Through the Magic Door - Softcover

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1605973564 ISBN 13: 9781605973562

Publisher: Book Jungle, 2008

Synopsis

Although Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, he also wrote many other books including a science fiction series and several non-fiction works. This little known volume is a tour of Doyle's bookcase. He talks about the authors and their books he cherishes and their affect on his life. Doyle opens with the following. "I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland. Surely there would be something eerie about a line of books were it not that familiarity has deadened our sense of it. Each is a mummified soul embalmed in cere-cloth and natron of leather and printer's ink. Each cover of a true book enfolds the concentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have faded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable dust, yet here are their very spirits at your command."

About this title

Book Description:

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) takes the reader on a tour of his own bookshelf in this entertaining collection of essays, first published in 1907. Stressing the importance of reading, poetic licence and above all a pragmatic approach, this book is a glimpse into the mind that created Sherlock Holmes.

About the Author:

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. Sent off to boarding school, he cut his teeth as a story-teller amusing his schoolmates with tales and writing letters home to his mother. He practiced medicine and, in 1900, volunteered as a medic in Africa during the Boer War – he was later knighted for his service. Doyle lost a son, two brothers in law, and two nephews to the Great War. He is remembered for the Sherlock Holmes stories and his novel The Lost World.

About this edition

• Publisher: Book Jungle
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1605973564
• ISBN 13: 9781605973562
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 124