Book – The hound of the Baskervilles

Book – The hound of the Baskervilles

Author : Arthur Conan Dyole

Score: 10/10

Year: 1901-1902 (serialized) ; 1902 ; 1987 (this edition) 

Publisher: Wordworth

ISBN 978-1-84022-400-9

Pages 320 (this story 1-168) 

Language: English 

Set in Autumn 1889 (as proved in text by an object engraved 1884 and given "5 years ago" in text), The Hound of Baskervilles explores rationality vs supernatural, in this tale where Sherlock Holmes sends his friend Doctor Watson, alone, to the Baskervilles Estate, with the task of remaining with their client, a Baronet who inherited an estate, and who's life is in danger. 

Indeed, the Baskervilles' family believed, like peasants of the region, in a ghastly, ghostly, spectral hound seen and heard in the moor. In fact, Charles Baskerville is know to have died in one such encounter. 

Doyle had wished to stop writing Sherlock's stories and had deemed The Final Problem a way out, but after years of public demand, he resumed with this story,  serialized in the Strand magazine as the others before it, in 1901-02,  published in April 1902 and presented here with its 15 chapters. 

I love that though 7 years had passed since Doyle had last published a S.Holmes story, the Hound... remains faithful in voice and style, yet innovates in storytelling, adding more sophisticated prose, making it longer (164 pages or so), serialized over the course of a whole year, keeping a fresh but faithful depiction in the entire line of the famous detective, with the addition of letters that Watson sends to his friend, in forms of reports, and yet... Yet, they keep the fact that Watson embellishes and likes to give more details than the mere facts, even if he acknowledges that he should now turn to these same mere facts. 

Granda's tv adaptation is really well, aired 31/08/1988 as it's 26th overall episode, and as a double-length episode, or rather a 1h41 tv-movie. 
The acting and dialogues are as usual with the show, really close and often verbatim, just like the plot, really close to the original story, veering very little from it. 
Indeed, in view of the many details in the novela, this tv-movie had to delete a couple scenes, adding one or two inconsequential details that work really well on-screen, and the rest is above 90%  faithful, which is really great, all things considered. 
The pace and order in events are also overall very well done, and I'll remind you that the show chose not to have anything about Doctor Watson's wedding, and that in any rate, this story is set before it. 
A special note : some cast members resemble a lot to their illustrated counterparts from the Strand magazine!