Lessons in Light and Security
Blog entry by ZLI Staff Writer Jordan Borgman
Published 02-17-21
Submitted by Zoological Lighting Institute
The Hound of the Baskervilles Sidney Paget 1892 Photographic reproduction of ink or watercolor on paper Illustration for Arthur Conan Doyle's “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” p. 424 (full-page illustration) Formatting by George P. Landow, Internet Archive, http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/pagets/249.html
When Henry Baskerville, the eponymous baronet of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The Hound of the Baskervilles, arrives at his family’s manor, he finds himself heir not only to a country estate but an assortment of potential morbidities, including a lethal family curse, a hellhound, an escaped convict, and Sherlock Holmes. Faced with these complications, however, the young scion decides that the problem is primarily one of lighting. “‘It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this,’ said [Baskerville]. ‘It’s enough to scare any man. I’ll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won’t know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan and Edison right here in front of the hall door.’”