1. The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Mystery Genre

2. Origins Sir Arthur Conan Doyle –Father of “Golden Age” of English murder mystery –Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and others Others used Sherlock Holmes formula –Agatha Christie –Ellery Queen –P.D. James

3. Conan Doyle Formula Closed setting (isolated house; train) Corpse Small circle of people (suspects) Investigating detective (extraordinary reasoning powers) Characters suspect each other, suspense mounts, everyone had means, motive, and opportunity Clues accumulate and are revealed through narrator (Watson) who is loyal companion Detective grasps solution long before anyone else; explains to “Watson” (and reader!) at end

4. American Formula 1920s during prohibition Detective not gentleman –Hard-drinking, tough-talking “private eye” –Outsider to upper/middle class values Setting=brutal city Suspects=anyone (anonymous place) Action not orderly/logical—careens from place to place and scene to scene

5. Today… Detective and mystery stories we read or watch on TV/movies can be traced directly to one of these two original schools (or borrowed from both traditions).

6. The Hound of the Baskervilles Originally published in 1901-02 One of the most famous Sherlock Holmes stories Set in dark, dreary Baskerville Hall and on the moorlands of Dartmoor Sir Charles Baskerville has died. Is it murder—or is it a family curse claiming its next victim??