Conan Doyle (article october 1894)
Conan Doyle is an article published in The Book Buyer in october 1894.
Conan Doyle
(october 1894, p. 420)
(october 1894, p. 421)
(october 1894, p. 422)
There has come into vogue among authors and critics, mainly in this country and during the last decade, a theory that realism in fiction and the telling of a good story, are, in some mysterious way, radically inconsistent; and an attempt has been made to separate fiction writers into two more or less antagonistic "schools" of "realists" and "romancers." In formulating this artificial distinction, the formulators ignored books like Flaubert's "Salammbo," at once the most realistic of novels of times and character and the most stirring of historical romances; but an author has arisen in the last few years who serves to illustrate by a more present example the weakness of all such attempts at classification.
In "The White Company" and in "Micah Clarke" Dr. A. Conan Doyle has produced narratives which fasten the interest from the very beginning, and which are yet such careful studies of the times and men they depict, as to be preferable, even in this respect, to most of our professedly realistic novels which pretend to no higher merit than making us minutely familiar with the lives and characters of our butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers.
Among the young Englishmen and Scotchmen who have, within the last lustrum, sprung to the forefront of the ranks of fiction, a very high — perhaps the highest place, must be conceded to the subject of this sketch. He may lack, in a measure, the aggressive virility and the quick succession of hammer-like strokes of genius which distinguish Kipling. Possibly he does not tell a better story than does Weyman; but he certainly excels them both in a masterly versatility to which (as it seems to me) no other living and perhaps no dead novelist attains. Among the great number of stories he has written, there is hardly one that can be called even comparatively feeble or tiresome, while, above and beyond these claims to preeminence, it cannot he questioned that "The Great Shadow" and "The White Company" are two really great books — entirely dissimilar in character and setting, yet each perfect of its type — books which most live beside the masterpieces of English fiction.
In the former of these — one of the most charming of stories — the description of the battle of Waterloo from the standpoint of a private soldier is fully equal to the strongest and best of Kipling's brutally realistic pictures; while in "The White Company" there is, together with an absorbing narrative, an effective study of life and manners such, I believe, as was never uttered by Scott or Bulwer or any of the writers who followed them; with the sole exception of Flaubert. The characters of "Sir Nigel Loring" and "Hordle John" are inimitable. Dr. Doyle gives two years as the time spent in studying and one hundred and fifteen as the number of works read or consulted in preparation for this romance of the times of Edward III. The English archer is its central figure — a type of soldier whose relative superiority has never been approached and before whom the then military world lay practically helpless.
In "Micah Clarke," the first of Dr. Doyle's more ambitious efforts, he falls but little short of the two books mentioned; and to fall little short of them is still to be ahead of almost everyone else. It may be suggestive to know that this tale of Monmouth's rebellion was taken from one London publisher to another, wellnigh failing of publication, though it is certainly difficult to realize how any man of supposed good judgment could fail to see the merit and probable sale of such a work.
It is possible that Conan Doyle's detective stories were what first brought him to the attention of Americans. That they are the best ever written can hardly be denied — although that may not be saying very much. The French attempts are simply absurd beside them, and most of the English and American are but little better, barring Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "Purloined Letter." Poe's "Dupin" and Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" are, in many respects, kindred characters. Even to follow in Poe's lines without either imitating or falling short, is a task possible only for the highest talent. It is safe to say that no one ever went to sleep with one of the "Sherlock Holmes" stories unfinished — and perhaps it has not always been easy to go to sleep afterward.
A few words by way of personal history may be of interest. Dr. Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859, and came of a line of artist, his grandfather, John Doyle, was the celebrated "H.B.," whose political skits were so famous that many of them have since been purchased at large prices by the British Museum. All his sons were artists and Conan Doyle's father's signature of a "D" with a little bird perched upon it (whence his nickname of "Dicky Doyle") may he seen upon the cover design of Punch. His son went to school at Stonyhurst in Lancashire, then studied in Germany, and finally completed his medical education at the University of Edinburgh. Africa, the Arctic seas and many parts of Europe have been visited by him. His first story was accepted when he was nineteen years old, and his first book, "A Study in Scarlet," was, after the customary rejections, sold outright for £25. Then came "Micah Clarke," then "The Sign of the Four," then "The White Company" — and so his reputation was firmly established. Dr. Bell, of Edinburgh, is the original of Sherlock Holmes.
There are many interesting things which could be written about Dr. Doyle love of boxing, cricket and all manly sports, and his uncompromising attitude toward those who seek to discourage them; but there is room for only a word in closing. The author who is at once romancer and novelist who is at home not only in the England of to-day, but in the Scotland of George III., the France of Louis XIV., the America of Frontenac, the England of James II., and the France and England of Edward III.; who has given so many happy hours and soothed so many unhappy ones that it is fair to say he does his duty as physician in a far wider sense than he could ever hope to in actual practice of his profession; — that man is surely not less deserving of gratitude than of admiration. It is in the nature of a privilege, and one in the exercise of which the heart joins with the judgment, to add a mite of acknowledgment to Dr. Doyle's well-deserved fame.
Duffield Osborne.
