Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

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  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, OCTOBER 29, 1891

  I hope you got your White Company all right. It looks very neat. There have been no reviews as yet. Payn tells me that he sent the earliest copy to the Times, with a private note to say that he considered it to be the best novel of the kind since Ivanhoe—which was stretching it pretty tight. We’ll see how far the reviewer endorses or demolishes the opinion. Connie sent you the letter of Douglas Sladen—he is an Australian poet of repute. I sent to Lottie. Also to Lord Tennyson, Meredith, Andrew Lang and W. T. Stead.*

  In the last week I have done two of the new Sherlock Holmes tales—the ‘Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’ and ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’. The latter is a thriller. I see my way through the ninth, so that I should not have much trouble with the rest. I don’t quite see my way through the Golden hair episode, but if any fresh light dawns upon you, you must let me know.

  I have sent some money so that Innes may have extra lessons in German—If his German had counted he would have been 12th in the recent exams, so it is of great importance to strengthen him. He seems to be very well & happy.

  Touie & I did our 30 miles to Woking in spite of wind & heavy roads—we then visited the mother at Reading & the Stratton Boulnois at Chertsey—so we had quite a round.

  We dined (Touie & I) at the Payns yesterday to meet the Baron & Baroness Tauchnitz and Mr Buckle.† Touie sat between Payn & Buckle. It was a very pleasant evening. Touie thoroughly enjoyed it. Connie went to a concert with the Robertsons & slept there.

  I don’t think that there is anything else & I must get back to Sherlock Holmes so Adieu! With love to you both & kind regards to the Doctor.

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, NOVEMBER 1891

  I keep Connie hard at work typewriting my Holmes tales—of which I have done 4 in a fortnight. When Lottie comes she will be of immense service because while C typewrites L can write to dictation which I think is work that she would not dislike and which would double my output and rest my hand & eyes. I must be on my guard against writers cramp—I hear of so many men getting it—Grant Allen was the last.

  It is very nice that you have saved something for the girls, but I do not think there is any need for you to stint yourself for them. Their future will be my care. If they are single they will live with me, and be invaluable. If they marry I should (unless their husband was wealthy) always allow a little income so that they might dress themselves. If I died I should leave money & royalties behind—especially the latter—so that I don’t see that there is any need to fear for them.

  One rather half hearted criticism from ‘The Scotsman’ about the Company—None others—I will forward you a bundle when they all come. We sent Lottie the 3 volumes. We expect the Thomsons on the 12th. Couldn’t you & Dodo come down for Xmas. It would be very jolly if you could. Please try to plan it.

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, NOVEMBER 11, 1891

  I have done five of the Sherlock Holmes stories of the new Series. They are 1. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle 2. The Adventure of the Speckled Band 3. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor 4. The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb 5. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet. I think that they are up to the standard of the first series, & the twelve ought to make a rather good book of the sort.* I think of slaying Holmes in the sixth & winding him up for good & all. He takes my mind from better things. I think your golden haired idea has the making of a tale in it, but I think it would be better not as a detective tale, but as a separate one.

  I shall send you the cuttings about the White Company when I have accumulated enough of them. So far I have only a few, Scotsman, Telegraph, Daily Graphic, Saturday Review & Observer. They are none of them hostile & yet I am disappointed. They treat it too much as a mere book of adventure—as if it were an ordinary boys book—whereas I have striven to draw the exact types of character of the folk then living & have spent much work and pains over it, which seems so far to be quite unappreciated by the critics. They do not realise how conscientious my work has been. Says the Saturday Reviewer ‘Fancy a carriage in the neighbourhood of Southampton in the year 1367. I wonder what Monsieur Jousserand would say to this!’ As it happens the carriage was extracted from Jousserand’s book on medieval England, where a very elaborate description & picture of it is given. I wrote courteously to the Reviewer and told him so. But that is very typical & somewhat irritating.

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, NOVEMBER 18, 1891

  David [Thomson] is photographing me writing at my table, so I thought I might as well not pretend to write but really send you a line.

  Connie and I went over to Woolwich on Saturday. The boy seems very comfortable in his room which he has fitted up in quite an aesthetic style. He seemed very well & jolly & is working as hard as ever.

  I don’t know how the White Company is doing. Some of the notices are very nice, but the ones where one would expect a real criticism are the most futile. The Athenaeum after a few lukewarm & commonplace remarks says that Edward III was not 60 in 1366 (did I ever say he was?). Also that I had Bourhunte in one place, and Boarhunte in the other. Did you ever hear such rubbish? In the first place it is not, I think, true for I can only find the name once, in the chapter describing the muster in Hampshire—in the next place if it were so what on earth does it matter. And this is all that the first critical journal in England finds to say about a book which in some respects gives a new reading of the Middle Ages, and which is the first in English literature to draw the most important figure in English military history, the English bowman soldier. Is it not puerile. Do not however take any notice of it, yourself. I send you the ‘Illustrated’ where you will find a nice allusion by Payn, and also the Daily Chronicle which is good. You shall have them all in time.

  Connie & baby are very well. I have not spoken to David about papa. It would be better to keep it in Scotland.*

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, DECEMBER 7, 1891

  It is a pity you cannot see baby—she passes day by day through the most charming changes, with subtle improvements in her little prattle as she grows older. She is great fun. Such a little mimic. When I go out she comes to the door and says ‘Arthur, come in, it is too cold for you!’ She lectures us all with such authority & is an extraordinary mimic.†

  Such a beastly day! Pouring rain and as cold as possible. Touie and Nem have gone into town to meet the mother who comes for a couple of days. I wish you could run in in the same fashion. Why you should not I cannot imagine.

  I have begun my new novel & did 50 pages this week. ‘The Refugees’ I call it & I think the name good—short and apropos. I have determined not to introduce Micah, but to have entirely new material. The first half lies at the Court of Louis—De Montespan, De Maintenon, love, intrigue, Huguenots & so on, with an American element all through it. I hope to finish by February, when I may arrange for a little change. The book will be conscientious, respectable and dull.

  The reviews of The White Company have been much better of late and I am endeavouring to stimulate Smith Elder to give them more prominence. I have made out a list myself & I want him to publish that list, for which end I offer him £20—on condition that he adds £10 to it. This £30 would, I think, make an immense difference to the novel, & would repay itself many times over. I don’t know whether he will agree.

  I have had several letters from people whose forbears are mentioned in ‘The Company’. We are looking forward to seeing Innes very much & will talk German and French all the time. We talk a good deal of French among ourselves now and I read French continually. I am reading Balzac’s Scenes de la Vie Private. I intend to read him all through, which is a large order is it not.

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, DECEMBER 22, 1891

  A line to wish you all possible joy for Xmas & every happiness and prosperity for ‘92. I send you a little needle case from Touie and the new edition of ‘The Study’ from myself.* Within the case are two postal notes one from me to Ida, & the other from Touie to Dodo, w
ith our love & hopes that they may buy some joy with it. I only wish it were more!†

  I shall lay ‘The Refugees’ aside for a week during the holidays and have another look at it when they are over. I have done 150 pages, which are not very bad if they are not very good. You see, dear, I have read & pondered over it for a year, and it has got to be done, so I don’t know that waiting will help me to do better. It has not the ‘go’ of ‘Micah’ or the ‘Company’, but it seems to me that most of the critics don’t know the difference between good work & bad. Let us hope it will work out all right.

  I have been having a correspondence with Arrowsmith of Bristol. He wanted me about 24 months ago to do a book for his shilling series, and offered to pay me a royalty on it—I wanted £100, and on that we quarrelled, he sending me a rather impertinent card, of which I took no notice. End of Act I. A year ago he wrote offering me £100 in advance on such a book. I answered that my price now was £200. He collapsed & was silent. End of Act II. Last week he wrote asking me to do the book (60,000 words) at that price. I replied that my price was now £400. Frantic howls came from Bristol, with much repentance as to the past. So now I have agreed to do a 50,000 worder for £250 as an advance on a 20 per cent Royalty, I to retain American & Continental rights. M.S. to be delivered in August, which will give me lots of time. I have therefore my hands full for ‘92.*

  Connie has just returned from town in a thick fog. She enjoyed the dance very much. It was very kind of the Syms to take her. We are all going there for an ‘At home with dancing’ on the 1st. We dine at the Langham with the Bouluois on Sunday.

  Goodbye, and all that is good to all of you. I hope that you will have a merry little Xmas in your own small circle.

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, JANUARY 6, 1892

  Yesterday we all went a very long excursion into the weald of Surrey on tricycles. Though close to London it is one of the most rustic & unsophisticated spots in Great Britain. Touie got tired so we sent her back by train, but Connie, Innes & I rode back. We did about 26 miles & had a very good time. After dinner the boy went back to Woolwich. He enjoyed his holidays thoroughly, & returns full of enthusiasm for his work. Personally I don’t think he will get sappers, but I am sure it is not his fault if he does not, and that whatever comes will be for the best. There is a good deal to be said for the gunners since the change in pay.

  During the holidays I finished my last Sherlock Holmes tale ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’ in which I used your lock of hair, so now a long farewell to Sherlock. He still lives however, thanks to your entreaties. I must now return with a rush to Louis the fourteenth and get those poor Huguenots out of France. Then comes Arrowsmith and then Norway. I shall lie by for a while presently. Poor Guy de Maupassant has written 30 books since 1880, and has now gone mad, so it’s bad policy to do too much.

  I went in to the ‘Idlers’ dinner and met J. M. Barrie, Jerome K Jerome, Barry Pain, Zangwill, Barr (‘Luke Sharp’), Robertson, and others. It was very pleasant and jolly & we all chummed nicely. I dine again with some of them on Friday, and I hope that Jerome & Barrie may dine with me next week. It was Barrie who wrote the skit on Holmes in the Speaker. ‘Luke Sharp’ has a splendid parody on the Bow song ‘What of the gun? The gun was made in Belgium, of wrought steel, of taut steel, &c &c.’

  The 3 vol Edition of The Company is finished, and they bring out the 6/ one presently. I have a score against fortune in regards to that book. She has not used me too well over it, however I doubt not that on other occasions I have had more than my deserts, and so the matter is equalized. I rely on the general public infinitely more than I do on the critics. They are really too feeble! They would be depressing if they were unanimous, but as each always contradicts all the others, they form a mutual antidote.

  Conan Doyle’s literary circle was growing. James Barrie, the Scottish author now immortal for Peter Pan, became one of his closest friends. Barrie was closely associated with the new monthly The Idler, founded by humourist Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat) and edited by Robert Barr, who wrote (as ‘Luke Sharp’) a fine Sherlock Holmes parody, ‘Detective Stories Gone Wrong: The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs’ for that May’s issue. Some Idler editors and writers formed a cricket team under Barrie’s captainship called ‘the Allahakbarries’. (‘Or “Lord help us,”’ joked Conan Doyle, the only member of the team who could actually play the game.) ‘The Song of the Bow’ was a poem of Conan Doyle’s inspired by the medieval British archers of The White Company.

  to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, FEBRUARY 1, 1892

  I am very glad that papa is all right. Perhaps it is as well that it should be your name and not mine which should be used. They would be less inclined to overcharge.

  We have been lackadaisical for a week, and unable to work, but we hope to improve. Barrie came out from Saturday to Monday and seemed to enjoy himself very well. He is a very good fellow, with nothing small about him except his body. He is coming out on another Saturday, and then on the Sunday we are going together to see Meredith at Box Hill. That would be fine, would it not? Barrie seems to know everybody, but he lives now at Kirriemuir with his family, where I hope to see him at Easter. He only comes to town about 6 weeks in the year. He has come up now about a play which Toole is producing, and he wants my ‘Straggler of ‘15’ to be produced as a one act curtain-raiser. I hope it may be managed, and as I have in any case made up my mind to go in for the drama now it will be a good introduction. We talk of collaborating in a book too—I have often wanted to write a book about the Scotch soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus, but the dialect stumped me. Barrie and I together could do a clinker, I think. He thinks, and says that all literary men think that my ‘Company’ is far better than Micah.

  We are anxious to hear news of the two examined ones, Ida and Innes. His finger was jammed by a cannon, but beyond the bruise & loss of a nail, no harm done. I think of a weeks fishing in Aberdeenshire at Easter, but nothing is settled. I shall want some air by that time. Alford is the place—on the Don. I hope that Lottie is beginning to make her arrangements for winding up her Portuguese affairs, for she is due here before the summer is over.

  Charles Doyle’s condition had continued to worsen, and he had been moved again, in January 1891, to the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, as the effects of alcoholism, epilepsy, and failing memory deepened. On February 17th, asylum staff noted auditory hallucinations as well. In May, Charles Doyle was moved again, this time to Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries, where he was diagnosed with dementia.* That December, Mary Doyle gave Crichton’s superintendent, Dr James Rutherford, an account of her husband’s case history:

  from Mary Doyle MASONGILL COTTAGE, YORKS., DECEMBER 23, 1892

  I am extremely sorry you were troubled about that suit of clothes. For years we have sent my husband things of our eldest son’s (always as good as new) as they are much of a size. By an inadvertence this time they were sent direct from the cleaner’s, instead of through our tailors, who would have put right the matter you allude to. The buttons were taken off to have new ones put on, etc. Mr Doyle can have a suit made for him or his measures sent to me and I can supply one. But the prices must be reasonable. My means are so very small that I live in a cottage at £8 a year and keep no servant! My poor husband’s condition was brought on by drink, he has had delirium tremens several times. Just thirty years ago—Decr. 62—he had such a bad attack that for nearly a year he had to be on half pay and for months he cd only crawl and was perfectly idiotic, could not tell his own name. Since then he has been from one fit of dipsomania to another. Using the most awful expedients, many times putting himself within reach of the law—to get drink—every article of value he or I possessed carried off secretly, debts to large amount contracted to our tradespeople, bills given etc.—all for goods which never entered our doors, but were at once converted into money. There is a public house in Edinburgh where I am told they have a most valuable collection of his sketches, given for drink. He would sell for a few pence a sketch wo
rth several guineas. He would strip himself of all his underclothing, take the very bed linen, climb down the water spout at risk of his life, break open the children’s money boxes. He even drank furniture varnish, all our friends said the only way to save his life was to put him where he could get no drink. He only kept his position in the office because being very talented he could do what was wanted better than the others and also that his amiable disposition endeared him to our kind friends, Mr Matheson and Mr Andrew Kerr, his superiors. To know him was to love him. I had him at Drumlithie for some years but he broke away always and got drink, then he at last became so violent that two doctors had him certified and put in Montrose Asylum before I knew anything about it. Since then he has been absolutely kept from drink. If he were free again I believe he would kill himself in a few weeks. My son is very good and generous to us. He pays half of his brother’s expenses at Woolwich, besides paying for one sister abroad at school and keeping two sisters living with him. He has his own wife and children to maintain. I know he would help me sooner than have his father out. He has a claim on Morningside where he was, when by Mr Dugan’s kind suggestion, through my friend Mr Thomas Scott, I wrote to you. I know from his manner you would suppose that he never could behave as I have described (whereas I have only given a few instances) but it was a real madness no doubt. My friend the late Dr John Brown (Rab and his friends) and many others who knew him most intimately said his case was hopeless, the brain being so much affected. One very bad sign was his wonderful mendacity. It seemed as if he cd never speak the truth and yet he was so good, virtuous and pleasant through it all. This is only for you, I think you ought to be aware of the state of the case. I am glad he is so gentle and nice to do with and I was and am most grateful for your kindness to me. Believe me, dear doctor