View source for Review:Out of the Shadows/Doug Elliott


This short review was written by [[Doug Elliott]] and published in the [[Canadian Holmes]] (Vol. 28 No. 2, Winter 2004).

Doug Elliott praises Georgina Doyle's book ''Out of the Shadows'' for finally bringing [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s first wife [[Louisa Hawkins|Louise]] and their children out of historical neglect, using family letters, diaries, and photographs to provide a detailed and thought-provoking portrait of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Doyle]]'s early family life and literary rise.


== Out of the Shadows ==
[[File:canadian-holmes-2004-winter-n2-p22-out-of-the-shadows.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[Canadian Holmes]] (Vol. 28 No. 2, Winter 2004, p. 22)]]

[[Arthur Conan Doyle]] has been the subject of a wealth of biographies and one would have thought his life was well-covered by these many authors. One neglected aspect of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s life, as it turns out, has been the period of his first marriage: his relationship with his wife [[Louisa Hawkins|Louise]], and his children, [[Mary Louise Conan Doyle|Mary]] and [[Arthur Alleyne Kingsley Conan Doyle|Kingsley]]; and how the relationship with these children changed following the death of their mother in 1906. This was a particularly fruitful period of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s life — the time when he was establishing himself as a major literary figure and when he produced much of his finest work.

Happily, with ''Out of the Shadows'', [[Georgina Doyle]] is now able to enhance our understanding of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s background and early family life. Drawing on a storehouse of letters and diaries left by her husband, [[John Doyle]], the son of [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Arthur]]'s brother, [[John Francis Innes Hay Doyle|Innes]], she provides a detailed and thought-provoking account, illustrating it with more than seventy photographs from her own collection. This study does, indeed, brining [[Louisa Hawkins|Louise Conan Doyle]] and her children out of the shadows which have hidden them for far too long. 

'''Doug Elliott MBt. BSI'''









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