Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles movies

Holmes confronts the horror

First thing you have to do is forget all the movie and television productions you've seen of this story. It's probably Sherlock Holmes's most famous case, Conan Doyle's most successful detective novel, and the tale that most easily translates to cinematic treatment. All those misty, moody scenes on the moors. The horror of the hound from hell, eyes blazing as it attacks its terrified victims. The haunted heir in the mansion and his enigmatic neighbours. 

But even on the printed page, Conan Doyle establishes an atmosphere of mystery here that goes beyond the usual presentation and solution of a puzzle. Like the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, this detective story becomes literature.

All right, I'm getting a little carried away. This is not exactly The Grapes of Wrath. It's still an escapist thriller. And the spine-tingliness of it may not faze a modern public weaned on Stephen King novels and slasher films. But if you can put out of mind our more jaded world and imagine yourself back in late 19th-century or early 20th-century England, you might be able to read The Hound of the Baskervilles with something like the excitement folks did back then.

There's also the theme of rationalism going up against, and defeating, the paranormal — which I like. And which Doyle did not emulate in his own life.

I'm not sure this is lasting literature. (Though how many other popular novels from 100 years ago are still being read today?) But if I had to pick the pre-World War I genre novel that had the best chance of becoming a mainstream classic, this would be the one.

Indubitably.

— Eric 

© Copyright 2002-2003 Eric McMillan. All rights reserved.

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