The Toronto Public Library (TPL) has long been committed to an active exhibition program for its Special Collections in the Canada Trust Gallery at the Toronto Reference Library. The virtual version of Footprints of the Hound recreates in part the exhibition on display in our Gallery from October 20 – December 2, 2001.

The exhibition celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Hound of the Baskervilles and the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Toronto Public Library's Arthur Conan Doyle Collection. It is illustrated with over a hundred collection items including books, periodicals, plays, manuscripts, photographs and artifacts. Unless otherwise indicated, the images are from the Toronto Public Library’s collection and copyright is held by the Library. Photographic and digital reproductions of the collections may be ordered - click here.
“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”
(Extract from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Hound of the Baskervilles began its serialization in the August 1901 issue of The Strand Magazine. This marked the reappearance of Sherlock Holmes eight years after author Arthur Conan Doyle, tired of his most popular character, threw him over the Reichenbach Falls locked in mortal combat with Professor Moriarty. The Hound became the most famous, and is perhaps the best, of all the Sherlock Holmes stories.