Aside Arthur Conan Doyle: Twenty Original Tales By Bertram Fletcher Robinson [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Paul Spiring and Brian Pugh recently brought us the biography of Bertram Fletcher Robinson - the good friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and the inspiration behind "The Hound of the Baskervilles". The book went a long way towards bringing Robinson out of Conan Doyle's shadow and rightly described him as a worthy and influential author in his own right.

Now, with the publication of "Aside Arthur Conan Doyle", Paul Spiring provides us with a large body of Robinson's work (as it appeared when first printed) which better enables us to grasp his abilities as an author. Of particular interest to Sherlockians will be the stories collected under the title "The Chronicles of Addington Peace" which are Robinson's own journey into the world of detective fiction.

At the beginning of each of these stories the original publisher chooses to remind us of Robinson's involvement with "The Hound of the Baskervilles". This, in my opinion, was both good and bad for Robinson as, while it offers you a kind of pedigree, it somewhat compels you to compare his stories against those of Conan Doyle which I think impairs your ability to appreciate them for themselves. However this is a criticism of the original publication and not of this excellent collection.

This is a comprehensive collection of Robinson's writing and shows that he was capable of impressive work and could have gone on to even greater things had his life not been cut short. The quality of the reproduced articles is excellent and the slightly larger than usual size of the book is perfect for showing these articles as they were meant to be seen.

The following review was written by by Colin Bradley and published in 'The Weekend Supplement' of the 'Western Morning News' newspaper on Saturday 14th March 2009:

SHERLOCK HOLMES creator Arthur Conan Doyle clearly recognised something unique in Bertram Fletcher Robinson and his work for he lamented that the premature death of his 36-year-old friend in 1907 was "a loss to the world."

Both men are thought to have first met at the Reform Club in London during the mid-1890s, but their friendship was not actually cemented until July 1900 when they were returning to England by ship from South Africa and hit on the idea of co-writing a Dartmoor-based story.

Fletcher Robinson, who grew up at Ipplepen near Totnes, had been covering the Boer War for the 'Daily Express', while Conan Doyle had also been there serving as a volunteer surgeon at a field hospital - and gathering material for his eventually history on the conflict.

Later, during a planned golfing weekend in Cromer, Norfolk, the pair agreed on the theme of `The Hound of the Baskervilles' - a "real creeper", predicted Conan Doyle, who decided to use the story to resurrect his famous fictional detective. He had been "killed off" in 1894 at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland in a story called 'The Final Problem'.

In May 1901, Robinson and Conan Doyle spent several days on a research trip to Dartmoor. They were driven to Princetown and Hound Tor in a carriage by Robinson's coachman, who was called Henry "Harry" Baskerville.

Fletcher Robinson acted as assistant plot producer to Conan Doyle's most popular story. But he also provided him with a central idea to the plot for a second Sherlock Holmes tale entitled 'The Adventure of the Norwood Builder', published in 1903. And he frequently wrote in high praise of the best-selling author.

Conan Doyle's name featured in endorsements to stories that were written by Fletcher Robinson. And there was another link - in Conan Doyle's famous 1912 story 'The Lost World', which he had penned after hearing about the exploits of Torquay born explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett in South America.

Fawcett, who mysteriously disappeared in the jungles of Brazil in 1925 while searching for a lost city, had been a pupil at the same Devon school - Newton Abbot Proprietary College - as Fletcher Robinson. The connection between the two is thought to have inspired Doyle to use the then deceased Fletcher Robinson as the model for the heroic narrator of the story, journalist Edward Malone.

The relationship between Fletcher Robinson and Conan Doyle was mutually advantageous and both were listed in 'Queen's Quorum - a history of the 106 most important books featuring detective-crime short stories'.

But it is the works of Conan Doyle, not Fletcher Robinson, that are best remembered by most people today - a fact not gone unnoticed by chartered biologist and physicist Paul Spiring, who co-wrote a biography about the Devon writer last year and now provides a compelling insight into his obvious literary talents.

Primarily a journalist, who edited the 'Daily Express', 'Vanity Fair' and 'The World', Fletcher Robinson wrote books about sport and sea battles, as well as more than 50 short stories. Two serialisations were compiled and later published as novels - 'The Trail of the Dead' and 'The Chronicles of Addington Peace'. Both featured detective stories, which are reproduced in this new tome.

In all, 20 of his stories appear in the book and they are reproduced as they were first printed within the original periodicals. Included is 'Black Magic - The story of the Spanish Don', which first appeared in 'Cassell's Magazine' in 1899 and is set initially in Cornwall. The same county, represented by the fictional village of Polleven, also figures in the 1903 'Windsor Magazine' tale 'The Anonymous Article', which has two principal protagonists - a scientist and a physician - averting the murder of a Cambridge professor.

In May the same year, Fletcher Robinson's 'The Battle of Fingle's Bridge' appeared in 'Pearson's Magazine', the leading rival to 'The Strand Magazine'. Clearly a reference to the Dartmoor beauty spot of Fingle Bridge near Drewsteignton, this story is a fairy tale, narrated by a boy who falls asleep on a moor and witnesses a battle between the "people of the fens and rushes" and the "people of the gorse and heather". All the characters are six inches tall, are dressed in medieval garb and armour and equipped with miniature horses and weapons.

It may have left an impression on Conan Doyle for 20 years later he told a reporter from the 'Western Morning News' that he believed in Devonshire fairies!

Another 'Pearson's Magazine' story 'The Mystery of Thomas Hearne', which appeared in 1905, was probably written as a stand-alone tale, but it was swiftly revised and incorporated into the book edition of `The Chronicles of Addington Peace'. It's another-Dartmoor based story and features an escaped convict and an act of murderous revenge. Much of the plot revolves round a fictional hotel called the Princetown Inn that resembles the former Duchy Hotel in Princetown where Fletcher Robinson and Conan Doyle had stayed while researching the setting for `The Hound of the Baskervilles' four years earlier.

The collection proves that Fletcher Robinson was more than capable of producing good work and would probably have gone on to greater things had his life not been cut short. He died from complications relating to typhoid that he reportedly contracted after drinking contaminated water during a trip to the Paris Automobile Show. He was buried at St Andrew's Church, Ipplepen and Conan Doyle sent flowers along with a message that read: "In loving memory of an old and valued friend."

The shortlived Bertram Fletcher Robinson is sadly little more than a footnote in British literature. His fame rests largely on having contributed to, and helped to inspire, a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories - and, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, having been bumped off by Conan Doyle for threatening to claim authorship of one of them and denounce Doyle as a fraud. (Don't go there).

This book, published in large (almost A4-size) format, reproduces twenty of his stories, exactly as they originally appeared in journals such as Windsor Magazine, Pearson's Magazine and Cassell's Magazine. One, 'How Mr Denis O'Halloran transgressed his code', is set in England at about the time of Culloden and the exploits of the Young Pretender. Another, 'The Battle of Fingle's Bridge', set on Dartmoor, is a kind of fairy story narrated by a boy who falls asleep on the moor and dreams of a battle between tiny Lilliput-like figures. Yet another, 'The Chronicles of Addington Peace', is a detective story featuring an escaped convict intent on revenge. Some of it takes place at or near the Princetown Inn, which was evidently modelled on the Duchy Hotel at Princetown, now the High Moorland Visitor Centre, where he and Conan Doyle had stayed while researching local background for 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. Why waste a good idea?

At least two other stories appear to be set on the Cornish coast. Conan Doyle meets Daphne Du Maurier. It's no criticism to say these tales are very much of their age, and to some readers may appear somewhat outdated. Nevertheless much the same can be said of any author writing at that time. Some, such as Doyle and Oscar Wilde, are still widely read nowadays; others, like Eden Phillpotts (a prolific novelist and playwright also particularly associated with the westcountry) and Warwick Deeping, are not so well remembered though they still have their followers. Yet Robinson's work has a delightful charm, enhanced by the excellent quality of reproduction of the original pages, complete with those wonderful ornate title headings and illustrations. This really is a book that takes you back in time, as well as one which makes you wonder what he would have gone on to achieve had he not died of typhoid while in his mid-thirties.

JOHN VAN DER KISTE
'The Bookbag'
June 2009.