The Hounds of Baskervilles

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson travel to Dartmoor in the English countyside and embark on a chilling investigation involving a legendary supernatural creature that haunts the Baskerville family.

Big ideas

The conflict between rationalism and superstition. There is usually a rational explaination when you know where to look for the evidence.

The distinction between city and country and the way it alters characters’ perceptions. Where the bustle of the city allows for a scientific approach, the gentle, pastoral atmosphere of the countryside dissuades it.

The whole plot of the novel depends on entitlement and inheritance: characters are willing to be deceitful, cunning and murderous to gain access to something which is fundamentally not available to them based upon merit, but lineage and bloodline.

Notes and highlights

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

“There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.”

“That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.”

“The past and the present are within my field of inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard question to answer.”

“Some people without possesing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it”

Further reading

• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• Dracula by Dram Stoker