# The Hound of the Baskervilles — Character guide

> Key figures in The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

- [Sherlock Holmes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/sherlock_holmes.md): Holmes enters the Baskerville affair through Dr. Mortimer's cane and legend, already several moves ahead of everyone in the room. His method is cold reason applied to hot superstition, and he treats Watson less as an ass
- [Dr. Watson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/dr_watson.md): Watson trades Baker Street for Baskerville Hall and finds himself the sole guardian of a man marked for death. He is brave, observant, and quietly proud of his own growing deductive skill, yet he knows he is the conducto
- [Sir Henry Baskerville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/sir_henry_baskerville.md): Sir Henry arrives from Canada to claim Baskerville Hall, cheerful and skeptical of the family legend, yet earnest enough to ask Stapleton twice whether the supernatural could be real. He is active, warm, and a little rec
- [Sir Charles Baskerville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/sir_charles_baskerville.md): Sir Charles was the wealthy, well-liked squire whose body was found on the yew alley, his face frozen in a look of horror no doctor could explain. He had been nervous, waiting alone at night, and his heart — already weak
- [Dr. James Mortimer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/dr_james_mortimer.md): Mortimer is the old-fashioned practitioner whose worn Penang lawyer and C.C.H. presentation stick tell Holmes everything before the man even speaks. He is scholarly, superstitious in a careful way, and genuinely frighten
- [Mr. Stapleton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/mr_stapleton.md): Stapleton lives at Merripit House with his sister Beryl, collecting specimens and playing the friendly neighbor to Sir Henry. He is guarded, dry, and quietly forceful — Watson notices a hidden fire beneath the calm and a
- [Miss Stapleton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/miss_stapleton.md): Living with her brother at Merripit House, she is the beautiful neighbour whose presence stirs Sir Henry Baskerville's heart almost the moment he arrives on the moor. Yet her warmth is shadowed by a strange constraint: s
- [Mrs. Laura Lyons](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/mrs_laura_lyons.md): Ambitious and unhappily married, she once sought Sir Charles's help to escape her situation, and her name surfaces the moment Watson and Holmes trace the letter found near the dead baronet. She insists she never kept the
- [Barrymore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/barrymore.md): He and his wife have served the Baskerville family for years, and his striking looks and grave manner give nothing away. When Watson sees him signalling through a window in the small hours, suspicion falls hard on him, a
- [Mrs. Barrymore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/mrs_barrymore.md): Quiet and dutiful in the household, she is visibly undone by something Watson cannot name, weeping when she believes herself unobserved. Her distress is bound up with her husband's nocturnal errands, and the two of them 
- [Selden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/selden.md): A notorious killer who has broken out of Dartmoor Prison, he haunts the tors and hollows while soldiers and villagers hunt him. His presence gives the moor a second, human menace, and Watson's glimpses of a figure on the
- [Lestrade](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/lestrade.md): A Scotland Yard detective who assists at the end.
- [Cartwright](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters/cartwright.md): A boy sent by Holmes to assist Watson on the moor.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hound_of_the_baskervilles/characters