The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [Paperback]

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.

In the middle of the 19th century, the man who would create Sherlock Holmes was born Arthur Ignatius Conan. He sprang from a large family of artists --- most of whom preferred paint as their medium over written words, but creativity was in his blood from the beginning. Full of curiosity as a child, he "soaked up tales as a sponge absorbs water." He read voraciously to help quench his uncommon thirst for knowledge. His characters' names came from as far back as his school days, where he met a fellow pupil named Patrick Sherlock and came across an interesting pair, the Moriarty brothers.

Despite his vivid imagination, Arthur embarked on a career path of medicine. Fortunately for Sherlock Holmes fans, he discovered that he was a mediocre doctor but a great writer. Oddly, although a man of science, his interests took him through phases of dabbling with the occult, studying hypnotism, playing with the Ouija board and toying with spiritualism.

"Becoming a spiritualist so soon after creating the quintessentially rational Sherlock Holmes: that is the central paradox of Arthur's life." It is possible that the introduction of Dr. John Watson was necessary to balance that out. Watson is more romantic, more human, more fallible --- sometimes even to the point of naļvete --- than Holmes. Together, they round each other out.

More than a mere biography, Andrew Lycett's book is a fascinating study in how a character is conceived, groomed and shaped into someone who readers demand to see more of. Conan Doyle possessed a very active, inquiring mind, which is well used in his beloved stories. He lived in a lively time of wondrous authors: Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, to name a few. So competition was fierce, but Conan Doyle's determination carried him through.

At the same time, much was going on in the world around Conan Doyle, which influenced the direction and tenor of Holmes's adventures. Brutal wars were brewing in an age of phenomenal inventions. Providence helped Conan Doyle survive the battlefront, the vagaries of travel, the caprice of young adulthood and several serious illnesses, one that threatened him within a breath of his life. His legacy came very close to fading before it took hold.

Sherlock Holmes didn't start out a finished character. Far from it. He evolved. Starting with the bare bones of the man, he was fleshed out into a caped consulting detective with a deerstalker's cap and a meerschaum pipe through the hands of illustrators, professors and even actors. His legendary logic appeared initially and honed itself into a rare and highly entertaining skill. Soon, it leaked out that Holmes had a drug habit. And this seemingly asexual man showed a contradictory side whenever he spoke of the one woman who ever truly captured his interest: Irene Adler.

Find out where Conan Doyle got his ideas, names, personality traits, and why he grew to hate Holmes --- enough to try to kill him. Conan Doyle's mother saved Holmes once, but Sir Arthur could only abide him for so long. However, he underestimated Holmes's popularity.

Andrew Lycett had a wealth of information at his disposal, which has enabled him to present Sherlock Holmes lovers everywhere with this very comprehensive account of the life and times of the man who created him.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

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.