Dr. Conan Doyle on "Fiction"
Dr. Conan Doyle on "Fiction" is an article published in The Western Daily Press on 7 december 1893.
Report of the lecture "Facts about Fiction" given by Arthur Conan Doyle on 6 december 1893 at the Victoria Rooms (Clifton, Bristol, UK).
Report
There was a fair attendance at the Victoria Rooms, Clifton, last night, when Dr. Conan Doyle, the novelist, gave a lecture on "Facts about Fiction." Mr. C. H. B. Elliot presided, and in the course of a few introductory remarks, he said he imagined most of those present had introduced themselves to the lecturer through the medium of his books, and he knew well he could assure him on their behalf how heartily they welcomed him in person. (Cheers.) Dr. Conan Doyle then proceeded with his discourse, which greatly interested the audience, who expressed their gratification at the extracts read from different authors by applause. He said that as fiction was too vast a field to cover in a chat of an hour or so, he would confine his remarks to the fiction of the present day, and further curtail them by treating only of the work of the younger writers — those whose work might possibly have reached maturity by the beginning of the coming century. They would excuse him if it was a very bird's eye view which he might be able to give them. With the younger authors, promise must be taken into account almost as much as performance, and the history of literature had been often a history of unredeemed promises. There had been wails from the critical press about the decay of their literature ; but critics had ever taken a gloomy view of the era in which they had lived. In surveying the literature of the day, it was impossible to deny that they had no writers who held the public mind as Dickens and Thackeray did. In Meredith and Hardy they had writers of exceptional power ; but it would be idle to claim for them any place commensurate with that held by their two great predecessors. But it was no less a fact that fiction had as an art improved ; writers had a more clear conception of the laws which governed it, and if very great writers were wanting, the average might possibly remain as high as ever. If the last generation of novelists were largely under the influence of Dickens, it was not less true that that which had sprung up was largely tinged with Robert Louis Stevenson, who was one of the few British writers equally successful in the short tale and the long. Having illustrated some of the characteristics of Stevenson, the lecturer said a writer who it seemed to him had struck a deeper note than his, and couched it in a style not inferior to his, was Miss Olive Schreiner, as shown is the "Romance of an African Farm," one of the greatest books written by a woman. If ever a woman used her heart for an ink pot it was Miss Schreiner. J. M. Barrie, whom Scotland produced, was a writer of a keen insight into the character of her people, with so kindly a hand in drawing their little weaknesses, and sympathetic a touch in picturing their joys and sorrows. His style was in many ways the model of what a style should be ; there was a simplicity which was the outcome of the highest art. Another writer of the highest promise it would be impossible to omit in any estimate of young authors, was Mr Quiller-Couch, or "Q" as so generally called himself. A writer whore precise value it was more difficult to assess that any he had spoken of, as if his virtues were more pronounced his faults were more obvious, was Mr Rudyard Kipling. When they recollected that he was only 27 years of age, they could say that they had no man since Dickens who showed such brilliant promise at so early an age. There were many other young men who might well come to his mind ; he had said enough to show that the waifs of the pessimist were uncalled for, and there were some goodly saplings springing up in the old forest. His last extract was from Mr Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat," in which the difficulties of finding one's way out of the Maze at Hampton Court are amazingly described. He thought Mr Jerome had not had the justice done from the critics which he had from the public.
