comparing fear in the hound of the baskervilles and the whole towns sleeping After resisting public pressure for eight years, conan doyle wrote the hound of the baskervilles (serialised in 1901–02, with an implicit setting before holmes's death) in 1903, conan doyle wrote the adventure of the empty house, set in 1894 holmes reappears, explaining to a stunned watson that he had faked his death to fool his enemies.