The Hound of the Baskervilles

The novel opens at breakfast on Baker Street. Yesterday's visitor left behind a walking stick, and Watson — Holmes's friend and the narrator — twirls it in his hands trying to deduce its owner. Holmes sits with his back turned, yet sees everything reflected in the coffee pot's shine. This small scene shows the whole book's method in one page: look at the object, read the owner.

The stick's owner, Dr. Mortimer, arrives carrying a two-century-old manuscript. Holmes guesses its date without touching the paper; Mortimer gives the exact year — 1742. The document tells the Baskerville curse: an ancestor once abducted a girl, she fled onto the moor, and during the pursuit a monstrous hound appeared. Since that day, the men of the family are never to cross the moor at night.

Up to this point, it's just an old tale. Then Mortimer reveals the real reason for his visit: three months ago, Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in his own garden. The official diagnosis is heart failure. Mortimer was both Sir Charles's doctor and friend, and he's withheld one detail — he saw the footprints of an enormous hound thirty paces from the body, but told no one.

From this point, Conan Doyle runs two layers side by side. On one side, the legend: curse, night, fog. On the other, Holmes's precise questions — were the tracks approaching the body, was the air damp, how wide is the avenue. The novel never rushes to say which is true; it holds the reader between the two right to the end. That's where the book's real tension lives.

In the third chapter the matter becomes concrete, and here Conan Doyle sets up something the mystery needs: he lays out exactly who stands to inherit. Mortimer traces the family line — there were three brothers; the middle one died young, his son is Henry; the youngest brother, Rodger, was considered the family's black sheep, couldn't make a living in England, fled to Central America, and died of fever in 1876. So Henry is the last of the line, with no other claimant. This line gives the reader a sense of safety — by the novel's end, that same line takes on an entirely different meaning.

The heir arrives from Canada: Sir Henry Baskerville — young, healthy, an unafraid farmer. Mortimer's question is practical: is it dangerous to let him go to Devonshire? On one hand, every Baskerville who's lived there has died tragically; on the other, leaving the estate ownerless harms the whole region. Holmes doesn't answer right away — he wants to meet the man first. The fourth chapter is the best-constructed part of the book. As soon as Sir Henry reaches London, he receives a strange letter — words cut from a newspaper and pasted together: stay away from the moor. No one knew which way he'd arrive at the hotel; he decided after meeting Mortimer. So someone is already watching him. Then something smaller but more unsettling happens: a boot goes missing from his hotel room. Then a second one. One new, one old.

In the fifth chapter, the surveillance becomes visible. As Sir Henry and Mortimer walk the street, a bearded man in a hansom cab follows them. Holmes checks the hotel registers and draws a conclusion: the watchers aren't staying at this hotel — meaning they're tracking Sir Henry's every step while trying to stay out of sight. The chapter is called "Three Broken Threads," because every lead Holmes grabs snaps in his hand. It's a bold choice for the genre: the detective loses in act one.

This chapter also resolves the missing-boot matter. Sir Henry stands on the stairs, red with anger, holding his old, dusty boot. First a new boot vanished, now the old one. The scene plays as comedy, and Doyle deliberately keeps the tone light — the reader doesn't think the detail matters. Yet it's the book's most crucial clue, and its meaning only surfaces at the end.

Act one closes with Holmes's decision, and that decision shapes the whole novel's structure: he stays in London and sends Watson to Devonshire. So for most of the book, the lead detective won't be on the page — we'll follow events through Watson's reports and diary. It's a bold choice, and it explains why the novel feels so tense: like Watson, the reader is left alone too.

Everything after this is the book's own answer. So we're stopping here, and we recommend you get the book and read it yourself — the ten Devonshire chapters are the best part of this novel. But if what you've read so far interests you and you can't decide whether to get the rest, you can check the spoiler section below.

• 15 chapters, each 12–20 pages. Chapters are built as self-contained scenes — easy to put down and pick back up.
• First person, told through Watson. The style shifts midway: two reports and a diary excerpt are inserted, which tightens the timeline.
• Descriptions run long, especially the moor scenes. They're what build the atmosphere, but the plot slows there.
• Dialogue is lively; Holmes's displays of logic are short and precise, never turning into long lectures.
• The Azerbaijani text reads smoothly, with proper names rendered phonetically: Watson, Baskerville, the Stapletons, Merripit House.