On and Off the Rails with Jean and Arthur Conan Doyle
On and Off the Rails with Jean an Arthur Conan Doyle is an article written by Philip Weller published in "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle : Viaggio in Italia / Italian Journey" edited by Gianluca Salvatori, Enrico Solito & Roberto Vianello, in 2012 (Bobi Bazlen Edizion).
On and Off the Rails with Jean an Arthur Conan Doyle
Picture Albums of Sveum's Collection
An Introduction by Philip Weller.
In recent years members of Uno Studio in Holmes (USIH) have made remarkable advances in developing studies of the connections which exist between Arthur Conan Doyle (ACD) and Italy. The latest in this series of investigations was made possible when the well-known scholar and collector, Doctor Richard J Sveum of Minnesota, allowed members of USIH to have access to the two, large, photograph-postcard-picture Albums which are part of his collection. This article is intended to introduce these Albums in preparation for specialist members of USIH to discuss the Italian elements of those Albums. The two Albums, hereafter referred to individually as Album 1 and Album 2, seem to be concerned mostly with journeys from England to the Mediterranean, with Album 1 seeming to be linked very directly with ACD's 1907 honeymoon tour of various countries with his second wife, Jean. Album 2 (see cover below) includes areas already covered in Album 1, but adds more Continental locations and includes some locations from the UK. Many of the images in each Album have been crudely stuck into the Albums, at non-squared off angles, using tape and even blobs of what seems to be postal wax. Some of the images, especially in Album 2, have become warped, as if contaminated with water.
There have been some questions as to whether the Albums primarily cover one, two or more journeys to the Mediterranean. In his autobiography, ACD mentions that, after his marriage to Jean:
- Years of peaceful work followed my marriage, broken only by two journeys to the Mediterranean, in the course of which we explored some out-of-the-way portions of Greece and visited Egypt, where I found hardly one single man left of all the good fellows whom I had once known. [1]
We know from other sources that ACD and Jean were on honeymoon, on a roundabout journey, via the Mediterranean, to Constantinople, from their wedding on 18 September 1907 until their return to England on 14 November 1907. Album 1, however, includes no coverage of Egypt. There is, though, a photograph of the Temple of Ramses II in Album 2, and there are clear indications that ACD and Jean did make a second Mediterranean journey which included Egypt, in the late-Spring and early-Summer of 1913, and there are other, shorter journeys which are covered in Album 2.
Album 1 contains 146 images, mounted on 61 pages (with up to eight small photos on some pages, but with only one large or small image on other pages), comprising 76 commercially produced postcards and pictures, and, most importantly, 69 personal photographs. Most of the personal photos have clearly been taken with ACD's own camera, and they consist only of small contact prints (each photo is printed the same size as each frame of the film negative). There are a few other personal photos which have clearly been taken with other cameras. There is also a dinner menu from ACD's sea voyage to Constantinople. Album 1 includes pictures from (in purely alphabetical order): Athens, Budapest, Constantinople (now Istanbul), Dresden, Naples, Nisch (now Niš in Serbia), Paris, Pompeii, Posillipo, Rome, Smyrna (now Izmir), Venice, Vienna and various shipboard scenes. It will be proposed below that all of the locations of Album 1 can reasonably be fitted into the journey to Constantinople which ACD and Jean made in 1907.
Album 2 contains 67 images, comprising 64 commercially produced postcards and pictures and a handwritten note dated 1919, unconnected with any journey. There are only two personal photographs: one of ACD holding a possum in Australia (almost certainly from his visit to Adelaide in 1920) and a sentimental photograph of David Lloyd George accepting a flower from a little girl. Album 2 contains pictures from (again in purely alphabetical order): Athens, Avignon, Bowness (English Lake District), Callander (Scotland), Egypt (the Temple of Ramses II), Florence, Grange-over-Sands (English Lake District), Gretna Green (English-Scottish border), Innsbruck, La Turbie (French Riviera), Larissa (Greece), Monte Carlo, Mycenae (Greece), Oban (Scotland), Peebles (Scotland), Pontefract (Northern England), Rome, St Albans (Southern England), Versailles and Venice. It would be almost impossible to fit all of these locations (even discounting the English and Scottish sites), into ACD's 1907 journey, and it is therefore strongly suggested that Album 2 consists of images from the second journey to the Mediterranean (including Egypt) which ACD mentioned in his autobiography, and images from other holidays in Europe and the UK.
This particular image, of the Temple of Ramses II, causes a major problem with the dating of pictures, in that there seems to be no reliable published evidence for ACD having visited Egypt during the 1907 honeymoon trip. One Doylean biographer has, however, suggested that ACD and Jean did visit Egypt in 1907, and this will be considered in depth when the images in Album 2 are discussed morefully below.
There are additional problems with the two Albums. The images in the Albums are not in a chronological or geographical order, although there are some clumping together of images from certain areas in places. There are clear indications that images have been moved within the Albums, and that some of the original images are almost certainly now missing. Album 1 typifies this situation by starting with a photograph which is not taken with ACD's usual camera, and where the location is almost impossible to determine, in place or time. This is followed, shortly afterwards, by four personal photos taken in Saxon Switzerland, in Eastern Germany, with ACD's usual camera, and those are followed by two postcards of Paris.
A journey which involved travelling to Saxon Switzerland, and then travelling back to Paris before heading for the Mediterranean would be ridiculous. In Album 1 we also have the problem that for some of the major locations we have personal photographs and commercially produced pictures and postcards, whilst for other major locations we have only commercially produced pictures and postcards. The reason for this could be that carrying a camera in 1907 was not as easy as it is now, but it may also be the case that with some of the photo-less locations there was not time enough to reach points which gave the best views of the best sites. If it is accepted that Album 2 is mostly, if not totally, of holidays taken after the 1907 journey, to the Mediterranean and within the UK, it will be seen that no personal camera was used on those holidays.
There is very little textual evidence about ACD's two Mediterranean journeys. The most important clues are for the 1907 journey, and a possible itinerary for that journey will be proposed here. We know that ACD and Jean left for their honeymoon on 18 September 1907, or very shortly thereafter. Near the beginning of Album 1 we have two postcards of Paris. It is possible that these postcards were obtained in Paris on the outbound journey, with there being plenty of time for this, or they could have been obtained on the return journey, as we know for certain that the couple stayed there on their return journey, as will be shown below.
For what may well have been the next location covered in Album 1, we have the help of ACD's eldest child, Mary. She was sent out to Dresden at the end of September 1907, to study music. It might be noted that Jean had visited Dresden before, as she had studied music there (and in Florence), when she was younger. On 18 October Mary sent a letter to her younger brother, Kingsley, in which she wrote:
- Dear Old Kingsley,
- I saw Daddy and Jean when I arrived. They were both looking very flourishing and happy (!!) They were living in the finest suite – private bathroom etc! But then – old Daddy deserves a good holiday. He has not had one for long enough. Jean was looking very well and pretty. [2]
Mary was, in fact, referring back to having met her father on 30 September 1907, as he presented her with a book on that occasion, The Light of Asia: The Life and Teaching of Gautama, which was inscribed with a rather dour sentiment and that date. [3]
Mary was being very good-hearted in referring to her father in the way that she did, as, many years later, she told her very close cousin, John Reinhold Innes Doyle, that she had been sent to Dresden to keep her out of the way of Jean, and her father did not allow her to come home for Christmas in 1907. [4] One should note, however, that ACD, was clearly besotted by his much younger new wife, and it will be seen that he was spoiling Jean at great lengths, in staying at some of the finest hotels in Europe during this journey.
We do have four personal photographs involving ACD and Jean enjoying the beauties of the rocky countryside around Dresden, in Eastern Germany, overlooking the River Elbe, in an area which is now the Saxon Switzerland National Park.
The next locational indication which we have in Album 1 begins our journey through Italy, in Venice. Here we have eight personal photographs taken by ACD or Jean in that city, which will be dealt with in depth in the specialist section by my colleague, Ivo Lombardo. Firstly, however, we need to consider how ACD and Jean got from Dresden to Venice, and we need to do that within the context of the other Album 1 images.
An easy and extremely interesting railway route from Dresden to Venice passes through Prague (one could also reach Prague from Dresden, travelling in a comfortable steamer on the River Elbe, surrounded by magnificent scenery). From Prague (which does not appear in the Albums) one could easily reach Vienna and then change at Budapest to reach Venice by train, which would account for the nine postcards of Vienna and the five postcards of Budapest in Album 1. It would, however, have been much easier for ACD and Jean to have travelled more directly from Vienna to Venice, using a luxury train, and it is easily possible to account for a visit to Budapest on the journey back to England from Constantinople. This possibility is strengthened by the fact that the Budapest postcards appear towards the end of Album 1. That return journey would also account for another unusual, singular postcard, giving a panoramic view of Nisch (now Niš) in Serbia, with that postcard also towards the end of the Album 1. We have thus presented a reasonable and practical proposal for the journey to Venice.
We know that ACD and Jean stayed there, from a letter which ACD wrote to his mother on 9 October.
- Hotel Royal Danieli
- We have had a fine time and our plans open out as they go.
- I have this Crusader book before my eyes and am anxious to see Byzantium & possibly a wee bit of Asia Minor. As we have abandoned our winter trip I thought it better to push on now, since we are half way.
- It will be a great adventure. So far I can see my dates, today being Wednesday, we leave on Friday, spend till Monday in Rome getting passports &c, reach Naples (Parkers Hotel) that evening, and leave by Austrian boat the next Monday 21st reaching Constantinople the 26th & touching at Athens and Smyrna on the way. How long I stay there will depend on my material. Then home by direct rail as swiftly as possible. [5]
This letter shows us that ACD and Jean were still enjoying the high life, in staying at this still-famous and magnificent hotel in Venice. There are eight personal photographs showing ACD and Jean enjoying the usual tourist spots. The letter also shows that ACD had reached Venice by 9th October at the latest, and they will thus have had plenty of time to travel from Dresden (having arrived in Dresden before 30th September), and possibly it also reveals that ACD had changed his original plan, as he seems to have intended travelling through the Winter. That in turn typifies the way in which he often changed plans which he had previously sent to others, and it will be seen that he does that again during this journey. If he is having to waste valuable holiday time in Rome in getting passports, et cetera, presumably for Greece or Turkey or the Balkans, as he had not originally planned to travel to some of the places which he eventually visited. He does not seem to have produced his "Crusader" book.
His programme seems clear for the weeks ahead: leaving Venice on 11th September and reaching Rome on the same day. For Rome, we have 10 commercially produced pictures or postcards and 18 personal photographs, which will be covered in depth by my colleague, Stefano Guerra.
ACD and Jean were due to leave Rome on 14th October and reach Naples on the same day. Here we have 14 commercially produced pictures and postcards, and 12 personal photographs, which will be covered in the specialist sections.
ACD and Jean were due to sail from Naples on 21st October, visiting Athens, of which there are six personal photos, including one of Jean posing amongst the ruins).
They also visited Smyrna (now Izmir) and were due to reach Constantinople on 26th October. As will be seen below, ACD later expected to spend very little time in Constantinople, but that situation also changed. There are numerous personal photographs taken onboard various ships, including photos which appear to be from a different camera to that of ACD, with some of the photos clearly involving other passengers.
The next information which we have is also from a letter, sent by ACD to his mother, towards the end of their sea voyage, with no date being given:
- Deutche Mittelmeer-Levante Linie
- We near the end of our very pleasant voyage and we now come in to Smyrna. The island of Lesbos on one side, Chios on the other, where Sappho lived and poetry first rose...
- Jean is in great form & enjoys every hour of it. We spend some hours at Smyrna and then on to Constantinople. From all I hear we shall not want to stay there long. I may make for Jerusalem & see the other end of the Crusade. All our plans are very unsettled. [6]
We have a dinner menu for their ship, the Express Paquebot (Fast Packet) Stambul, in Album 1, which indicates that ACD and Jean were still on their steamer for dinner on 26th October.
We know that ACD and Jean were due to arrive in Constantinople on 26th October, but it seems, from this dinner menu, that they may not have disembarked until the day after that, as it is reasonable to assume that they kept this menu as a souvenir of their last night on the Stambul, and they would surely not have disembarked after dinner. The menu also indicates why, within a fortnight or so, he referred to himself in a letter to his mother as being a "... lazy and well-fed beast ..." ! [7]
We also see from his letter that ACD and Jean spent only a few hours in Smyrna, but they managed to collect nine postcards from that visit for Album 1, which indicates that they would have been prepared to do the same with short stops at other locations in the Albums. Can this be an example of one of those fast processing studio photographic services where tourists have their photograph taken in costume, with the hand-coloured results being available very quickly, or did ACD or Jean just recognise the remarkable likeness in this postcard?
We know for certain that ACD had arrived in Constantinople by 1st November at the latest (although it is probable that they arrived on 27th October), from a letter which he sent to his mother on 2nd November 1907:
- Péra Palace, Constantinople
- Yesterday we went to see the Sultan drive to his prayers – a fine sight. When we returned I was sent for. He could not see me as it was Ramadan, the Holy month, but I saw his Chief Secretary and his Master of Ceremonies. They said the Sultan read all my stuff and wanted me to send him a complete Edition. He then went to the Sultan, returned, & said that His Majesty wanted to give me the Order of the Medjidie and Jean the order of the Saverhat (or some such name). He handed me my very gorgeous, diamond insignia at once. Jean is to have hers in a day or so. We were both very pleased. [8]
This indicates that, assuming that Jean's award did not arrive until two days later, they may have stayed in Constantinople from 27th October until at least 4th November, which is a change from ACD's previously stated expectation that they would "...not want to stay there long." [9] It also provides another example of ACD's extremely rude attitude towards official awards, in that he does not remember the name of the award given to Jean. It will be recalled that when ACD was offered the Italian equivalent of a knighthood (Cavaliere of the Order of the Crown of Italy), in 1895, he wrote to his mother, on 25th January 1895, saying:
- I had a letter from an Italian agent offering me a decoration (!) if I would allow Signor Crispi's paper to translate "The Naval Treaty" story. It is funny, is it not? I wonder what it will be "Knight Commander of the Imperial Order of the Iron Crown of Lombardy" would do for me. [10]
Even after ACD had received this award he wrote, in a letter to a friend, Amy Hoare, on 24th April 1895, saying: "Are you aware, Madame, that I am a Cavalier if it's only a Cavaliere Rusticana." [11]
We also note from ACD's letter to his mother from Constantinople, that he is, once again, staying at a world famous hotel, even if he downgraded it slightly in mis-naming it. It was, perhaps, less by choice than by limitation that ACD and Jean stayed there. Prior to the first trip of the Express d'Orient train, which was soon to become the Orient Express, there was no suitably highclass hotel in Constantinople for the sort of pampered passengers who would travel on such a luxury train. The owner of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagon-Lit, Georges Nagelmackers, who developed luxury train services all over the world, ordered the building of the company's own hotel, the Grand Péra Palace Hotel, close to the main Sirkeci Station in Constantinople. ACD collected 13 commercially produced pictures and postcards from Constantinople, and seven personal photographs of Constantinople and the Bosporus, with one showing the intercontinental, British-built, Galata Bridge (usually referred to as the Golden Horn Bridge):
Sadly, ACD's stay is not commemorated in the Grand Péra Palace Hotel, but there is a room, used by and named after its more-relevant guest writer of detective fiction, Dame Agatha Christie, whose book, Murder on the Orient Express continues to make that train famous. As ACD was spoiling Jean during this long journey, and as he had stated, as we have seen, that he would head "...home by direct rail as swiftly as possible ..." [12] after reaching Constantinople, the Orient Express would have been his obvious choice. By 1907 one could travel the full-length of this luxury train route to Paris without changing trains. Many passengers alternatively chose to stop off, overnight or longer, at various stations along the route, catching later Orient Expresses to complete the journey. One of those who did this regularly was an acquaintance of ACD, who became well-known to the Orient Express staff. He would stop off at both major and minor stations, and collect drawings of butterflies from the areas along the route. Those drawings, however, concealed plans of military installations along the route, for this passenger was a certain Robert Baden-Powell, who was acting as a British spy in that hotbed of Balkan intrigue. It is interesting to note that some of ACD's photographs of the Bosporus included military installations, and in 1924 he referred back to his 1907 journey to Constantinople:
- In the course of our travels we visited Constantinople, looking at the great guns in the forts on the Dardanelles, with little thought of all the British lives which were to be sacrificed upon those low, dark, heather-clad hills which slope down to the Northern shore. [13]
He reveals his usual short-sightedness as a dilettante, non-military commentator on military and moral affairs here, in neglecting to mention the many more Australian and New Zealander lives lost in this region, not to mention the greater number of Turkish lives wasted by the madness of war and the incompetence of political and military planners.
The direct route from Constantinople to Paris (and thence to London) included two of the locations pictured in Album 1 which were not on the most direct route from Dresden to Venice. The first of these is Nisch (now Niš), where ACD seems to have bought a triple-width panorama postcard, much contracted here.
This was a major junction on the Orient Express route, with a direct line from Athens joining the route here. Even for those who were not stopping overnight, and ACD and Jean would probably have not stayed, there was always an opportunity for passengers, whilst the train was replenished with water, fuel and food, to stroll into the town for some exercise, and carriages were provided at the railway station for passengers to take a short drive to view the town from the surrounding hills, with hopeful souvenir salesmen always waiting outside of the station with postcards.
The final Album 1 location not yet accounted for reasonably on our proposed routing for the 1907 journey is Budapest, and this was a popular twin-city for Orient Express passengers to make an overnight or longer stop.
Appropriately, with all the other Album 1 locations having been accounted for, including those which were probably passed through for a second time on the return to Paris and London, the five Budapest postcards are the last images in Album 1, apart from an aberrant, full-page picture of a statue from the Museo di Napoli.
We know that ACD and Jean stopped off in Paris on the way home, as he wrote, to his mother:
- Hotel Regina, Place Rivoli
- Paris, November 10, 1907
- We have had a wonderful time together – quite the most complete and restful holiday of my life. It has been like a wonderful peaceful dream. We drifted through Europe and hardly knew it. I am so full of impressions that it will certainly take me months to get them sorted out – if ever I do. ..... Thursday next will see us in old London once more. Hotel Metropole our address. Then Saturday will bring us to Windlesham, where I shall live and die, I expect. No better place. I am full of latent work now & very anxious to get at it. I must drive the lazy well fed beast along. [14]
ACD and Jean might, of course, have arrived in Paris earlier than the date of this letter, but as ACD had expected little to occupy Jean and him, he might have left Constantinople around the 4th or 5th of November. That could have provided them with as much as six days in which to travel the full route of the Orient Express, which would have allowed easily for some overnight stops.
As 10th November was a Sunday, we can see from his letter that he planned to reach the Metropole Hotel in London on 14th November. This was yet another luxury hotel, and a candidate for being the model for The Northumberland Hotel in The Hound of the Baskervilles. As the train journey from Paris to London (first class but not de luxe) would have taken only half a day, they would probably have stayed in Paris until that date. As their honeymoon began in the Metropole Hotel on 18th September, they had completed a round trip of many parts of Europe in 58 days. Surely a writer of adventure and science fiction stories, however, should have been able to have included the rest of the world in a further 30 days, to match an exploit depicted by a certain French writer of adventure and science fiction stories!
Having set almost all of the photographs and commercially produced pictures and postcards from Album 1 into this round trip to Constantinople and back, we must attempt to locate the images in Album 2 into other journeys. We, accordingly, need to identify the second Mediterranean trip which ACD referred to in his autobiography, and one might be tempted to look at the Mediterranean trip which ACD and Jean took almost one year after arriving back from Constantinople. The Court Circular column of The Times, on 20 November 1908, announced that: "Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle will leave on Wednesday for a short stay in the South of France." A 'short stay' and the location given would not suffice for a trip to Egypt. That 'short stay', however, might be represented by the 10 postcards of Avignon which can be found in Album 2, and as that city might have been visited during a 'short stay', and as that city is located in the 'South of France', we may have identified the location of the journey which ACD and Jean made towards the end of November in 1908.
There was another trip to the Mediterranean. There was also another announcement in the Court Circular column of The Times, this time on 8th September 1909, stating that: "Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle leave Southampton on Saturday afternoon in the Dunottar Castle for the Western Mediterranean." As the trip was to the Western Mediterranean, it could not include Egypt. There seems to be no commentary on the reason for this short cruise in any of the biographies, but it might well have been to overcome the effects of Jean having had her first child, Denis, on 17 March.
We can now tackle the problem image from Album 2, of the Temple of Ramses II, mentioned near the start of these discussions. It is the only image from Egypt which is included in Richard Sveum's two ACD Albums. Andrew Lycett, in his excellent biography of ACD, provides two photographs of ACD and Jean which are claimed, in the accompanying photo captions, to have been taken on the 1907 honeymoon trip. The first photo shows ACD and Jean at the Acropolis in Athens. The second shows ACD sitting on a donkey, alongside Jean, who is sitting on a camel, with the Sphinx and a Pyramid behind them. [15] Neither of these photographs appear in either of the two Albums of Richard Sveum, but it will be seen that the second is entirely relevant to the dating of at least one of the images in Album 2.
Although Andrew Lycett's rather ambiguous photo captions do not specifically state that the Sphinx-Pyramid photo was taken in 1907, the fact that the two photographs were clearly taken within a few weeks of each other does imply this. ACD is wearing the same light-coloured, tropical-weight suit and hat in both photos (there is no sign of this tropical outfit in any of the scores of personal photographs taken during the 1907 honeymoon in Richard Sveum's Album 1). The features of ACD and Jean are exactly the same in both of the Lycett photographs, including signs of recent illness. Those two photographs, however, do not seem to have been taken within a month or so of the wedding of ACD and Jean in 1907, or even within a few years of that honeymoon trip. Both ACD and Jean look considerably older in these two photographs than they do in the wedding photograph on the facing page of Andrew Lycett's illustrations. This would suggest that the Acropolis and Sphinx-Pyramid photographs were taken on a much-later trip to the Mediterranean area, and the best candidate for this is a trip which ACD and Jean took, to Egypt and Greece, via France, in the late-Spring and Early-Summer of 1913. This would explain Jean's broader features and tired expression in both photographs, since she had by then borne three children in rapid succession during the previous five years and nine months. This 1913 dating would also explain ACD having become thicker set, with his moustache becoming bushier and less-pointed, and why he looks slightly ill, as he had been unwell in the late-Spring of 1913, with that illness necessitating the holiday. We know, as will be seen, that Jean had been mildly ill during the early stages of the 1913 trip, and this may well explain her stressed appearance in the Sphinx-Pyramid photograph.
We will investigate this Egyptian problem, and the question of the Sphinx-Pyramid photograph in three stages. We will firstly consider the evidence which exists for the first part of the 1913 trip, with a letter from ACD to his mother. We will then examine the continuation of the journey through details provided (sadly without references) by Andrew Lycett. We will finally add further details about the journey, and about the Sphinx-Pyramid photograph, through some vital new evidence which we have uncovered during these investigations.
We have evidence for the early part of the late-Spring and early Summer 1913 trip to the Mediterranean in a letter which ACD sent to his mother:
- The Riviera — May 1913
- It is most beautiful here and real heaven on earth though hardly the folk one would expect in heaven. We have had a delightful change and shall be ever so much better for it. My darling has been shaken by the journey – the heat of French trains oppresses her – but is now in splendid health. [...]
- [...] We have had some wonderful drives from here to Mentone, then by the high road to Nice, on to Grasse, back to Cannes and so home by Beaulieu & Monaco. We hired a motor for the day and so covered much ground.[16]
Several of the images from Album 2 are covered here, without being named specifically, including Monte Carlo and The Tower of Augustus. It will be noted that ACD is still only hopeful that his health will improve, and that the journey through France has made Jean ill, and there are signs of continuing ill health in the Sphinx and Pyramid photograph and in that taken subsequently in Athens.
Andrew Lycett himself provides further material on the continuation of this 1913 trip, when he mentions that in May 1913 ACD and Jean embarked on "... an extended holiday." [17] He continues:
- Departing from Marseilles, they spent four days crossing the Mediterranean, reaching Port Said in Egypt on 27 May. Over the course of a week they were able to see Malcolm Leckie and have lunch with the Sirdar, General Wingate. On their way back they spent a week in Greece, a few days in Rome, and another week in Mürren in Switzerland, from where they sent a brief postcard to Lily Loder-Symonds who had been overseeing the care of the children at Windlesham. [18]
During the investigations in the preparation of this Chapter of this book, a very special copy of the Sphinx- Pyramid photograph was found in the Richard Lancelyn Green bequest to the Portsmouth Museums and Libraries Archive. [19] It appears that ACD and Jean had this photograph taken by a local photographer in Egypt, and it was quickly converted into a personal postcard, with many copies being made for the subjects of the photograph. The reverse of this postcard bears the printed words "Carte Postale" with the equivalent in Arabic. It also has the usual two postcard columns, one for a message and one for the address.
One can clearly see why Richard Lancelyn Green wanted this particular specimen of this postcard in his collection, since it bears notes, in handwriting which seems to be that of ACD, about the future plans for this 1913 trip. These notes read:
| Italian Line | (Thurs) |
|---|---|
| Athens | June 12 |
| Patras | June 12 |
| Brindisi | June 13 |
| Rome | June 14 |
| 15 | |
| 16 | |
| Rome | 17 |
| Interlaken | 19 |
| Murren | 24 |
| June 30 |
(Note that, in 1913, June 12 was, indeed, a Thursday)
Collating all of the details now available about this 1913 Mediterranean trip does, in fact, resolve almost all of the problems associated with the second Mediterranean trip (including Egypt) very completely, albeit it more than five years after the Mediterranean trip with which ACD bracketed it in his autobiography. We know that there is a seeming gap in ACD's activities in the UK between 15th May and 4th July, and these details now precisely fill that gap, within a few days or less. Given that ACD and Jean would have required a further two or three days to return to England from Switzerland, this 1913 Mediterranean trip of five weeks or more would make an ideal companion to the 58 days of the 1907 Mediterranean trip. We can now proceed to attempt to account for other images in Album 2.
In terms of 'country-bagging' tourists, ACD and Jean could have collected the two pictures from the Hofkirche in Innsbruck, in Austria, during this 1913 tour. There is a five-day gap in the plan for visiting Switzerland, ACD and Jean might have taken the train from Interlaken to Innsbruck for a two-or-three-night stopover, passing through some stunning countryside, including the town of Feldkirch where ACD had studied at the Jesuit school as a youth. With one of these Innsbruck pictures, ACD seems to have allowed himself a small conceit, in that he bought a picture of the man after whom he was named, King Arthur (on the left), a legendary sleeping hero who would arise to save his nation in a time of danger, an image which the chivalric ACD certainly had of himself.
The images in Album 2 from England and Scotland could be accounted for through much shorter journeys, but they nevertheless involved visits to some very beautiful and interesting areas of the UK. There was even a classically romantic visit to Gretna Green (see below). That small village is located on the borders of England and Scotland, and for centuries it has attracted runaway lovers to be married quickly by the village blacksmith in his smithy, with an anvil in place of an altar.
When the age of marriage was standardised in England and Scotland at 16, there was no longer any requirement to travel to Scotland, but it has remained a still-romantic custom to get married in Gretna Green, and the custom still attracts many tourists.
There remains one major problem in Album 2, and that involves the seven large pictures (no personal photographs) of classical tourist sites in Florence. My colleague, Enrico Solito, will be considering this problem in the specialist sections of this book. The other specialists will be including some of the Album 2 pictures in their discussions.
It is hoped that this short introduction to the ACD Photo Albums from Richard Sveum's Collection will help to provide the context for the detailed discussions of some of the Italian locations which follow elsewhere in this volume. It is not considered that all of the deliberations offered here are definitive or conclusive: the way in which ACD was so frequently imprecise about the dates of his activities prevents that, as does the fact that some of the evidence required has not yet been made accessible, and some of it has almost certainly been lost forever. The Game remains Afoot as far as searching out further references to these Album images are concerned, and with tightening up the dates when ACD and Jean visited or stayed in some of the locations mentioned. Hopefully, further items from the precious Doylean archives will become more-readily available to enable scholars to perform these and other crucial biographical Doylean tasks in the near future.
Notes and Sources
- ↑ Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures, Oxford University Press, 1989 (first published 1924), p 228.
- ↑ Georgina Doyle, Out of the Shadows – The Untold Story of Arthur Conan Doyle's First Family, Calabash Press, Canada, 2004, p 152.
- ↑ Georgina Doyle, ibid.
- ↑ Georgina Doyle, op cit, p 151.
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), Arthur Conan Doyle – A Life in Letters, Harper Press, 2007, p 546.
(Note: all emphases by Philip Weller). - ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), ibid.
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), op cit, p 547.
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), ibid.
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), op cit, p 546.
- ↑ Pierre Nordon, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – L'Homme et l'Oeuvre, Didier, Paris, 1964, p 44, note 56. This letter is not included in the shortened, English translation of this book.
- ↑ Extract of letter in the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library.
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), ibid.
- ↑ Arthur Conan Doyle, ibid (1).
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), op cit, p 547.
- ↑ Andrew Lycett, Conan Doyle – The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, Illustration page 5 between text pages 272 & 273.
- ↑ Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (Eds), op cit, p 593.
- ↑ Andrew Lycett, op cit, p 342.
- ↑ Lycett A, ibid.
- ↑ Arthur Conan Doyle Collection – Lancelyn Green Bequest: ACD1/B/1/2/94. Portsmouth Museums and Libraries Archives.
My special thanks here go to Mr Michael Gunton, the Chief Archivist of the Collection, and his staff, for sparing time whilst they are still cataloguing the more than 90,000 items of Richard's collection.
