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Created page with "{{Cargo_Reviews_Articles |Date=2000-05-01 |Book=Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street |BookAuthor=Janet B. Pascal |Reviewer=Doug Wrigglesworth |Topics=Biography }} This review of the biography ''"Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street", by Janet B. Pascal'' was written by Doug Wrigglesworth and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 10, may 2000). This review presents ''Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street'' as an a..."

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{{Cargo_Reviews_Articles
|Date=2000-05-01
|Book=Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street
|BookAuthor=Janet B. Pascal
|Reviewer=Doug Wrigglesworth
|Topics=Biography
}}
This review of the biography ''"Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street", by Janet B. Pascal'' was written by [[Doug Wrigglesworth]] and published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000).

This review presents ''Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street'' as an accessible biography for younger readers that highlights [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s adventurous life beyond [[Sherlock Holmes]]. It praises the book's breadth, illustrations, and educational value, while noting that some complex relationships and themes are treated without much depth.

== Review ==
[[File:Acd-society-journal-2000-vol10-p84-review-wrigglesworth.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000, p. 84)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-2000-vol10-p85-review-wrigglesworth.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000, p. 85)]]

: [[File:Oxford-2000-acd-beyond-sherlock-holmes-pascal.jpg|100px]]
: '''Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond Baker Street'''
: Janet B. Pascal
: Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2000; 160pp.
: ISBN: 0-19-512262-3; U.S.$30.00

'''Reviewed by Doug Wrigglesworth'''

The goal of the effective educator is to provide experiences for students that are at once relevant, engaging, and challenging enough to be worthwhile. His life of adventure and romance has made [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] an engaging subject for the Oxford Portraits series of biographies for young adults. These accounts of the lives of notable men and women are designed and written to appeal to (and to be accessible to) students at the middle school and early secondary school level.

Janet Pascal has certainly used [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]]'s adventurous life to good effect in this slim volume. She has resisted the temptation to appeal to her young audience by presenting a [[Sherlock Holmes]] book that is only incidentally about the life of the creator. This book describes the complete [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]] as a young student and physician, as an adventurer, a family man, a sportsman, a patriot, a searcher for spiritual truth — as well as an accomplished author of a wide variety of material. The language level is quite suitable for its audience, without being juvenile — although one wonders at the need to describe cricket as a game resembling baseball, while omitting to clarify references to football and hockey as enjoyed by [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]].

Short excerpts from [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]]'s works are included at appropriate locations throughout the book. These include passages from [[The Stark Munro Letters]], three [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories, and two [[Professor Challenger|Challenger]] stories. A passage from [[Brigadier Gerard]] would have rounded these out nicely.

Family relationships, such as those with the Ma'am', with [[Jean Elizabeth Leckie|Jean Leckie]] during his first marriage, and with his Catholic extended family are all treated sensitively, but with considerable candour. Understandably, however, considering the audience and the length of the book, there is not a great deal of depth in the treatment of some of the more complex relationships in [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]]'s life. He is pictured throughout as the open, honest, rather bluff and shy man who was so widely admired during his lifetime. His commitment to the Spiritualist cause is sensitively described, although the chapter title, taken from [[The Land of Mist]] — 'Homo Sapiens! Homo Idioticus!' — rather questionably introduces the material that follows.

The book is generously illustrated, with many photographs not commonly seen in more formal biographies. Picture credits list Richard Lancelyn Green as the source for many of these unusual scenes in [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]]'s life, such as that of the young doctor in front of 1 Bush Villas in Southsea. While the emphasis on the adventurous life of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]] rather than [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] is most commendable, in a search for relevance for a young audience it might have been helpful to include a few more contemporary illustrations of the [[Sherlock Holmes]]. phenomenon — certainly more contemporary than those of [[Basil Rathbone|Rathbone]] and [[Nigel Bruce|Bruce]], and less juvenile than Shemlock Hemlock. I would also suspect that the cover photograph of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|ACD]] in his Boer War garb, complete with topi, might garner some snickers from late twentieth century youngsters.

I hope that some of the young readers for whom this worthy. biography is intended are persuaded to delve more deeply into the life and works of [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]. Those who do will share with so many others the pleasures of discovering an adventurous life — and some thrilling stories.

Doug Wrigglesworth

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