysterious hound of the Baskervilles so the author thought it also had to be in the title.
The theme of the book is that the detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson are being called to solve a mysterious case about a ferocious hound, which lives on the moor and murders the Baskerville family.
4 Setting
The story takes place in London, Baskerville Hall, the area around it and the little town Coombe Tracy in beginning of the 20th cetury. The story is told chronological.
5 Points Of View
The story is told in the first person, so you see the story through the eyes of dr. Watson, but there are some dialogues in between.
6 main characters
- Sherlock Holmes: an eccentric privé-ditective, who lives in Baker Street, London. He is very thin and tall and has amazing mental powers.
- Dr. Watson: a naive medical man, who is the right hand of Sherlock Holmes. He makes some stupid mistakes during the story, which serve to set off the superhuman intelligence of Sherlock Holmes.
- Sir Charles Baskerville: the owner of Baskerville Hall. He is a nice man. Homes and Watson are supposed to solve his mysterious death.
- Dr. Mortimer: a medical officer of Grimpen, Thorstey and High Barrow. He is the neighbour of Sir Charles and he asks Holmes to help.
- Çarthwright: a smart 14-year old kid, who sometimes helps Holmes and Watson with their investigation.
- Mr. Barrrymore: the butler of Baskerville Hall.
- Mrs. Barrymore: a large and serious woman, married with Barrymore.
- Frankland: an older man, who lives about 6 km. south of Baskerville Hall.
- Laura Lyons: Frankland’s only daughter. Sir Charles is helping her.
- Jack Stapleton: his true name is Roger Baskerville. He lives at Merripit House with his wife, but he pretends it is his sister. He tries to kill Sir Henry.
- Beryl Stapleton: Jack’s wife She comes from South-America and lives with a great fear because of her man. She refuses to help him when he tries to kill Sir Henry
- Sir Henry Baskerville: the nephew of Sir Charles, who lived in Canada. He is being left Baskerville Hall and 740.000 pounds.
7 The Story
On the 14th of June the body of Sir Charles Baskerville is found lying in the garden of his Dartmoor house. Everybody thinks he died of a heart attack because he had a very weak heart. But his friend and doctor does not know what to think. He has seen the footprints of a large dog close to Sir Charles's body. Maybe the old man died of fright, because he has seen the ghostly animal called the Hound of the Baskervilles. A long time ago that dog murdered one of Sir Charles's grandparents. Now the Hound of the Baskervilles is the subject of a legend. However, Dr. Mortimer doesn't believe in ghosts, so he visits Sherlock Holmes to clear up this mystery.
Sir Henry was the only living member of the Baskerville family. One day after his arrival in London, he and Dr. Mortimer go to see Holmes to discuss the whole case. Sir Henry tells Holmes that somebody has stolen one of his boots the day before and that he received a letter. There was only one sentence in the letter: "If you value your life keep away from the moor." The letter sounded like a warning that something was going to happen. So Holmes asks his assistant, Watson, to accompany Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer to Baskerville Hall.
At the station of Baskerville, they hear that an escaped prisoner is hiding in the moor and that he is very dangerous.
At Baskerville Hall, Watson and Sir Charles meet Mr. and Mrs. Barrymore, the servants of the house. They also meet the Stapleton’s, brother and sister, who live in Merripit house close to Baskerville Hall. Mrs. Stapleton warns Sir Henry that something terrible is going to happen. One day Mrs. Barrymore comes to Watson with a burnt paper she found in the fireplace of Sir Charles’s study. He looks at the paper and reads: "Please, please, burn this paper and be at the gate of the moor by ten o'clock. L.L.". Watson finds, with a little bit of research, that the letters L.L. mean Laura Lyons, a lady who lives in Coombe Tracey and who is in love with Mr. Stapleton. When Watson pays her a visit and tells her about the letter he has found, she says, she wrote that letter because she had a money problem and Sir Charles would help her. However, that night, she never went to the gate because something happened but the woman would not tell what it was.
Watson finds, with the help of a friend, the hiding place of a man. He had been in Baskerville all the time but it was safer if nobody knew he was there. Holmes has discovered that Stapleton is the enemy of Sir Charles, and that his sister actually is his wife. When the both of them walk to Baskerville Hall, they hear a terrible scream. When they arrive at the scene of the crime, they find a dead body. They recognise the clothes of Sir Henry Baskerville. They turn the body over and notice that it is not Sir Henry but the escaped prisoner. When it all comes out, the escaped prisoner got these clothes from Mrs. Barrymore. She is his sister and the house cleaner of Baskerville Hall.
Afterwards they go for the second time to Miss Lyons and they tell her that her fiancé is married. Now she's very upset and she begins to tell everything she knows. Mr. Stapleton pushed her to write the letter and he also said after she has written the letter not to go to the gate because he wanted to help her with her money problem.
Back in Baskerville Hall, Holmes looks at the picture of one of the grandparents of Sir Henry and he recognises the face of Mr. Stapleton, who's actually a member of the Baskerville family. Therefore, he must have been hoping to get Baskerville Hall and the
fortune after Sir Henry dies. That evening Mr. Stapleton has invited Sir Henry for dinner. After dinner, Sir Henry walks home across the moor. But what he doesn't know is that Stapleton wants to kill him.
When he is about 200 metres from the house, a very large dog rushes out of the fog. It is the Hound of the Baskervilles. Luckily for him, Watson and Holmes are hiding behind the rocks and when they see the dog they start shooting, and finally kill the animal. Now, the hound is dead but they haven't caught the murderer yet.
Mr. Stapleton must have heard the shots and he hides somewhere in the moor. They look for him but they do not find him. So they guess that he's fallen into one of the bog-holes on the moor.
That evening Holmes tells the whole story of Sir Charles's death. The evening of his death he went to the gate of the moor, but there was no Laura in sight.
Only Stapleton was hiding behind the hedges with his large dog. When he saw Sir Charles, he let his dog chase after him. Sir Charles Baskerville was killed because he had to run very fast.
And so the mystery of the ghostly Hound of the Baskervilles is solved.
8 To Think About / Review
I find this a very nice book, because it was quite exciting to read. Before I started reading this book I had no idea what it was about and when I read the first chapter I knew it was about Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective. So I was quite curious about the book, because I did know Sherlock Holmes, but I did not know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was his ‘creator’. I sat there with a book about Sherlock Holmes in my hands and I was even more curious to read the rest.
The book was exciting to read but it was quite hard to read as well, because it is an older book and this English is not so easy. But when I finished the book I was glad I had chosen this one and that I read it, because it was a great story. It was not very realistic, just like Sherlock Holmes himself but that was not so important for me, because I had a good time reading this book and I would reccommand it to everybody, because this book makes reading English for your list fun and not something that has to be done.
When you start reading it is a little hard, but when you have read a little more, it keeps getting easier.
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