A Duet with an Occasional Chorus (ACD Journal vol. 2 No. 1)
A Duet with an Occasional Chorus [Vol. 2 No. 1] is an article written by Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 2 No. 1, spring 1991).
This closing editorial reflects on Arthur Conan Doyle's unusually clean manuscripts and welcomes the wider availability of facsimiles such as The Dying Detective and The Lion's Mane. It also links that manuscript interest to a broader hope that the 1990s will bring renewed appreciation, republication, and serious reading of Conan Doyle's work beyond old literary limits.
Article
Closing Editorial Comment
Most people who try their hand at writing come to appreciate the occasional frustration of "writer's block" an expression used to describe those moments when ideas just will not flow: moments which, at best, are momentary and, at worst, are likely to lead to long hours confronted by nothing more inspiring than a blank sheet of paper. Many will also, probably, have ended one or two particular efforts with more crossings-out and alterations to their manuscripts than words in the finished article.
Arthur Conan Doyle, it seems, suffered very rarely from such problems: his prodigious output speaks for itself and his written pages bear witness to the clarity of mind he possessed when it came to the written word.
The first Conan Doyle manuscript to become generally available in facsimile form, albeit in a restricted edition, was The Priory School. That volume was notable for its neatness of appearance, legibility and lack of alteration. Quite how Conan Doyle managed to complete a piece of this nature, with so few amendments, is something at which we can only marvel.
Admirers of Conan Doyle now have an added bonus: the recent deposit of The Dying Detective and The Lion's Mane with Marylebone Library will ensure not only that researchers have access, via microfilm, to the original versions of these two short stories, but also, more importantly that, with the owner's agreement, facsimile reproductions can be made available on a wider scale than has previously been the case with publications of this nature.
The Arthur Conan Doyle Society is honoured to be involved with the production of the facsimile of The Dying Detective a volume which, apart from the Society's association, will carry an introduction written by our President, Mr. Julian Symons.
The 1990s will, I believe, be the period in which appreciation of Arthur Conan Doyle, particularly appreciation of his writings, is extended far beyond the narrow boundaries by which it has previously been restricted.
Times change. Readers are not necessarily content with works which the Establishment tells them they ought to read, nor with books with which the largest wholesalers choose to flood the market. Publishing trends also change. In Britain, we shall shortly witness the end of the Net Book Agreement which has governed the selling price of new books for many years. The wholesalers tell us that this will lead to greater book sales — if that is the case, it is to be hoped that it will also lead to publishers of greater vision than has been evident in recent years: vision to reprint many of the lost Classics, including those major works of Conan Doyle which have, for too long, been out of print.
Methods of producing manuscripts change too. Today's writer is helped (at least, more often than not!) by the aids of modern technology: computers, word processors and desk-top publishing systems. All of this means that we, too, can produce completed manuscripts with barely an error — and for many of us that is as near as we shall come to comparing any of our work with that of A.C.D.!
One wonders how A.C.D. would have produced his manuscripts today. It seems that he rarely, if ever, used a typewriter and he would, perhaps, also have ignored the word-processor. But why, after all, should he have concerned himself with technological innovation designed to assist the writer when his manuscripts, both in appearance and content, could barely be surpassed?
Christopher Roden
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
