Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Born	Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859-05-22)22 May 1859 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	7 July 1930(1930-07-07) (aged 71) Crowborough, East Sussex, England
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, poet, physician
Nationality	Scottish
Citizenship	British
Genres	Detective fiction, science fiction, historical novels, non-fiction
Notable work(s)	Stories of Sherlock Holmes The Lost World
Signature

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930[1]) was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.

Life and career

Early life

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was English of Irish descent, and his mother, born Mary Foley, was Irish. They married in 1855. In 1864 the family dispersed due to Charles's growing alcoholism and the children were temporarily housed across Edinburgh. In 1867, the family came together again and lived in the squalid tenement flats at 3 Sciennes Place.
Supported by wealthy uncles, Conan Doyle was sent to the Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, at the age of nine (1868-1870). He then went on to Stonyhurst College until 1875. From 1875 to 1876, he was educated at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria.
From 1876 to 1881, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, including a period working in the town of Aston (now a district of Birmingham) and in Sheffield, as well as in Shropshire at Ruyton-XI-Towns. While studying, Conan Doyle began writing short stories. His earliest extant fiction, "The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe", was unsuccessfully submitted to Blackwood's Magazine. His first published piece "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", a story set in South Africa, was printed in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal on 6 September 1879. On 20 September 1879, he published his first non-fictional article, "Gelsemium as a Poison" in the British Medical Journal.
Following his term at university, Conan Doyle was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead, in 1880, and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast, in 1881. He completed his doctorate on the subject of tabes dorsalis in 1885.
Doyle's father died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness.

Name

Although Doyle is often referred to as "Conan Doyle", whether this should be considered a compound surname is uncertain. The entry in which his baptism is recorded in the register of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives "Arthur Ignatius Conan" as his Christian names, and simply "Doyle" as his surname. It also names Michael Conan as his godfather. The cataloguers of the British Library and the Library of Congress treat "Doyle" alone as his surname. Steven Doyle, editor of the Baker Street Journal, has written

Conan was Arthur's middle name. Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as a sort of surname. But technically his last name is simply "Doyle".

Nevertheless, the actual use of a compound surname is demonstrated by the fact that Doyle's second wife was known as "Jean Conan Doyle" rather than "Jean Doyle".

Writing career

Portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, 1904

In 1882 he joined former classmate George Turnavine Budd as his partner at a medical practice in Plymouth, but their relationship proved difficult, and Conan Doyle soon left to set up an independent practice. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than £10 (£700 today) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novels, The Mystery of Cloomber, not published until 1888, and the unfinished Narrative of John Smith, which would go unpublished until 2011. He amassed a portfolio of short stories including "The Captain of the Pole-Star" and "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", both inspired by Doyle's time at sea.

Portrait of Doyle by Herbert Rose Barraud, 1893
Doyle struggled to find a publisher for his work. His first significant piece, A Study in Scarlet, was taken by Ward Lock & Co on 20 November 1886, giving Doyle £25 for all rights to the story. The piece appeared later that year in the Beeton's Christmas Annual and received good reviews in The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald.[5] The story featured the first appearance of Watson and Sherlock Holmes, partially modelled after his former university teacher Joseph Bell. Conan Doyle wrote to him, "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes... [R]ound the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man." Robert Louis Stevenson was able, even in faraway Samoa, to recognise the strong similarity between Joseph Bell and Sherlock Holmes: "[M]y compliments on your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes. ... [C]an this be my old friend Joe Bell?" Other authors sometimes suggest additional influences—for instance, the famous Edgar Allan Poe character C. Auguste Dupin.



A sequel to A Study in Scarlet was commissioned and The Sign of the Four appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in February 1890, under agreement with the Ward Lock company. Doyle felt grievously exploited by Ward Lock as an author new to the publishing world and he left them. Short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes were published in the Strand Magazine. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first began to write for the ‘Strand’ from his home at 2 Upper Wimpole Street, now marked by a memorial plaque.

Sporting Career

While living in Southsea, Doyle played football as a goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club, an amateur side, under the pseudonym A. C. Smith. (This club, disbanded in 1896, had no connection with the present-day Portsmouth F.C., which was founded in 1898.) Conan Doyle was also a keen cricketer, and between 1899 and 1907 he played 10 first-class matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). His highest score, in 1902 against London County, was 43. He was an occasional bowler who took just one first-class wicket (although one of high pedigree—it was W. G. Grace). Also a keen golfer, Conan Doyle was elected captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club, East Sussex for 1910. He moved to Little Windlesham house in Crowborough with his second wife Jean Leckie and their family from 1907 until his death in July 1930.

Marriages and family

In 1885 Conan Doyle married Louisa (or Louise) Hawkins, known as 'Touie', the sister of one of his patients. She suffered from tuberculosis and died on 4 July 1906. The next year he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie, whom he had first met and fallen in love with in 1897. He had maintained a platonic relationship with Jean while his first wife was still alive, out of loyalty to her. Jean died in London on 27 June 1940.
Conan Doyle fathered five children. He had two with his first wife: Mary Louise (28 January 1889 – 12 June 1976) and Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, known as Kingsley (15 November 1892 – 28 October 1918). He also had three with his second wife: Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 – 9 March 1955) second husband of Georgian Princess Nina Mdivani, Adrian Malcolm (19 November 1910 – 3 June 1970) and Jean Lena Annette (21 December 1912 – 18 November 1997).

"Death" of Sherlock Holmes

In 1890 Conan Doyle studied ophthalmology in Vienna, and moved to London, first living in Montague Place and then in South Norwood. He set up a practice as an ophthalmologist. He wrote in his autobiography that not a single patient crossed his door. This gave him more time for writing, and in November 1891 he wrote to his mother: "I think of slaying Holmes... and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things." His mother responded, "You won't! You can't! You mustn't!"
In December 1893, in order to dedicate more of his time to what he considered his more important works (his historical novels), Conan Doyle had Holmes and Professor Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths together down the Reichenbach Falls in the story "The Final Problem". Public outcry, however, led him to bring the character back in 1901, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, though this was set at a time before the Reichenbach incident. In 1903, Conan Doyle published his first Holmes short story in ten years, "The Adventure of the Empty House", in which it was explained that only Moriarty had fallen; but since Holmes had other dangerous enemies—especially Colonel Sebastian Moran—he had arranged to also be perceived as dead. Holmes ultimately was featured in a total of 56 short stories and four Conan Doyle novels, and has since appeared in many novels and stories by other authors.
Jane Stanford compares some of Moriarty's characteristics to those of the Fenian John O'Connor Power. 'The Final Problem' was published the year the Second Home Rule Bill passed through the House of Commons. 'The Valley of Fear' was serialised in 1914, the year, Home Rule, The Government of Ireland Act (Sept.18) was placed on the Statute Book.

Political campaigning

Arthur Conan Doyle's house in South Norwood, London
Following the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century and the condemnation from around the world over the United Kingdom's conduct, Conan Doyle wrote a short pamphlet titled The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, which justified the UK's role in the Boer War and was widely translated. Doyle had served as a volunteer doctor in the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein between March and June 1900.
Conan Doyle believed it was this pamphlet that resulted in his being knighted by King Edward VII in 1902 and appointed a Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey. Also in 1900 he wrote a book, The Great Boer War. During the early years of the 20th century, he twice stood for Parliament as a Liberal Unionist—once in Edinburgh and once in the Hawick Burghs—but although he received a respectable vote, he was not elected.
Conan Doyle was a supporter of the campaign for the reform of the Congo Free State, led by the journalist E. D. Morel and the diplomat Roger Casement. During 1909 he wrote The Crime of the Congo, a long pamphlet in which he denounced the horrors of that colony. He became acquainted with Morel and Casement, and it is possible that, together with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, they inspired several characters in the 1912 novel The Lost World.[ However, Doyle broke with both Morel and Casement when Morel became one of the leaders of the pacifist movement during the First World War. When Casement was found guilty of treason against the Crown during the Easter Rising, Doyle tried unsuccessfully to save him from facing the death penalty, arguing that Casement had been driven mad and could not be held responsible for his actions.

Correcting injustice

Arthur Conan Doyle statue in Crowborough, East Sussex
Conan Doyle was also a fervent advocate of justice and personally investigated two closed cases, which led to two men being exonerated of the crimes of which they were accused. The first case, in 1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were set on Edalji's conviction, even though the mutilations continued after their suspect was jailed.
It was partially as a result of this case that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907, so not only did Conan Doyle help George Edalji, his work helped establish a way to correct other miscarriages of justice. The story of Conan Doyle and Edalji was fictionalised in Julian Barnes's 2005 novel Arthur & George and dramatized in an episode of the 1972 BBC television series, "The Edwardians". In Nicholas Meyer's pastiche The West End Horror (1976), Holmes manages to help clear the name of a shy Parsee Indian character wronged by the English justice system. Edalji himself was of Parsee heritage on his father's side.
The second case, that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in Glasgow in 1908, excited Conan Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution case and a general sense that Slater was not guilty. He ended up paying most of the costs for Slater's successful appeal in 1928.

Spiritualism

One of the five photographs of Frances Griffiths with the alleged fairies, taken by Elsie Wright in July 1917

Following the death of his wife Louisa in 1906, the death of his son Kingsley just before the end of World War I, and the deaths of his brother Innes, his two brothers-in-law (one of whom was E. W. Hornung, creator of the literary character Raffles) and his two nephews shortly after the war, Conan Doyle sank into depression. He found solace supporting spiritualism and its attempts to find proof of existence beyond the grave. In particular, according to some, he favoured Christian Spiritualism and encouraged the Spiritualists' National Union to accept an eighth precept – that of following the teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth. He also was a member of the renowned paranormal organisation The Ghost Club. Its focus, then and now, is on the scientific study of alleged paranormal activities in order to prove (or refute) the existence of paranormal phenomena.
On 28 October 1918 Kingsley Doyle died from pneumonia, which he contracted during his convalescence after being seriously wounded during the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Brigadier-General Innes Doyle died, also from pneumonia, in February 1919. Sir Arthur became involved with Spiritualism to the extent that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on the subject, The Land of Mist.
His book The Coming of the Fairies (1921) shows he was apparently convinced of the veracity of the five Cottingley Fairies photographs (which decades later were exposed as a hoax). He reproduced them in the book, together with theories about the nature and existence of fairies and spirits. In The History of Spiritualism (1926), Conan Doyle praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materialisations produced by Eusapia Palladino and Mina "Margery" Crandon.

Conan Doyle with his family in New York City, 1922

Conan Doyle was friends for a time with Harry Houdini, the American magician who himself became a prominent opponent of the Spiritualist movement in the 1920s following the death of his beloved mother. Although Houdini insisted that Spiritualist mediums employed trickery (and consistently exposed them as frauds), Conan Doyle became convinced that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers—a view expressed in Conan Doyle's The Edge of the Unknown. Houdini was apparently unable to convince Conan Doyle that his feats were simply illusions, leading to a bitter public falling out between the two.
Richard Milner, an American historian of science, has presented a case that Conan Doyle may have been the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912, creating the counterfeit hominid fossil that fooled the scientific world for over 40 years. Milner says that Conan Doyle had a motive—namely, revenge on the scientific establishment for debunking one of his favourite psychics—and that The Lost World contains several encrypted clues regarding his involvement in the hoax.
Samuel Rosenberg's 1974 book Naked is the Best Disguise purports to explain how, throughout his writings, Conan Doyle left open clues that related to hidden and suppressed aspects of his mentality.

Death

Grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at Minstead, England
Conan Doyle was found clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham Manor, his house in Crowborough, East Sussex, on 7 July 1930. He died of a heart attack at the age of 71. His last words were directed toward his wife: "You are wonderful."At the time of his death, there was some controversy concerning his burial place, as he was avowedly not a Christian, considering himself a Spiritualist. He was first buried on 11 July 1930 in Windlesham rose garden. He was later reinterred together with his wife in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire. Carved wooden tablets to his memory and to the memory of his wife are held privately and are inaccessible to the public. That inscription reads, "Blade straight / Steel true / Arthur Conan Doyle / Born May 22nd 1859 / Passed On 7th July 1930." The epitaph on his gravestone in the churchyard reads, in part: "Steel true/Blade straight/Arthur Conan Doyle/Knight/Patriot, Physician, and man of letters".
Undershaw, the home near Hindhead, Haslemere, south of London, that Arthur Conan Doyle had built and lived in between October 1897 and September 1907, was a hotel and restaurant from 1924 until 2004. It was then bought by a developer and stood empty while conservationists and Conan Doyle fans fought to preserve it. In 2012 the High Court ruled that the redevelopment permission be quashed because proper procedure had not been followed.
A statue honours Conan Doyle at Crowborough Cross in Crowborough, where he lived for 23 years. There is also a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, close to the house where Conan Doyle was born

The Hound of Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Cover of the 1st edition
Author(s)	Arthur Conan Doyle
Cover artist	Alfred Garth Jones
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Sherlock Holmes
Genre(s)	Detective fiction
Publisher	George Newnes
Publication date	1902
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	359
Preceded by	The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Followed by	The Return of Sherlock Holmes

"The Hound of the Baskervilles"
Author	Arthur Conan Doyle
Series	The Hound of the Baskervilles
Publication date
Client(s)	Sir Henry Baskerville
Set in	1889

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound.
In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel."

Plot

Introduction

Sir Charles Baskerville is found lying dead on the grounds of his country house, Baskerville Hall. The cause is ascribed to a heart attack. Fearing for the safety of Sir Charles's nephew and only known heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, coming from America to claim his inheritance, Dr James Mortimer travels to London and asks Sherlock Holmes for help.
Mortimer explains that the Baskerville family is afflicted by a curse. According to an old account, over two centuries ago Hugo Baskerville was infatuated with a farmer's daughter. He kidnapped her and imprisoned her in his bedroom. She escaped and the furious Baskerville offered his soul to the devil if he could recapture her. Aided by friends, he pursued the girl onto the desolate moor. Baskerville and his victim were found dead. She had died from fright, but a giant spectral hound stood guard over Baskerville's body. The hound tore out Baskerville's throat, then vanished into the night.
Sir Charles Baskerville had become fearful of the legendary curse and its hellhound. Mortimer decided that Sir Charles had been waiting for someone when he died. His face was contorted in a ghastly expression, while his footprints suggested he was running from something. The elderly man's heart was not strong, and he had planned to go to London the next day. Mortimer says he had seen the footprints of a "gigantic hound" near Sir Charles's body, something not revealed at the inquest.

In London

Intrigued by the case, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from America. Sir Henry is puzzled by an anonymous note delivered to his London hotel room, warning him to avoid the Devon moors. Holmes says that the note had been composed largely of letters cut from The Times, probably in a hotel, judging by other clues. The fact that the letters were cut with nail scissors suggested an authoress, as did a remnant whiff of perfume. Holmes keeps this last detail to himself. When Holmes and Watson later join Sir Henry at his hotel, they learn one of the baronet's new boots has gone missing. No good explanation can be found for the loss.

Holmes asks if there were any other living relatives besides Sir Henry. Mortimer tells him that Charles had two brothers, Rodger and John. Sir Henry is the sole child of John, who settled in America and raised his son there. Another brother, Rodger, was known to be the black sheep of the family. A wastrel and inveterate gambler, he fled to South America to avoid creditors. He is believed to have died there alone.
Despite the note's warning, Sir Henry insists on visiting Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry leaves Holmes' Baker Street apartment, Holmes and Doctor Watson follow him. They realise that a man with a fake-looking black beard in a cab is also following him. Holmes and Watson pursue this man, but he escapes; however, Holmes memorises the cab number. Holmes stops in at a messenger office and employs a young boy, Cartwright, to go visit London's hotels and look through wastepaper in search of cut-up copies of The Times.
By the time they return to the hotel, Sir Henry has had another, older boot stolen. When the first missing boot is discovered before the meeting is over, Holmes begins to realise they must be dealing with a real hound (hence the emphasis on the scent of the used boot). When conversation turns to the man in the cab, Mortimer says that Barrymore, the servant at Baskerville Hall, has a beard, and a telegram is sent to check on his whereabouts.

At Baskerville Hall

It is decided that, with Holmes being tied up in London with other cases, Watson will accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall and report back by telegram in detail. Later that evening, telegrams from Cartwright (who was unable to find the newspaper) and Baskerville Hall (where Barrymore apparently is) bring an end to those leads. A visit from John Clayton, who was driving the cab with the black-bearded man, is of little help. He says that the man had identified himself as Holmes, much to the surprise and amusement of the actual Holmes.

The Great Bittern

Mortimer, Watson, and Sir Henry set off for Baskerville Hall the following Saturday. The baronet is excited to see it and his connection with the land is clear, but finds the moor dampened. Soldiers are about the area, on the lookout for an escaped murderer named Selden. Barrymore and his wife wish to depart Baskerville Hall as soon as is convenient, and the Hall is, in general, a somber place. Watson has trouble sleeping that night, and hears a woman crying. The next morning Barrymore denies that it was his wife, who is one of only two women in the house. Watson sees Mrs. Barrymore later in the morning, however, and observes clear evidence that she has indeed been weeping.

Watson checks with the postmaster in Coombe Tracey and learns that the telegram was not actually delivered into the hands of Barrymore, so it is no longer certain that he was at the Hall, and not in London. On his way back, Watson meets Jack Stapleton, a naturalist familiar with the moor even though he has only been in the area for two years. They hear a moan that the peasants attribute to the hound, but Stapleton attributes it to the cry of a bittern, or possibly the bog settling. He then runs off after a specimen of the butterfly Cyclopedes, which was still found on Dartmoor until the 1860s. Watson is not alone for long before Beryl Stapleton, Jack's sister, approaches him. Mistaking him for Sir Henry, she urgently warns him to leave the area, but drops the subject when her brother returns. The three walk to Merripit House (the Stapletons’ home), and during the discussion, Watson learns that Stapleton used to run a school in Yorkshire. Though he is offered lunch and a look at Stapleton’s collections, Watson departs for the Hall. Before he gets far along the path, Miss Stapleton overtakes him and retracts her warning. Watson notices that the brother and sister don't look very much alike.

Sir Henry soon meets Miss Stapleton and becomes romantically interested, despite her brother’s intrusions. Watson meets another neighbour, Mr. Frankland, an elderly lawyer. Barrymore draws increasing suspicion, as Watson and Sir Henry see him late at night walk with a candle into an empty room, hold it up to the window, and then leave. Realising that the room has a view out on the moor, Watson and Sir Henry determine to figure out what is going on. Barrymore's wife confesses that her brother is Selden, the escaped murderer, and that she was giving him food while he was out on the moor.

Meanwhile, during the day, Sir Henry continues to pursue Beryl Stapleton until her brother runs up on them and yells angrily. He later explains to the disappointed baronet that it was not personal, he was just afraid of losing his only companion so quickly. To show there are no hard feelings, he invites Sir Henry to dine with him and his sister on Friday.

Photograph of prisoners at Dartmoor Prison tied together carrying a cart out the gates, circa 1900.

The convict

Sir Henry then becomes the person doing the surprising, when he and Watson walk in on Barrymore, catching him at night in the room with a candle. Barrymore refuses to answer their questions, since it is not his secret to tell, but Mrs. Barrymore’s. She tells them that the runaway convict Selden is her brother and the candle is a signal to him that food has been left for him. When the couple return to their room, Sir Henry and Watson go off to find the convict, despite the poor weather and frightening sound of the hound. They see Selden by another candle, but are unable to catch him. Watson notices the outlined figure of another man standing on top of a tor with the moon behind him, but he likewise gets away.

Barrymore is upset when he finds out that they tried to capture Selden, but when an agreement is reached to allow Selden to flee the country, he is willing to repay the favour. He tells them of finding a mostly burnt letter asking Sir Charles to be at the gate at the time of his death. It was signed with the initials L.L. Mortimer tells Watson the next day those initials could stand for Laura Lyons, Frankland’s daughter. She lives in Coombe Tracey. When Watson goes to talk to her, she admits to writing the letter in hopes that Sir Charles would be willing to help finance her divorce, but says she never kept the appointment.

The appearance of Holmes

Frankland has just won two law cases and invites Watson in to help him celebrate. Barrymore had previously told Watson that another man lived out on the moor besides Selden, and Frankland unwittingly confirms this, when he shows Watson through his telescope the figure of a boy carrying food. Watson departs the house and goes in that direction. He finds the prehistoric stone dwelling where the unknown man has been staying, goes in, and sees a message reporting on his own activities. He waits, revolver at the ready, for the unknown man to return.

The unknown man proves to be Holmes. He has kept his location a secret so that Watson would not be tempted to come out and so he would be able to appear on the scene of action at the critical moment. Watson’s reports have been of much help to him, and he then tells his friend some of the information he has uncovered – Stapleton is actually married to the woman passing as Miss Stapleton, and was also promising marriage to Laura Lyons to get her cooperation. As they bring their conversation to an end, they hear a ghastly scream.

One of Grimspound's hut circles where Holmes might have sought shelter

They run towards the sound and finding a body, mistake it for Sir Henry. They realise it is actually the escaped convict Selden, the brother of Mrs Barrymore, dressed in the baronet’s old clothes (which had been given to Barrymore by way of further apology for distrusting him). Then Stapleton appears, and while he makes excuses for his presence, Holmes announces that he will return to London the next day, his investigations having produced no result.

Climax

Holmes and Watson return to Baskerville Hall where, over dinner, the detective stares at Hugo Baskerville's portrait. Calling Watson over after dinner he covers the hair to show the face, revealing its striking likeness to Stapleton. This provides the motive in the crime – with Sir Henry gone, Stapleton could lay claim to the Baskerville fortune, being clearly a Baskerville himself. When they return to Mrs. Lyons’s apartment, Holmes' questioning forces her to admit Stapleton’s role in the letter that lured Sir Charles to his death. They go to the railway station to meet Det. Inspector Lestrade, whom Holmes has called in by telegram.

Under the threat of advancing fog, Watson, Holmes, and Lestrade lie in wait outside Merripit House, where Sir Henry has been dining. When the baronet leaves and sets off across the moor, Stapleton looses the hound. Holmes and Watson manage to shoot it before it can hurt Sir Henry seriously, and discover that its hellish appearance was acquired by means of phosphorus. They find Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged in an upstairs room of Merripit House. When she is freed, she tells them of Stapleton’s hideout; an island deep in the Great Grimpen Mire. They look for him next day, unsuccessfully, and he is presumed dead, having lost his footing and being sucked down into the foul and bottomless depths of the mire. Holmes and Watson are only able to find and recover Sir Henry's boot used by Stapleton to give the hound Sir Henry's scent and find the remains of Dr Mortimer's dog in the mire.

Epilogue

Some weeks later, Watson questions Holmes about the Baskerville case. Holmes reveals that although believed to have died unmarried, Sir Charles' younger brother Rodger Baskerville had married and had a son with the same name as his father. The son John Rodger Baskerville, after embezzling public money in Costa Rica, took the name Vandeleur and fled to England where he used the money to fund a Yorkshire school. Unfortunately for him, the tutor he had hired died of consumption, and after an epidemic of the disease killed three students the school itself failed. Now using the name Stapleton, Baskerville/Vandeleur fled with his wife to Dartmoor. He apparently supported himself by burglary, engaging in four large robberies and pistolling a page who surprised him.

Having learned the story of the hound, he resolved to kill off the remaining Baskervilles so that he could come into the inheritance as the last of the line. He had no interest in the estate and simply wanted the inheritance money. He purchased the hound and hid it in the mire at the site of an abandoned tin mine.

On the night of his death, Sir Charles had been waiting for Laura Lyons. The cigar ash at the scene ("the ash had twice dropped from his cigar") showed he had waited for some time. Instead he met the hound that had been trained by Stapleton and covered with phosphorus to give it an unearthly appearance. Sir Charles ran for his life, but then had the fatal heart attack which killed him. Since dogs do not eat or bite dead bodies, it left him there untouched.

Stapleton followed Sir Henry in London, and also stole his new boot but later returned it, since it had not been worn and thus lacked Sir Henry's scent. Holmes speculated that the hotel bootblack had been bribed to steal an old boot of Henry's instead. The hound pursued Selden to his death in a fall because he was wearing Sir Henry's old clothes.

On the night the hound attacked Sir Henry, Stapleton's wife had refused to have any further part in Stapleton's plot, but her abusive husband beat and tied her to a pole to prevent her from warning him.

In Holmes' words: "..he (Stapleton) has for years been a desperate and dangerous man.." It was his consuming interest in entomology that allowed Holmes to identify him as the same man as Vandeleur, the former schoolmaster.

Origins

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this story shortly after returning to his home Undershaw from South Africa, where he had worked as a volunteer physician at the Langman Field Hospital in Bloemfontein at the time of the Second Boer War.
Conan Doyle had not written about Sherlock Holmes in eight years, having killed off the character in the 1893 story "The Final Problem". Although The Hound of the Baskervilles is set before the latter events, two years later Conan Doyle would bring Holmes back for good, explaining in "The Adventure of the Empty House" that Holmes had faked his own death.
He was assisted with the plot by a 30-year-old Daily Express journalist named Bertram Fletcher Robinson (1870–1907). His ideas came from the legend of Richard Cabell, which was the fundamental inspiration for the Baskerville tale of a hellish hound and a cursed country squire. Cabell's tomb can be seen in the Devon town of Buckfastleigh.
Squire Richard Cabell lived for hunting and was what in those days was described as a 'monstrously evil man'. He gained this reputation for, amongst other things, immorality and having sold his soul to the Devil. There was also a rumour that he had murdered his wife. On 5 July 1677, he died and was laid to rest in 'the sepulchre,' but that was only the beginning of the story. The night of his interment saw a phantom pack of hounds come baying across the moor to howl at his tomb. From that night onwards, he could be found leading the phantom pack across the moor, usually on the anniversary of his death. If the pack were not out hunting, they could be found ranging around his grave howling and shrieking. In an attempt to lay the soul to rest, the villagers built a large building around the tomb, and to be doubly sure a huge slab was placed .
Moreover, Devon's folklore includes tales of a fearsome supernatural dog known as the Yeth hound that Conan Doyle may have heard.

Main characters

Sherlock Holmes – Holmes is the famed 221B Baker Street detective with a keen eye, acute intelligence and a logical mind. He is observation and deduction personified, and although he takes a back seat to Watson for much of this particular adventure, we always feel his presence. In the end, it takes all of his crime-solving powers to identify an ingenious killer, save the life of his next intended victim, and solve the Baskerville mystery.
Dr John Watson – The novel's narrator, Watson is Holmes's stalwart assistant at Baker Street and the chronicler of his triumphs as a private investigator. He steps into Holmes's boots for awhile, expressing his eagerness to impress his colleague by cracking this most baffling of cases before Holmes returns to the fray.

Sir Hugo Baskerville – The 17th-century Baskerville who spawned the legend of the family curse. Sir Hugo was a picture of aristocratic excess, drunkenness and debauchery until, one night, he was reputedly killed near Baskerville Hall, in the wilds of Dartmoor, by a demonic hound sent to punish his wickedness.

Sir Charles Baskerville – The recently deceased owner of the Baskerville estates in Devon, Sir Charles was a superstitious bachelor in waning health. Long terrified by the Baskerville legend, his footprints show that he must have been fleeing from something at the time of his death in the grounds of Baskerville Hall. Furthermore, the paw-prints of a large dog marked the soil near his corpse. Sir Charles had been a philanthropist. His enlightened plans to invest funds in the isolated district surrounding Baskerville Hall prompt his heir, Sir Henry, to want to move there and continue his uncle's good works.

Sir Henry Baskerville – The late Sir Charles's nephew and closest known relative, Henry Baskerville inherits the baronetcy. He is described as "a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built." Sir Henry is introduced by his doctor to Holmes and Watson, who travel to Devon in order protect him from what may be a plot to kill him and thus eliminate the last of the Baskervilles. At the climax of the story, Sir Henry is almost killed, like his uncle, by a ferocious hound, kept hidden among the mires of Dartmoor and trained by the villain of the story to prey on selected victims.

Dr James Mortimer – A medical practitioner and friend of the Baskervilles. Mortimer is tall, thin and good-natured with rather eccentric habits. He is, nonetheless, a competent country doctor who was made the executor of Sir Charles's will. He sets the book's plot in train by travelling to London to inform Holmes and Watson about the strange events surrounding Sir Charles's demise, and alerting them to the dangerous situation that Sir Henry now faces as Sir Charles's heir. Mortimer continues to assist Holmes and Watson in their twin roles as investigators and bodyguards until the conclusion of the case.

Jack Stapleton – A bookish former schoolmaster, Stapleton chases butterflies on the moors and pursues antiquarian interests. Outwardly a polished gentleman, he inwardly possesses a hot temper which reveals itself at key moments. It transpires that Stapleton—in reality a long-lost relative of Sir Henry's who stands to inherit the Baskerville fortune—is a scheming, manipulative and money-hungry criminal.

Miss Beryl Stapleton – Allegedly Stapleton's sister, this dusky beauty turns out to be his wife. Eager to prevent another death, but terrified of her violent spouse, she provides enigmatic warnings to Sir Henry and Watson.

John and Eliza Barrymore – The longtime domestic servants of the Baskervilles. Earnest and eager to please, Mrs Barrymore and her husband harbour a dark family secret, however, which temporarily misleads Watson about what is happening out on the moors.

Laura Lyons – The attractive daughter of a local crank who disowned her when she married against his wishes. Subsequently abandoned by her husband, she turns to Stapleton and Sir Charles Baskerville for help, with fatal consequences for the latter.

Selden – A dangerous criminal hiding from the police on the moors. He has a link to the Barrymores, who clandestinely supply him with food and clothing at night. Selden is inadvertently killed by the hound while dressed in a discarded suit of Sir Henry's clothes.

Divina Commedia

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) remains Italy's greatest poet. He was born in the city of Florence, in the region of Tuscany, Italy in the spring of 1265. He wrote the Divine Comedy (Commedia) from 1308 to 1320, completing the work the year before he died. The Divine Comedy is one of literature's boldest undertakings, as Dante takes us through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and then reaches Heaven (Paradiso), where he is permitted to partake of the Beatific Vision. Dante's journey serves as an allegory of the progress of the individual soul toward God. The work is arranged in 100 cantos in 3 parts, 34 for the Inferno, 33 each for Purgatorio and Paradiso. The work is written in groups of 3 lines, or tercets, reminiscent of the Trinity. While Dante was critical of the Catholic Church as an institution, his writings remained faithful to his schooling by the Dominicans, where he learned the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). The Divine Comedy signaled the beginning of the Renaissance. The Commedia by Dante had everlasting impact on Italy, for the Tuscan dialect became the literary language of Italy. He died in political exile in Ravenna, Italy in September 1321.

That is all short history about Dante Alighieri, the Italy’s greatest poet. As he wrote about his journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso to partaken of Beatific Vision with help of Virgil (author of Aeneid), the real reason he made such outstanding poet was for Beatric, the woman he admired all his life.

 

Background of Divina Commedia

Throughout the Middle Ages, politics was dominated by the struggle between the two greatest powers of that age: the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire (HRE). Each claimed to be of divine origin and to be indispensable to the welfare of mankind. The cause of this struggle was the papal claim that it also had authority over temporal matters, that is, the ruling of the government and other secular matters. In contrast, the HRE maintained that the papacy had claim only to religious matters, not to temporal matters.

In Dante's time, there were two major political factions, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Originally, the Ghibellines represented the medieval aristocracy, which wished to retain the power of the Holy Roman Emperor in Italy, as well as in other parts of Europe. The Ghibellines fought hard in this struggle for the nobility to retain its feudal powers over the land and the people. In contrast, the Guelphs, of which Dante was a member, were mainly supported by the rising middle class, represented by rich merchants, bankers, and new landowners. They supported the cause of the papacy in opposition to the Holy Roman Emperor.

The rivalry between the two parties not only set one city against another, but also divided individual cities and families into factions. In time, the original alliances and allegiances became confused in strange ways. Dante, as a Guelph, was a supporter of the imperial authority because he passionately wanted Italy united into one central state. In his time, the fighting between the two groups became fierce. Farinata, the proud Ghibelline leader of Florence, was admired by Dante, the Guelph, but Dante placed him in the circle of Hell reserved for Heretics. Dante's philosophical view was also a political view. The enemy was politically, philosophically, and theologically wrong — and thus a Heretic.

Virgil was considered the most moral of all the poets of ancient Rome. Virgil's Aeneid was one of the models for Dante's Inferno. It is said that Dante had memorized the entire Aeneid and that he had long revered Virgil as the poet of the Roman Empire, especially since the Aeneid tells the story of the founding of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, he writes symbolically about the coming of a Wonder Child who will bring the Golden Age to the world, and in the Middle Ages, this was interpreted as being prophetic of the coming of Christ. Thus in the figure of Virgil, Dante found a symbol who represented the two key institutions: the papacy and the empire, destined by God to save mankind.

 

Structure and Story

Divina Commedia is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three canticas (Italy – cantiche) – Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) – each consist-ing of 33 cantos (34 for Inferno). An initial canto serves as an introduction to the poet and is generally considered to be part of the first cantica, bringing the total number of cantos to 100. It is generally accepted, however, that the first two cantos serve as a unitary prologue to the entire epic, as well as the opening two cantos of each canticas serving as a prologue to each of the three canticas. The number three is prominent in the work, represented here by the length of each cantica. The verse scheme used, terza rima, is hendecasyllabic (lines of eleven syllables), with the lines composing tercets according to the rhyme scheme aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ....

The poet is written in the first person, and tells of Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition which is highlighted in Dante's earlier work La Vita Nuova.

The structure of the three realms follows a common numerical pattern of 9 plus 1 for a total of 10: 9 circles of the Inferno, followed by Lucifer contained at its bottom; 9 rings of Mount Purgatory, followed by the Garden of Eden crowning its summit; and the 9 celestial bodies of Paradiso, followed by the Empyrean containing the very essence of God. Within the 9, 7 correspond to a specific moral scheme, subdividing itself into three subcategories, while two others of more particularity are added on for a completion of nine. For example, the seven deadly sins of the Catholic Church that are cleansed in Purgatory are joined by special realms for the Late repentant and the excommunicated by the church. The core seven sins within purgatory correspond to a moral scheme of love perverted, subdivided into three groups corresponding to excessive love (Lust, Gluttony, Greed), deficient love (Sloth), and malicious love (Wrath, Envy, Pride).

 

Inferno

The poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, " middle in our life’s journey I went astray" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita). Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical life expectancy of 70 (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate), lost in a dark wood (understood as sin), assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf) he cannot evade, and unable to find the "straight road" (diritta via) – also translatable as "right way" – to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain). Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "low place" (basso loco) where the sun is silent ('l sol tace), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Inferno is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice; for example, fortune-tellers have to walk with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because that was what they had tried to do in life.

Allegorically, the Inferno represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really is, and the three beasts represent three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious. These three types of sin also provide the three main divisions of Dante's Hell: Upper Hell, beyond the city of Dis, containing four indulgent sins (Lust, gluttony, avarice, anger); Circle 7 for the sins of violence, and Circles 8 and 9 for the sins of malice (fraud and treachery). Added onto these are two unlike categories that are specifically spiritual: Limbo, within Circle 1, contains the virtuous pagans who were not sinful but were ignorant of Christ; and Circle 6, containing the heretics who contradicted the doctrine and confused the spirit of Christ. The circles are put to 9, with the addition of the Satan completing the structure of 9 + 1 = 10.

 

Purgatorio

Having survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend out of the undergloom, to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world. The Mount-ain is on an island, the only land in the Southern Hemisphere, created by the displacement of rock which resulted when Satan's fall created Hell (which Dante portrays as existing underneat Jerusalem.) The mountain has seven terraces, corresponding to the seven deadly sins or "seven roots of sinfulness." The classification of sin here is more psychological than that of the Inferno, being based on motives, rather than actions. It is also drawn primarily from Christian theology, rather than from classical sources. However, Dante's illustrative examples of sin and virtue draw on classical sources as well as on the Bible and on contemporary events.

Love, a theme throughout the Divine Comedy, is particularly important for the framing of the sin on the Mountain of Purgatory. While the love that flows from God is pure, it can become sinful as it flows through man. Man can sin by using love towards improper or malicious ends (Wrath, Envy, Pride), or using it to proper ends but with love that is either not strong enough (Sloth) or love that is too strong (Lust, Gluttony, Greed). Below the seven purges of the soul is the Ante-Purgatory, containing the Excommunicated from the church and the Late repentant who died, often violently, before receiving rites. Thus the total comes to nine, with the addition of the Garden of Eden at the summit, equaling ten.

Allegorically, the Purgatorio represents the Christian life. Christian souls arrive escorted by an angel, singing in exitu Israel de Aegypto. In his Letter to Cangrande, Dante explains that this reference to Israel leaving Egypt refers both to the redemption of Christ and to "the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace." Appropriately, therefore, it is Easter Sunday when Dante and Virgil arrive.

The Purgatorio is notable for demonstrating the medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth. During the poem, Dante discusses the different stars visible in the southern hemi-sphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. At this stage it is, Dante says, sunset at Jerusalem, midnight on the River Ganges, and sunrise in Purgatory.

 

Paradiso

After an initial ascension, Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. These are concentric and spherical, as in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based on different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and the three theo-logical virtues.

The first seven spheres of Heaven deal solely with the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice and Temperance. The first three describe a deficiency of one of the cardinal virtues – the Moon, containing the inconstant whose vows to God waned as the moon thus lack fortitude; Mercury, containing the ambitious who were virtuous for glory and thus lacked justice; and Venus, containing the lovers, whose love was directed toward another than God and thus lacked Temperance. The final four inciden-tally are positive examples of the cardinal virtues, all led on by the Sun, containing the prudent, whose wisdom lighted the way for the other virtues, to which the others are bound (constituting a ca-tegory on its own). Mars contains the men of fortitude who died in the cause of Christiani-ty; Jupiter contains the kings of Justice; and Saturn contains the temperant, the monks who abided to the contemplative lifestyle. The seven subdivided into three are raised further by two more categories: the eighth sphere of the fixed stars that contain those who achieved the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, and represent the Church Triumphant – the total perfection of man, cleansed of all the sins and carrying all the virtues of heaven; and the ninth circle, or Primum Mobile (corresponding to Medieval astronomy of Geocentri-cism) which contains the angels, creatures never poisoned by original sin. Topping them all is the Empyrean that contains the essence of God, completing the 9 fold division to 10.

Dante meets and converses with several great saints of the Church, including Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Saint Peter, and St. John. The Paradiso is consequently more theological in nature than the Inferno and the Purgatorio. However, Dante admits the vision of heaven he receives is the one that his human eyes permit him to see, and the vi-sion of heaven found in the Cantos is Dante's own personal one.

The Divina Commedia finishes with Dante seeing the Triune God. In a flash of un-derstanding, which he cannot express, Dante finally understands the mystery of Christ's divinity and humanity, and his soul becomes aligned with God's love.

 

Thematic Concerns

The Divina Commedia can be described simply as an allegory: Each canto, and the episodes therein, can contain many alternative meanings. Dante's allegory, however, is more complex, and, in explaining how to read the poem. He outlines other levels of meaning besi-des the allegory: the historical, the moral, the literal, and the anagogical.

The structure of the poetry, likewise, is quite complex, with mathematical and nume-rological patterns arching throughout the work, particularly threes and nines, which are relat-ed to the Trinity. The poem is often lauded for its particularly human qualities: Dante's skill-ful delineation of the characters he encounters in Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; his bitter de-nunciations of Florentine and Italian politics; and his powerful poetic imagination. Dante's use of real characters, according to Dorothy Sayers in her introduction to her translation of the Inferno, allows Dante the freedom of not having to involve the reader in description, and allows him to "make room in his poetry for the discussion of a great many subjects of the utmost importance, thus widening its range and increasing its variety."

Dante called the poetry "Commedia" (the adjective "Divina" was added later in the 14th century) because poetries in the ancient world were classified as High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy"). Low poems had happy endings and were written in everyday language, whereas High poems treated more serious matters and were written in an elevated style. Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the Redemption of Man, in the low and "vulgar" Italian language and not the Latin one might expect for such a serious topic. Boccaccio's account that an early version of the poem was begun by Dante in Latin is still controversial.

 

Dante’s Personal Involvement

In his allegorical description of sin (in the Inferno) and virtue (in the Purgatorio and Paradiso), Dante draws on real characters from ancient Greek and Roman myths and history, and from his own times. However, his own actions often also illustrate the concepts he is discussing. For example, Dante shares the fleshly sins of the damned at several points in the upper circles of Hell. At the first circle where the virtuous pagans who pursued honor above all else are punished by eternally knowing they have fallen short for their lack of faith, Dante shares with them their love of honor, as evidenced by the word "honor" being used repeatedly in the Canto.

Although the Divina Commedia is primarily a religious poem, discussing sin, virtue, and theology, Dante also discusses several elements of the science of his day (this mixture of science with poetry has received both praise and blame over the centuries). The Purgatorio repeatedly refers to the implications of a spherical Earth, such as the different stars visible in the southern hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. For example, at sunset in Purgatory it is midnight at the Ebro (a river in Spain), dawn in Jerusalem, and noon on the River Ganges.