Letters to Conan Doyle (report 1 november 1894)
Letters to Conan Doyle is an article published in The Boston Globe on 1 november 1894.
Report of the lecture "Readings and Reminiscences" given by Arthur Conan Doyle on 31 october 1894 at the Association Hall, Boston (USA).
Letters to Conan Doyle
Vindictive About Killing Sherlock Holmes.
Confiding, Asking for Locks of the Great Detective's Hair.
Admiring, Seeking Author's Aid in Solving Great Mysteries.
Dr A. Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, Micah Clarke, Capt Ephraim Savage and other equally Interesting characters in fiction, gave some personal reminiscences and readings from his own works in Association hall last evening. Every seat was occupied.
Dr Doyle is 6 ft 2 in tall, and yet so well proportioned that his form is an attractive one. His large, handsome face leaves a distinctly English impression on the beholder. His voice is clear and pleasing, and his accent so slight that none of his words are indistinct, as is often the case when men who have lived all their lives in England speak to Americans.
When Dr Doyle was a very little child Thackeray was a visitor in his father's home, and the novelist last night explained that that was his earliest "literary experience." "Considering that Thackeray died before I was four years old I count myself fortunate that I can say that I am one of the few men living who have sat on his knee."
Dr Doyle explained that it was his mother's influence that undoubtedly led him into his first literary venture, at the age of 6 years. He then started to write a book. It was on foolscap paper and written in a large, bold hand, about four words to the line. Dr Doyle remembered that he had in the book a man and a tiger, but when the man and the tiger came together they were so blended that he could not separate them.
As a school boy he was an omnivorous reader. While he was a youth a rule was made by a local circulating library, probably for his benefit, that no reader would be permitted to change his book oftener than three times a day.
Dr Doyle was very grateful for the opportunity to do all this reading, for he believed that the impressions of youth stand out more vividly and clearly than those gained later in life.
It was at this period in his life that he learned to set his Euclid in front of him on the desk and lay a story book on his knees. This gave him the faculty of "doing one thing when seeming to do another."
In 1878 Dr Doyle sent a short story to a small provincial paper. He confidently expected that it would be returned, "and I am not sure now but that that might have been the best thing for me."
However, it was not sent back, "and the small sum that I received from the editor enrolled me in the great army of authors."
In the 10 years following he wrote stories, and made an Arctic whaling trip and some other excursions to odd parts of the earth. In those days it was the practice to write short stories under an alias, and as a result of this Dr Doyle in 10 years was still almost unknown as an author.
He had no doubt that by thus writing under a nom de plume he had escaped a great deal of unpleasant criticism, but he regarded criticism as of distinct and great value to all authors.
It was in this time that he had the good fortune to have a story printed by Cornhill, one of the great English magazines. Meeting a friend on the street one day the friend said: "Have you. seen what they say of your story in Cornhill?"
"No,"
said Doyle, assuming an air of modesty. "What do they say?"
Then his friend read to him a critic's opinion: "The story by Conan Doyle in Cornhill is enough to make Thackeray turn over in his grave."
Dr Doyle concluded that he must write a book, a real serious literary composition, if he would become known as an author, and so he wrote the book.
Here mention of Sherlock Holmes came naturally into the talk.
"It was about this time that a very good friend appeared to me, to whom I am afraid I have shown rather scant courtesy. I refer to the late Mr Sherlock Holmes."
Dr Doyle had read a good many detective stories, but when he had finished them they left an unsatisfactory sensation, as if they lacked some essential quality. After thinking some time on the subject he came to the conclusion that he could invent a detective who would be a greater detective than those that figured in the books he had read.
In looking about for a model of his character he naturally thought of his old professor in college, Dr Bell. Here the speaker gave a number of interesting reminiscences of Dr Bell, and of his extraordinary analysis and logic.
Of Edgar Allan Poe Dr Doyle said that he was the inventor of the detective in fiction, for it was he who stowed that a story may be the extreme in sensationalism and yet aspire to the plane of real literature.
Some readings from the adventures of Sherlock Holmes followed, and then Dr Doyle said:
"All this power of deduction seems very superficial, no doubt, but really it in not so. Just to let you understand what I mean I will relate an incident to the career of this man. On the scene of a great crime his friend Watson picked up a plug of tobacco and said, 'See what I have found.' 'Yes,' said Holmes, 'and I observe that it is a plug of tobacco from a meerschaum pipe.'
"Now, how did he know it was from a meerschaum pipe?"
After the publication of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr Doyle said, he received letters from all parts of the world, even from Australia and from western America, asking him to come and solve mysteries. So far he had not been able to comply with any of these requests.
In time Sherlock Holmes became a burden to Dr Doyle, and he was compelled to kill him to get rid of him. After that he received a great number of letters of the most vindictive kind, and others asking for locks of Holmes' hair. One person even asked for a set of photographs taken at various times in the life of Holmes.
Dr Doyle said that the historical romance had always appealed most to him, and he gave his idea of what a historical romance should be. His first work of this kind he had great difficulty in finding a publisher for, but was finally successful. As showing the amount of labor involved in the production of one of these books, he said that before he put pen on paper for "The White Company" he read through carefully 115 books.
In speaking of "The Refugees" Dr Doyle paid an eloquent tribute to the "noblest race of savages that ever lived,"
the Iroquois Indians.
An interesting circumstance In connection with this book was the fact that long after it was placed on the market Thomas Savage of Boston wrote him and furnished documentary proof that an ancestor of his, Capt Ephraim Savage, had lived in New England in the time the book represented.
Dr Doyle closed by saying that while the profession of letters offers nothing like the money reward that law an medicine do, it was a very great satisfaction to be able to carry one's business around with him under his hat.
So many requests have been made for a return visit from Dr Doyle that manager Pond has canceled other engagements in order that the lecturer may return here for a matinee and evening appearance on Tuesday, Nov 20.
