Conan Doyle Quits

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Conan Doyle Quits is an article published in The Sacramento Bee on 12 november 1910.

The article is about Arthur Conan Doyle's play : The Lift.


Conan Doyle Quits

The Sacramento Bee
(12 november 1910, p. 24)

Playgoers will be sorry to learn that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has decided to give up playwriting.

"I have no intention of ever again writing for the stage," Sir Arthur tells his friends. "Don't think I am leaving stage work because it does not interest me. It interests me too much. It is so absorbing that it draws one's mind away front the deeper things of life and makes it difficult to settle down steadily to any special course of reading or literary work. For those who can treat the deep matters of life dramatically it is different, but I recognize my own limitations in that respect, and so I make an absolute vow that I will not again write for the stage.

I still have in my desk a one-act play that I wrote some time ago. If it is ever produced it will have to be at my own expense. The cost of production would prevent it ever being accepted by any manager, and I'm afraid it would frighten the most experienced of stage carpenters. I called it 'The Lift.' The scene lies at the top of Eiffel Tower. All the characters must ascend and descend in a regular working lift. Entrances are perpendicular instead of horizontal. The piece ends with a startling sensation — a terrific catastrophe.

"Lately I have been very busy with stage work. You see I have produced three plays in a little more than a year. That means giving the theater pretty close attention. All three I produced entirely myself, and at my own expense, simply because I could not find a manager who would accept them on his own account.

"King Edward's death eventually knocked the life out of my play 'The House of Temperly.' [1] That made an awkward situation, for I had signed a contract to take the Adelphi Theater until the end of the season. So, as the position was serious and as I had nothing with which to replace 'Temperly,' I was compelled to make an effort, and I wrote 'The Speckled Band.' We had that drama actually in rehearsal three weeks after I had commenced it. By the way, what I would like to do, and what I probably will do, will be to take 'The House of Temperly' and its prizefight to Paris. I think they might like to see it there."





  1. Typo here, correct spelling is The House of Temperley.