Photography Biographical Books
Photography Biographical Books lists books about Arthur Conan Doyle's interest in photography, photographic evidence, visual perception, spirit photography, and the role of images in his life and beliefs. Before becoming famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle was already writing on photography: between 1881 and 1885, The British Journal of Photography published thirteen articles by him.
The following books examine Conan Doyle not only as a writer, but as a man fascinated by photography as a means of observation, documentation, proof, and sometimes contact with unseen realities.
The books are listed in reverse chronological order.
Books about Conan Doyle and Photography
Arthur Conan Doyle and Photography: Traces, Fairies and Other Apparitions
By Bernd Stiegler
Edinburgh University Press
2023; originally published in German as Spuren, Elfen und andere Erscheinungen: Conan Doyle und die Photographie, S. Fischer, 2014
264 pages
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Arthur Conan Doyle and Photography is a study of Conan Doyle's relationship with photography, visual evidence, traces, apparitions, and fairies. Bernd Stiegler examines photography in Conan Doyle's life and imagination, including amateur photography, Sherlock Holmes's observational method, photographic evidence, spirit photography, and the Cottingley Fairies.
Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light
By Matt Wingett
Life is Amazing
2016
322 pages
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Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light explores Conan Doyle's connection with photography, light, vision, and the unseen. The book places his interest in photographic evidence within the wider context of his life, writings, spiritualist beliefs, and fascination with realities beyond ordinary perception.
Spuren, Elfen und andere Erscheinungen: Conan Doyle und die Photographie
By Bernd Stiegler
S. Fischer
2014
362 pages
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Spuren, Elfen und andere Erscheinungen is the original German edition of Bernd Stiegler's study of Conan Doyle and photography. It examines photography, traces, fairies, apparitions, and visual evidence in relation to Conan Doyle's life, fiction, and supernatural beliefs.
The Case of the Cottingley Fairies
By Joe Cooper
Robert Hale
1990
176 pages
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The Case of the Cottingley Fairies studies the famous fairy photographs and the controversy surrounding them. The book is relevant to Conan Doyle because he publicly defended the photographs as genuine evidence of fairies.
Essays on Photography: The Unknown Conan Doyle
By Arthur Conan Doyle
Compiled with an introduction by John Michael Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green
Secker & Warburg
1982
128 pages
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Essays on Photography collects Conan Doyle's early writings on photography, originally published before his fame as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Edited and introduced by John Michael Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green, the volume documents Conan Doyle's technical, artistic, and practical interest in photography.
Works about Photography by Conan Doyle himself
Book
- The Coming of the Fairies (1922)
Articles
Articles about photography written by Arthur Conan Doyle in The British Journal of Photography:
- After Cormorants with a Camera (1881)
- On the Slave Coast with a Camera (1882)
- Dry Plates on a Wet Moor (1882)
- A Few Technical Hints (1882)
- Trial of Burton's Emulsion Process (1883)
- Where to go with the Camera: Southsea: Three Days in Search of Effects (1883)
- The "New" Scientific Subject (1883)
- Where to go with the Camera: To the Waterford Coast and Along It (1883)
- A Day on "The Island" (1884)
- Easter Monday with the Camera (1884)
- Where to go with the Camera: Arran in Autumn (1885)
- With a Camera on an African River (1885)
