Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish physician and writer known around the world for his stories about detective Sherlock Holmes, which all but created the literary field of crime fiction and made the name Sherlock Holmes synonymous with detectives. Aside from the Sherlock Holmes stories, he was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction. In December 1893, in order to dedicate more of his time to more "important" works-his historical novels- Conan Doyle had Holmes and Professor Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths together down the Reichenbach Falls in the story "The Final Problem." The public was having none of it, however, and there was an outpouring of support for bringing Sherlock Holmes back, leading Conan Doyle to write a new story in 1901, The Hound of the Baskervilles. One of the most famous and popular Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels about the famous detective written by Conan Doyle, and it tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound.