Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes

by Andrew Lycett (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $4.51

  Sherlock Holmes might have been the epitome of cool reason - 'a calculating machine' in the words of his friend Dr John H. Watson - but the real life of his creator was very different. A man of deep emotion, complex motivation and prodigious energy, Arthur Conan Doyle ended his life an ardent spiritualist, happy to promote the famous 'Cottingley Fairies' photographs, which are now known to have been faked. Having rejected his Irish family's Catholicism, he could not, for all his scientific training as a doctor, dismiss his gut feeling that there was another dimension to existence. Well before he adopted spiritualism as a religion during the First World War, he dabbled in all aspects of the paranormal, holding seances while a GP in Portsmouth. With his sure understanding of the historical background, Andrew Lycett sets this unfolding story against the intellectual currents of the age, as well as unravelling his subject's internal life. Plagued by an alcoholic father and stirred on by a domineering mother, Conan Doyle fell into a placid marriage which was rudely interrupted when he fell passionately in love with another woman, just as his first wife contracted the tuberculosis that would kill her. Conan Doyle dealt with these traumatic events by throwing himself even more into his work, taking up various causes (such as the injustice meted out on the solicitor George Edalji - the subject of Julian Barnes's best-selling novel ARTHUR & GEORGE) and immersing himself in a wide range of other activities, including politics, clubland, and sports. His literary output was not confined to the creation of fiction's most famous detective; Lycett sheds new light on Conan Doyle's horror and occult stories, historical romances, factual histories, and spiritualist tracts. With access to fascinating new material, Lycett gives the most comprehensive, psychologically satisfying and delightfully readable portrait yet of the man who created Sherlock Holmes.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $16.37

  Ground-breaking biography of the creator of fiction's best loved detective

  Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name is recognised the world over, for decades he was overshadowed by his creation, Sherlock Holmes - one of literature's most enduring characters.

  Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and foolhardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle's life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena.

  Lycett combines access to new material with assiduous research and penetrating insight to offer the most comprehensive, lucid and sympathetic portrait yet of Conan Doyle's personal journey from student to doctor, from world-famous author to ardent spiritualist.