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''The Society Aims'' is an article written by [[Julian Symons]] published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 1 No. 1, september 1989).

This article defines the mission of the [[The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003)|Arthur Conan Doyle Society]], arguing that [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] should be valued far beyond [[Sherlock Holmes]] and calling for renewed attention to his neglected non-Holmes works. It also presents practical goals for that revival, including reprints, critical introductions, fresh scholarship, and eventually a fuller biography of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]].

== The Society Aims ==
[[File:acd-society-journal-1989-09-p11-the-society-s-aims.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 1 No. 1, september 1989, p. 11)]]
[[File:acd-society-journal-1989-09-p12-the-society-s-aims.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 1 No. 1, september 1989, p. 12)]]

The invitation to become President of the [[The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003)|Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] on its foundation was an unexpected honour. If I were asked to name a single reason for my acceptance it would be this: among a hundred people stopped at random in the street, ninety would be able to identify [[Sherlock Holmes]] as a fictional detective, while no more than ten would be likely to know the name of his creator. I can't think of another writer so thoroughly submerged by the fame of a character, and a principal aim of the Society must surely be to show that there was a great deal more to [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] than [[Sherlock Holmes]].

That is not in any way to denigrate the [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] canon, which certainly includes many of the finest crime stories ever written, nor to deny that [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] found an artistic freedom in his creation, even though he did not fully realise this himself. Yet their fame has done him a literary dis-service, throwing his reputation out of balance so that the [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] stories are endlessly reprinted while the rest of his oeuvre is almost forgotten. [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] was a short story writer of immense skill and variety, and an acknowledgement of this must be one of the Society's first objectives. It is hardly credible, yet it is true, that the wonderfully inventive and often brilliantly comic volumes of Brigadier Gerard stories are presently out of print. A selection of his sporting tales, including The Croxley Master one of the half-dozen finest boxing stories ever written, would surely find an appreciative modern audience, and there must be at least one volume to be chosen from his adventure stories, and another from tales of terror and the supernatural.

What may be called [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s excursions into early science fiction. The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Maracot Deep and The Land of Mist, are in print, but the rest of his novels seem to be regarded by publishers as lost causes or dead ducks. This is, I believe, because no publisher has approached them with passionate enthusiasm plus a proper critical selectiveness. It is probably true that the historical novels their author valued as the peak of his achievement are too stiffly conventional in dialogue and characterisation to find an audience today, but that does not apply to Rodney Stone, the finest testimony to [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s knowledge of boxing (he thought only a fighting man could appreciate some of the detail), or to the early Stark Munro Letters, or one of my own favourites, that novel of social manners, A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus. For their successful revival these books need introductions by well-known novelists and critics, which would place [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] in the context of Victorian writing for although he lived and wrote until 1930, his beliefs and attitudes were emphatically Victorian.

When all that has been achieved, one might consider a volume of odds and ends, including his writings in support of Edalji and Oscar Slater, a selection of letters, extracts from his war histories....

I should stress that this is a personal view of things I should like the Society to attempt. Others, including Christopher Roden the Society's founder, may feel other aspects of a [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] revival to be more important. The Journal will be one of the most valuable ways of providing new information, and generating fresh interest, about the man and his writings.

Perhaps it will lead to a new biography. Several have been written, a chatty impressionistic one by Hesketh Pearson, an over-pious one by [[John Dickson Carr]], an intelligent although generally unsympathetic one by Ronald Pearsall, a biography plus critical assessment by Pierre Nordon, but none seems to comprehend the whole of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] as a man. It is right to point out his blemishes, the failures of understanding that found the Russian Revolution of 1917 an almost inconceivable event, thought Epstein represented artistic anarchy, and wrote of the stupendous achievement of the British at the battle of the Somme. As I have said, [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] was a Victorian. But the failures were of understanding, never of feeling nor of courage. He really did embody the Victorian values talked about recently, including personal generosity and indignation about injustice. The last phrases of a short book I wrote about him still seem apt:

A French journalist once called him the good giant, and the phrase fits him perfectly. ... in his work and in his personality he is the ideal representative of the Victorian era to which he belonged.

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