The Hound of the Baskervilles is the longest of the four Sherlock Holmes novels and the only one that reads as a true gothic mystery. Conan Doyle published it in serial in The Strand Magazine in 1901-1902, three years after killing Holmes off at the Reichenbach Falls. Public demand for more Holmes had been so great that Doyle had agreed to bring him back for one more case — set, conveniently, before his death.
A country doctor brings to Baker Street a 1742 manuscript describing how the Baskerville family, of Devonshire, has been haunted for two centuries by a giant black hound after a wicked ancestor sold his soul. Sir Charles Baskerville has just died of fright on the moor, his face contorted, and his American nephew Sir Henry has arrived from Canada to inherit. Holmes sends Watson down to Devonshire alone to protect Sir Henry while he stays — apparently — in London. The villain on the moor turns out to be much closer to the family than anyone realises, and the hound is real but not supernatural.
The B1 adaptation runs across fifteen chapters and keeps the entire structure of the original: the manuscript, the moor, the Stapletons, the convict on the rocks, the unknown stranger on the tor, Holmes's hidden investigation, and the final attack in the fog. Doyle's prose, written for the Strand's middle-class readership, is some of the most readable late-Victorian English in print.
Doyle wrote in clean, propulsive sentences for a magazine readership of clerks and commuters. The novel is built around concrete settings — Baker Street, a railway carriage, a ruined moor village, a fog-shrouded path — that anchor the vocabulary. Watson's first-person voice is measured, descriptive, and never showy. B1 is the level at which the gothic atmosphere reads as atmosphere rather than as obstacle: you understand the moor; you feel the dread.
Intermediate. You read narrative past tense fluently, handle dialogue, and understand short novellas. Vocabulary around 3,000 words. Subordinate clauses no longer slow you down.
Yes — every book in the Storica catalog is available in all seven supported languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and English. The Hound of the Baskervilles was originally written in English, but you choose your reading language when you start.
B1. Intermediate. You read narrative past tense fluently, handle dialogue, and understand short novellas. Vocabulary around 3,000 words. Subordinate clauses no longer slow you down.
About one month at fifteen minutes a day. The adaptation runs to 25 short chapters — short enough to read before bed, long enough to actually move your level.
No. Storica's adaptation is the version you read. We keep the characters, plot beats, and tone of the original — and rewrite the language to fit the level. If you've read the original before, you'll recognise the story; if you haven't, the adaptation is a complete reading of the book.
Pick up where you left off. There are no streaks, no penalties, and no notifications begging you back. Day 12 is still Day 12 a week later.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is rated B1, so we'd suggest starting with one of our A0 or A1 books first if you're brand-new to your target language. Check our shelf at /library/ — the readers there are short, gentle, and built specifically for week one.
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