Product Description

Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name is recognized the world over, for decades the man himself has been overshadowed by his better understood creation, Sherlock Holmes, who has become one of literature's most enduring characters. Based on thousands of previously unavailable documents, Andrew Lycett, author of the critically acclaimed biography Dylan Thomas, offers the first definitive biography of the baffling Conan Doyle, finally making sense of a long-standing mystery: how the scientifically minded creator of the world's most rational detective himself succumbed to an avid belief in spiritualism, including communication with the dead.

Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Always romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and fool-hardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle's life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his wayward, alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his nearly fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena. Lycett reveals the evolution of Conan Doyle's nature and ideas against the backdrop of his intense personal life, wider society and the intellectual ferment of his age. In response to the dramatic scientific and social transformations at the turn of the century, he rejected traditional religious faith in favor of psychics and séances -- and in this way he embodied all of his late-Victorian, early-Edwardian era's ambivalence about the advance of science and the decline of religion.

The first biographer to gain access to Conan Doyle's newly released personal archive -- which includes correspondence, diaries, original manuscripts and more -- Lycett combines assiduous research with 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179503 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 576 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743275231
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Lycett, biographer of Rudyard Kipling and Dylan Thomas, turns his attention to the father of detective stories in this enjoyable if densely packed biography. From his early years in Edinburgh to his life at boarding school, Conan Doyle developed a love of storytelling and mythology. After finishing medical school, he turned to writing as a way to explore his paradoxical interest in spiritualism and science. While writing his first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1886, Conan Doyle continued to practice medicine and tend to his growing family. Lycett shows that Conan Doyle often viewed his laconic detective's stories as inferior to his other work, which included everything from the social novel to a history of Britain's involvement in WWI. With his detailed descriptions of the Doyle family tree, Lycett often overwhelms the reader with names and dates, but fans won't be disappointed with his unearthing of the origins of the famous detective's name (fellow student Patrick Sherlock and Oliver Wendell Holmes) or Conan Doyle's associations with everyone from Oscar Wilde to Harry Houdini. Those looking for a close reading of the Holmes canon should look elsewhere, but fans of the in-depth literary biography will find this a satisfying read. (Dec.)
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Review
"[A] sympathetic new biography...shrewd and thorough...entertaining." -- The Independent on Sunday (London)

Review
"[An] excellent biography.... Comprehensive and authoritative, it is undoubtedly the best account of Doyle to date, and the best we are likely to get." -- The Sunday Times (London)

"Lycett excels in unearthing the sources from which Doyle drew to endow Holmes with unique skills.... [A] brilliant analysis." -- Sunday Herald (Scotland)

"In Andrew Lycett's hugely enjoyable new biography, the sheer breathtaking dynamism of [Conan Doyle] shines through.... [An] impeccably researched book." -- The Sunday Telegraph (London)

"It is the precise and intelligent appreciation of the differences by which Conan Doyle was composed that makes Lycett's diagnosis of his subject so thoroughly satisfying. Using previously unseen archives, Lycett gives us Conan Doyle as a late Victorian and definitive Edwardian, battling with the uncertainties of his own age, weary of the uncertainties of the next one."-- The New Statesman (London)

"Conan Doyle has found a biographer of distinction in Andrew Lycett.... Lycett's brilliant piece of detective work on the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories now allows us to judge his literary worth against that of his peers and properly to set him in the context of his times.... [A] splendid biography." -- The Guardian, Book of the Week selection (London)

"[A] sympathetic new biography...shrewd and thorough...entertaining." -- The Independent on Sunday (London)

Customer Reviews

The Disagreeable Mr. Doyle
I love Sherlock Holmes. He is one of the greatest characters in fiction -- so realistic, in fact, that many people insist he was a genuine person. So it seemed to make sense that I would like his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But I didn't.
That is no fault of Andrew Lycett, the author of The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes. Lycett's biography is outstanding in every way -- well researched (utilizing letters of Doyle's that have only just become available), well organized, and beautifully written. He also does his job superbly, as the reader comes to know Doyle intimately. And there's the rub, for Arthur Conan Doyle is not a very likable man.
He started out well enough. Doyle was eager to be successful, as his father was an alcoholic who rarely contributed to his family's finances. Young Arthur therefore needed to help his family. He earned his medical degree and wrote stories to supplement his income. Once he introduced Sherlock Holmes in 1888, Doyle realized he could earn more as a writer than as a Doctor.
After years of writing tales of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle grew tired of the great detective. Doyle also felt his other writings were being overlooked. So he killed Holmes off.
But Holmes was his cash cow, his guaranteed moneymaker, so Doyle eventually brought him back, much to the delight of readers throughout the world. It is Lycett's illuminations of Holmes and the background he gives for each of the stories and novels that are the most interesting part of a very interesting book.
Doyle befriended many writers and celebrities, including Rudyard Kipling, P.G. Wodehouse, Harry Houdini, Thomas Hardy and several others. He was well liked, successful, and fairly humble.
That all began to change in 1894, when his wife Louise became seriously ill with tuberculosis. Doyle avoided her, taking lecture trips and holidays without her or their two children. He met and fell in love with a woman fifteen years his junior, and devoted a great deal of time to this relationship. Doyle insisted their relationship was entirely platonic, but Lycett finds this hard to swallow. Doyle and his new love spent the next decade waiting for Louise to die. When she finally did in 1906, their marriage followed soon after, and they quickly began a family of their own. Once this happened, Doyle essentially ignored the two children from his first marriage, shipping them off to boarding school, and not even allowing them to come home for Christmas. At least part of Doyle's indifference was prompted by his second wife Jean.
Doyle had always had a belief in spiritualism, which was not so strange, as it was quite a popular phenomenon in his time. But when his son from his first marriage and his younger brother were killed in World War I, Doyle's belief in spiritualism -- the idea that one can commune with the spirits of the dead -- caused him to lose touch with reality. Doyle became a bit of a pompous bore. He refused to lecture on Holmes or any of his other writings, but would only speak about spiritualism. So fanatical did Doyle become that he lost his friendships with Kipling and Houdini.
Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, and I am indebted to him for many hours of reading pleasure. Andrew Lycett's biography of Doyle is captivating, even if Doyle is not. The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes will surely be the Doyle biography of our time.

The Real Holmes, The Real Doyle
A case could be made that the most famous character in fiction is Sherlock Holmes. Everybody knows him, if not from the original stories, then from the countless plays, movies, and parodies. There is an international fan club, and the great detective still gets mail at his 221B Baker Street address in London. But his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was not so enthusiastic. Surely Holmes was the making of Doyle as a literary man, but six years after Holmes first appeared, Doyle wrote in 1892, "I am weary of his name." The public enthusiasm over the detective was, in Doyle's view, keeping him from writing the better things for which he wanted to be known, among which were his books and pamphlets in defense of the new religion of spiritualism. He failed in many of his non-Sherlockian efforts, and thus his most recent biography is called _The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_ (Free Press) by Andrew Lycett. The author has made a specialty of literary biographies (Ian Fleming, Rudyard Kipling, Dylan Thomas) and has had a long battle with the complicated network of Doyle heirs (described here in an afterword) to produce a big and detailed portrait of a gifted and deeply conflicted author.

Doyle was born in 1859 in Scotland, of Irish parents. He was all her life devoted to his "Mam", perhaps excessively even by Victorian standards. Many of his words quoted here are from letters to her. His father was insane and an alcoholic, incarcerated for years in mental institutions. Doyle abandoned his family's Catholicism and as a young man claimed agnosticism at a time when the term and the idea was a new one, before eventually claiming spiritualism. Though Lycett covers Doyles other literary works, it is Sherlock who will always be most important. Doyle killed Holmes off and remained a popular author without him, but not as popular and not as wealthy, and the reading world rejoiced to learn that Holmes's death was only apparent, not actual, when the stories resumed. Lycett writes, "Becoming a spiritualist so soon after creating the quintessentially rational Sherlock Holmes: that is the central paradox of Arthur's life." Lycett has examined the paradox thoroughly, but probably it can never be fully explained. Doyle never mixed spiritualism into the Holmes stories. When Holmes encountered superstition, it was always with the understanding that there were rational, material explanations for what people had misinterpreted as the doings of the supernatural.

Lycett's book is excellent about Doyle's literary efforts and his eagerness to involve contemporary concerns into his fiction, even if he was careful not to mix his spiritualism with his famous detective. Lycett's extensive investigations into newly-available archives mean that we can know Doyle's whereabouts, budgets, and enthusiasms with sometimes day-to-day accuracy. Doyle was an anomaly in many ways, supporting and uprooting conservative British ideals in different spheres, and Lycett has done justice to his many non-literary interests. It is as the creator of his famous detective, however, that he must always be best remembered, and the many Sherlock fans will find a treat in this a detailed, far from elementary biography.

The Real Sherlock Holmes
Mr. Lycett has written the complete and definitive account of Arthur Conan Doyle's life. The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Doyle found himself imprisoned by the fame of his creation and wanted to be known for other things -- that was not to be. Few today know of his "new age" spiritualism which became more fervent after the death of his son in World War I. Contacting the dead became an obsession with him.

Some may know of his "Lost World" novel which predates "Jurassic Park" by 80 years. Fewer still are aware of his two successful campaigns to free unjustly convicted men from prison, using his gifts of deductive reasoning. Mr. Doyle was a remarkable man in whom the spiritual and the rational resided side by side. The biography is illustrated and a tad long, especially by the time the reader reaches the 1920's. Overall a fascinating read.