CONAN DOYLE: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE CREATOR OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

(Doyle, Arthur Conan) Brown, Ivor

ISBN 10: 0241021553 / ISBN 13: 9780241021552

Published by Hamish Hamilton, London, 1972

About this Item

Octavo, pp. [i-vii] viii-xi [xii] [1] 2-145 [146-148: blank] [note: last leaf is a blank], boards. First edition. Mild bruise to tail of spine panel, else a fine copy in fine dust jacket with faint matching bruise, (#94733).

Seller Inventory # 94733

Bibliographic Details

• Title: CONAN DOYLE: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE CREATOR OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, London
• Publication Date: 1972
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241021553
• ISBN 13: 9780241021552
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mystery & Crime

About this title

Synopsis

Sherlock Holmes is a literary legend, a character known and loved all over the world, and familiar even to those who are not particularly "bookish". His amazing exploits are quoted, discussed, argued about, filmed, dramatised, analysed, and subjected to frequent academic scrutiny. What lies behind the emergence of this extraordinary character, who has so firm a grip on the world's imagination? Ivor Brown, the distinguished critic and writer, tells the story of a struggling young doctor, Arthur Conan Doyle, who was to become rich and famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and whose life was to be ruled by the demands of a public insatiable for more and more Holmes. Yet Doyle himself hated his own creation and longed to be rid of him, even killing him off at one stage and then being forced to restore him, so great was the public outcry. Doyle's own life was a colourful one, sometimes overshadowed by the Holmes cult, and Ivor Brown has put into perspective the various facets of Doyle's career as medical man, traveller, and passionate champion of many causes, for it was Conan Doyle's own experience of life which led him to write so vividly of a character with whom he had much in common. From the inside jacket flap.

About the Author

Born in 1887 at Hawford, Worcesterhire, Hesketh Pearson was educated at Bedford Grammar School, then worked in a shipping Office and spent two years in America before beginning a career as an actor in 1911. Until 1931 he worked successfully in the theatre, which provided many insights for his subsequent writing career. Pearson's early works included 'Modern Men and Mummers' which consisted of sketches of well-known figures in the theatre, and also short stories in 'Iron Rations'. 'Doctor Darwin', a biography of Darwin which was published in 1930, was widely acclaimed and established him as one of the leading popular biographers of his day. Subsequently he concentrated on his writing full-time. However, for a period of some seven years he was in the doldrums, following an unsuccessful attempt to get the title 'Whispering Gallery' published. He nonetheless persisted, and subsequently had published several important biographies of major figures, such as Conan Doyle, Gilbert and Sullivan and George Bernard Shaw. His skill and expertise was widely recognised, such that for example he was able to gain the co-operation of Shaw, who both contributed and later wrote a critique of his biography, and the executors of Conan Doyle's estate who gave Pearson unprecedented access to private papers. Pearson was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 1964. His biographies have stood the test of time and are still regarded as definitive works on their subjects.