Arthur and Sherlock
Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes
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ISBN10: 1632860406
ISBN13: 9781632860408
Paperback
256 Pages
$17.00
CA$23.00
As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle studied in Edinburgh under the vigilant eye of a diagnostic genius, Dr. Joseph Bell. Doyle often observed Bell identifying a patient’s occupation, hometown, and ailments from the smallest details of dress, gait, and speech. Although Doyle was training to be a surgeon, he was meanwhile cultivating essential knowledge that would feed his literary dreams and help him develop the most iconic detective in fiction.
Michael Sims traces the circuitous development of Conan Doyle as the father of the modern mystery, from his early days in Edinburgh surrounded by poverty and violence, through his escape to University (where he gained terrifying firsthand knowledge of poisons), leading to his own medical practice in 1882. Five hardworking years later—after Doyle's only modest success in both medicine and literature—Sherlock Holmes emerged in A Study in Scarlet.Sims deftly shows Holmes to be a product of Doyle’s varied adventures in his personal and professional life, as well as built out of the traditions of Edgar Allan Poe, Émile Gaboriau, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens—not just a skillful translator of clues, but a veritable superhero of the mind in the tradition of Doyle’s esteemed teacher.
Filled with details that will surprise even the most knowledgeable Sherlockian, Arthur and Sherlock is a literary genesis story for detective fans everywhere.
Reviews
Praise for Arthur and Sherlock
"Sim's magnificent work of scholarship isn't a birth-to-death biography of Conan Doyle but a more specific investigation . . . [which] reads something like a superhero origin story . . . Among his most intriguing explorations is his teasing out of not just Conan Doyle’s personal history but the history of the detective story itself."—The New York Times Book Review
"Fans of Sherlock Holmes who want to know about the equally remarkable man who created him can learn a good deal from Arthur and Sherlock by Michael Sims. Mr. Sims has cast a broad net over existing sources to tell the story of Conan Doyle's early life, how he came to create Holmes and the hurdles the young doctor surmounted to become one of the English-speaking world's best known authors . . . Arthur and Sherlock captures both [Joseph] Bell's central role in the making of Sherlock and Conan Doyle's unstinting gratitude to him."—The Wall Street Journal
"A warm and affectionate look at how Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the Great Detective and the Good Doctor to the world! Sims traces Holmes's literary ancestors as well as Doyle's personal contributions, producing a carefully researched but thoroughly readable work that will surely appeal to the millions of Holmes's admirers as well as students of crime-writing."—Leslie S. Klinger, Editor, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes
"Sims' story effectively retells the story of the young Doyle as something of a Holmes himself, someone who could persuade readers that 'seeming clairvoyance beyond the limits of direct knowledge was possible in the real world.'"—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sims examines Doyle's youth in Edinburgh, where he lived amid poverty and violence, as well as his university studies and medical practice. Drawing connections between the adventures in Doyle's professional life and the life of Doyle's cherished character, Arthur and Sherlock will prove fascinating to Sherlock Holmes connoisseurs, and is a 'must' for public and college library Literary Studies collections."—Midwest Book Review
"In Arthur and Sherlock Sims has written not just a wonderful narrative of the invention of a beloved character but a case study of the creative process. By following all the leads and tracking down all the clues that led Doyle to Holmes, Sims illustrates the miracle of literature."—Chapter16.org
"Sims combines his talent as a science writer and a literary critic as he traces the career of Conan Doyle under the tutelage of Dr. Joseph Bell, and traces the influence of Poe, Gaboriau, Dickens, and Collins."—Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
"Sims traces the literary influences on Doyle as well as that of surgeon and diagnostician Joseph Bell, the professor whose teachings helped Doyle create Sherlock as the first 'scientific detective.'"—Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
"A special look at the creative process through biography . . . A slim look at Conan Doyle's life and the way he used it to create a detective more scientific and observant than any other."—Chicago Now