How does Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle develop and maintain an eerie atmosphere throughout his novel The Hound of the Baskervilles’sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s novel, the Hound of the Baskervilles, was originally published as a novel in 1902. This was an age when many people were interested in historical matters to do with things like ancient documents and there ancestors. Many of the popular books were in the supernatural and detective genres. These books were particularly popular with male readers and this is often due to the amount of main characters being male.
The Hound of the Baskervilles was originally published episodically in the Strand magazine from August 1901 through to April 1902. Each month the chapter would end with a cliff-hanger, this was mainly so people would buy the next issue to find out what happens subsequently in the story. After the serialised version of the story it was then published as a novel buy George Newnes Ltd in London, 1902. Not only was The Hound of the Baskervilles popular as book, it was also popular as a film. In 1939 the Hound of the Baskervilles was released for the first time as a film.
The film was directed by Sidney Lanfield and starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. It was then filmed again and released in 1959 when it was directed by Terrence Fisher with Peter Cushing and Andre Morell starring. Most recently the story was filmed for the BBC as a ‘Christmas Special’ in 2002 for its centenary year. Even The Hound of the Baskervilles is over 100 years old it is still a popular book, it is the only one of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s books not to be out of print and this is why it is regarded as his best novel.
In Chapter 2 the curse of the Baskervilles is first introduced, the curse is that Hugo Baskerville captured a young maid from an unguarded farm and took her back to Baskerville Hall. He locked the maid away. That night he had a party with friends of his, Hugo and his friend’s drank lots of wine and he boasted of this girl he had captured. He staggered upstairs to get the girl, when he unlocked the room he saw that she had escaped.
Hugo was furious and ordered for his Horses to be ready for riding, Hugo rode ahead and his friend’s followed over the moorlands, they passed a Shepard who told of Hugo riding past him. The pack continued on to find Hugo lying on the floor next to the maid with a large beast standing over Hugo, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon and it was plucking at his throat. The tale of the Hound plagued the Baskerville family ever since.
