The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Original manuscript leaf from Chapter I

The second leaf of the Hound manuscript is one of only two consecutive leaves in private hands; the third leaf is displayed alongside it. (It is thought that the first leaf has not survived.) This is a textually rich page, notable for Holmes’s and Watson’s deductions about a visitor who had left behind his walking stick; for a variant of the detective’s hallmark phrase, “Interesting, though elementary”; and for a backhanded criticism that Watson interprets as a compliment:

“You are not luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

12¼ × 8⅛ in