Anybody who has read _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ by Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle?

Question

Hello, I read the book and I was wondering if any of the characters in the book were like real-life people. For example, was there anyone in real life like Mr. Stapleton who was extremely clever did horrible thing to just get money/estate? And was there anyone like Sherlock Holmes who was clever enough to stop him?
If you can give me the real-life people equivalent of those two characters, I'll very much appreciate it. However, if you give me the people in real-life who acted like Dr. Watson, Sir Charles Baskerville, or Mr. Stapleton's wife, you're SURE to get the 10 GRAND.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Well, here's Sherlock - and perhaps Watson:
"The first and perhaps greatest real-life detective of all time, Eugène François Vidocq (1775-1857).
Vidocq clearly was the primary model for Gaboriau’s Lecoq and Poe’s Dupin. Why else would Poe have made his detective French? Most likely Conan Doyle was well aware of Vidocq’s renown, but whether his inspiration for Holmes came second-hand from Poe and Gaboriau or directly from Vidocq’s Mémoires as well as other writings about him, there is no question that Sherlock Holmes’s lineage stretches back to Vidocq.

The particulars of Sherlock Holmes—his use of deductive reasoning, elaborate disguises, and scientific analysis to solve crimes—were the trademarks of Vidocq, but unlike Poe’s Dupin and Gaboriau’s Lecoq, there is nothing particularly French about Holmes. Though moody and often mysterious, at the core Holmes is an Englishman, and for that aspect of his character, Conan Doyle most definitely had an Anglo-Saxon model.
Literary scholars generally agree that the main inspiration for the character of Sherlock Holmes was Dr. Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle’s professor of clinical surgery at Edinburgh University. A distinguished physician and educator, Bell was personal surgeon to Queen Victoria whenever she was in Scotland and honorary surgeon to Edward VII. Bell published several important medical textbooks as well as numerous journal articles, and for twenty-three years served as editor of the Edinburgh Medical Journal. As Martin Booth points out in his biography of Conan Doyle, The Doctor and the Detective, Bell was one of the most popular professors at the university and his lectures were usually packed.
According to Booth, Bell was “a sparse and lean man with the long and sensitive fingers of a musician, sharp grey eyes twinkling with shrewdness… an angular nose with a chin to match…and a high-pitched voice. “ He was a “widely read amateur poet, a competent raconteur, a keen sportsman, a naturalist and a bird-watcher” as well as “a good shot.” But his genius was as a diagnostician, for Bell believed that a doctor should use all his senses to find the cause of illness. “Do not just look at a patient, he advised, but feel him, probe him, listen to him, smell him.”

Conan Doyle served as Bell’s clerk at the Royal Infirmary’s open clinic in 1878. Bell led students on rounds, dazzling them with his ability to deduce facts, both medical and personal, from seemingly unremarkable details. For instance, Bell stated that a female patient with soft hands but brawny arms was most certainly a laundress. In another instance, a man’s address combined with the callused ball of his thumb indicated to Bell that the man was a sail-maker because he lived on a street near the docks and sail-makers typically have calloused thumbs from working needles through heavy canvas.

One day a female patient arrived at the clinic with muddy boots, carrying a child’s coat, and a toddler in tow. She complained of a rash on her right hand. Bell concluded from the woman’s accent that she was from Fife and that she had walked a certain road to get to the clinic because of the color of the clay on her boots. He believed that she had dropped off an older child on her way, because the coat she carried was too big for the toddler. As for the skin condition on her hand, he deduced that she was right-handed and went on to say that she worked at the linoleum factory in her town where she must have come into contact with the caustic chemicals used to make linoleum. One can imagine Bell turning to his clerk and smugly uttering, “Elementary, my dear Conan Doyle.”

In A Study in Scarlet, Conan Doyle has his detective echoing Bell’s method when he says that “by a man’s finger-nails, by his coat sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser-knees, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs—by each of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed.” The great detective uses this method throughout the Sherlock Holmes stories. In A Study in Scarlet, for example, Holmes explains to Dr. Watson the reasoning that led him to conclude that a man of their acquaintance had recently been in Afghanistan:

“Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded. Clearly in Afghanistan.”

The parallels between Conan Doyle’s creation and Bell in style and intellect are undeniable, but authors of fiction rarely model their characters on one source exclusively. Influences and inspiration usually come from several sources, and Sherlock Holmes is no exception. Rather than a thinly disguised portrait of the renowned surgeon of Edinburgh, Sherlock Holmes contains additional elements, both real and fictional.
As Martin Booth points out in his biography of Conan Doyle, The Doctor and the Detective, the author and his creation shared many of the same characteristics. They were both tall and fit, and they both boxed. They both enjoyed a “good joke.” They were both pack rats who kept untidy quarters where documents and books were piled high. Each had one brother. Both Sherlock Holmes and his creator were agnostics. But these kinds of similarities are to be expected between an author and his hero. In every hero there is always a large part of the author’s personality. What’s interesting about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is that he modeled himself on the character as much as he modeled the character on himself, taking up cases and causes as Holmes would. No doubt, the yearning to be a person like Sherlock Holmes was always there within him, but it took the success of his stories to bring it out. "

"Conan Doyle himself was a physician and appears closer to Watson’s character. The physical descriptions of Watson even closely resemble the author, from the hale, broad-shouldered physique to the thick, walrus mustache. "

And Sir Arthur tried his hand at solving some "real-life" crimes:
It might come as no surprise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, after creating the first world-renowned fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, started to believe that he could solve real-life crimes. What is surprising is that Doyle was sometimes successful. While the muscular, mustachioed author and his thin, hawk-nosed character would never have been mistaken for one another, they did share an abhorrence for injustice. And Doyle's association as a student with a medical professor named Joseph Bell--who, through close observation, could deduce extraordinary amounts of information from his patients--gave him both a model for the brilliant Holmes and an appreciation for careful forensic methodology.
The True Crime Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle focuses on a couple of curious British cases, both involving men Doyle believed were innocent. The first, which drew Doyle's attention in 1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji, who'd allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were dead set on Edalji's guilt, though the mutilations continued even after their suspect was jailed. The second case examined here--that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in 1908--excited Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution case and a general sense that Slater was framed.

Editor Stephen Hines has compiled Doyle's passionate writings about these criminal probes as well as myriad missives to the press and other background material. This accumulation of arcana will delight passionate Doyle fans, though it's probably too much for the average reader, who may be satisfied with Steven Womack's introductory synopsis. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Booklist
Following the success of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle himself was much sought after as a consultant in real-life mysteries. Doyle never became fully involved in actual sleuthing, except for two cases. In campaigns that will remind readers of contemporary investigative efforts to free Death Row inmates, Doyle wrote a series of newspaper articles defending George Edalji, an East Indian believed to have performed animal sacrifices, and a book defending Glaswegian Oscar Slater, convicted of murdering his wife. The bulk of this volume consists of Doyle's journalistic campaign in the Daily Telegraph on behalf of Edalji, whose case excited tremendous controversy (responses from the public and the Home Office are included). In the much shorter part 2, editor Hines presents excerpts from Doyle's treatise on the wrongful conviction of Oscar Slater. Edgar-winning author Steven Womack provides an insightful introduction to Doyle's life and these two cases. For Conan Doyle aficionados and scholarly true-crime buffs. Connie Fletcher."

Answer 2

sure sure sure. i became into that terrible baby who might do something to get better allowance. My costly previous departed stepdad knew all my tricks and might bust me each and every time. Sorry i could not be extra consice with my answer. solid success.

Answer 3

Yes Yes Yes. I was that horrible child who would do anything to get extra allowance. My dear old departed stepdad knew all my tricks and would bust me every time. Sorry I couldn't be more consice with my answer. Good luck.

Answer 4

do a web search Arthur Conan Doyle. good luck...

Answer 5

So let me guess, this is for homework, correct? And if it is...do your own work.