Multiple Reviewing
Multiple Reviewing is an article written by W. Robertson Nicoll published in The Bookman in july 1899.
The article includes opinions about "multiple reviewing" by various authors, including Arthur Conan Doyle.
Below is the opinion from Arthur Conan Doyle only:
Multiple Reviewing
By A. Conan Doyle.
The interesting subject which Dr. Nicoll has chosen as a theme for discussion might well be thrashed out independently, but he has, I observe, prefixed it by a paragraph which makes it appear to have been the point which was recently at issue between us. That is not so. Multiple reviewing is in itself a minor abuse. The major abuse is multiple reviewing when the reviewer uses sometimes one nom-de-plume, sometimes another, sometimes his own, and sometimes none, so as, consciously or not, to mislead the public into the idea that it has read many different opinions. How such a proceeding can for an instant be defended I cannot imagine, and it is only fair to the press to say that while the matter was being thrashed out very few journals did defend it, and those who did appeared to misunderstand my point.
This is a matter quite apart from the value of the criticism. If a man were Matthew Arnold and Sainte-Beuve rolled into one, it is no reason why he should break the elementary law against impersonation. By an extension of this process, that is, by the same man influencing some journals as editor, and writing in others under different names as critic, it is possible for a single man to obtain an influence which, however honestly and impartially he may wish to exercise it, is an evil thing for the independence of literature. In the republic of letters we need critics, but not autocrats.
Dr. Robertson Nicoll finishes his article, I observe, by a direct challenge to his critics to give the name of the reviewer and the journals which have published multiple reviews. He must know that I have already given both the one and the other over my own name in the correspondence which his suggested this discussion. I should prefer not to repeat them, for personalities are odious to me, but when challenged to give a concrete example, I do not know how to avoid them. I may say, however, that my inquiries since that discussion, and the letters which I have had from numerous correspondents, convince me that I did not state the case unfairly, but that I did a good and (in spite of all assertions to the contrary) an impersonal service to literature in giving the matter publicity. Honesty compels me to add, however, that, granted a system which is vicious, Dr. Nicoll has used his position with moderation and sometimes with generosity.
