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"The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1902) a Sherlock Holmes novel by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four novels by Doyle featuring Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it was the first Holmes piece Doyle had written in eight years, after killing the character in "The Final Problem"; he would revive the series two years later. The novel is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of the "monstrously evil" Richard Cabell and a fearsome, diabolical hound.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band, nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.

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One of four featured texts in October 2012