by Неизвестный
Yours faithfully
Mary J. E. Doyle
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, FEBRUARY 4, 1892
Yes—I am perfectly clear about Lottie, and I want you to write to her in a very decided way about it so as to remove any possible doubt in her mind as to whether she is acting with your approval. Put it strongly and say to her that we shall do in this wise. In June, as I understand, her folk go north and she may go with them. Then in October they turn South. Now my intention is next October to start off with Touie and baby for the Riviera, while Mrs Hawkins could come here, pay the rent in my absence and keep her household here for the winter. We three reach the Riviera, write our address to Lottie, and Lottie comes on at once with all her things. She will help us to tackle baby & will be in a thousand ways invaluable to me. Then about the New Year Lottie will go home & Connie will come out to type write all I have done, and then we shall all unite in Tennison Road in March. There, is that not capital! Now you must write and be very firm with Lottie for she is so absolutely unselfish and self sacrificing that she wants the more consideration from us. We can manage Innes between us, and if you feel a pinch from Lottie I shall make up the difference.
We expect him tonight. You have heard no doubt that the Academy has broken up prematurely on account of mumps. There is a big dance at Woking on the 18th and the Milbournes have invited him to go and stay a few days (they are excellent friends for him to know) so he should do that (unless you have reason to want him earlier) and then I’ll dispatch him north. I sent him a pound yesterday to settle up his tips &c.
We shall work better & be better in the Riviera than here. I am convinced of that, and there is nothing in the world to keep us here another winter.
They have been bothering me for more Sherlock Holmes tales. Under pressure I offered to do a dozen for a thousand pounds, but I sincerely hope that they won’t accept it now.
We have not heard yet how Ida has done. Yes, dear, I should love to look in upon you for a couple of days as I come back. I must stop at Edinburgh for a day or two to see Henley of the National Observer.
I enclose a note from Jerome which please let me have again. He is down with influenza. I get stronger every day & have never had more than a cold—Touie also is better. The Milbournes and Maude Syms have been staying with us, and we had Smollett Johnson & Richards out last night, with dancing (impromptu) and much festivity.
Ida, nearly seventeen now, had done well at exams, winning a gold medal and a scholarship of £100 over her next four years of study. To Lottie in Portugal, he wrote on February 14th to assure her that there was no further need for her to support the younger members of the family: ‘The Strand want 12 more short S.H. stories—for which I have charged them £1000. Altogether I ought to earn a clear £3000 this year.’
And if that wasn’t enough to lure Lottie to South Norwood: ‘I have nearly finished my “Refugee” novel. Connie and Touie simply sit with their mouths open when I read it. Talk about love scenes! It is simply volcanic.’
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, FEBRUARY 1892
You will be glad to hear that I have done very well with the Refugees. I have now finished all the European part, bringing me down to page 260 or thereabouts—and another 150 pages on the other side of the water will bring it to an end. I am at present revising the French part for a day or two, before finally leaving it. I think it will do. There is less fun than in the other books, but there are more surprises to the reader, a more finished plot, and more passion. I take a young American, a man who has hardly ever seen a city, a man of the woods, shrewd, ready, and yet naive & innocent, and I manage to mix him up with the French Court of Louis XIV, much as Scott mixes up Quentin Durward with the Court of Louis XI. He gets involved in it all in a very natural way, and bears himself very consistently. There are many chapters which I have never beaten, but on the other hand there may be bits which the general reader may think slow, for, after all, when you get subjects like the priestly scheming which brought about the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and sent all my characters flying like leaves before a hurricane, it is difficult, however carefully one may try and draw the characters & the subtle arts and devices, to make the story keep up the active interest which so many readers demand. On the other hand this should be a new thing to Americans, and I shall be surprised if it does not fetch them. If I, a Britisher, could draw their early types so as to win their approval I should be indeed proud, for by such international associations nations are drawn together, and on the drawing together of these two nations depends the future history of the world. I have a fine old New England Puritan seaman as a foil to the young New Yorker, so I have two distinct early American types, each conscientiously worked out.
In today’s Chronicle read the article on ‘The Creepy Drama’, and especially the dialogue about the mower inside the house. Is it not splendid? I like the Chronicle because it is literary, it is Unionist and it is liberal.
The Barrie-Jerome-Barr-Bergen dinner went off very well. I shall call on Barrie on Monday when in town. I shall be happy also to call on the Knowles. All very well.
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, FEBRUARY 26, 1892
I am within 50 pages of home now, and am steaming along as hard as I can. It is a queer book. I believe a good many folk will like it better than anything I have done, and a good many others won’t. Well, it is as good as I can make it, on that time and subject, so good luck to it! I’ll have a good go on the tricycle when I have finished it. Innes will give you details about it.
They are all going to a dance at the Club, which to me is rather a bore, but still so long as they enjoy it it is all right. Smollett Thomson is coming over for it.
Oh by the way, we won’t go to the Riviera this year—at least not the whole bunch of us or for any length of time. I thought it was too risky, because suppose I found it did not suit my work I could hardly turn Mrs Hawkins out of this, and so I should be stranded. We shall however (Touie & I) go to Norway & the Milbournes will come with us. Now this of course changes Lottie’s plans, and so I should like her to come home in June, so that she may get the good of the English summer. I want you to aid me in persuading her to come not later than June. Otherwise (if she came in autumn) she would plunge without a break from a Portuguese summer to an English winter, which would be very unsafe. It will be so very jolly to have her, and we can manage very well now among us, I am sure, without allowing her to exile herself any longer.
We very particularly want you to come down with me after Easter to see baby & Woolwich & generally perform the domestic duties of a properly constituted grandmama. So mind that you arrange so that you can come away 3 days after I arrive. Bring Dodo or not as you think best.
I write to Henry Irving tonight to see if he will produce my Veteran play. I wonder what he’ll say. Barrie’s piece has been a success, but I must say that I could not see much in it myself.
In March 1891, Conan Doyle had published ‘A Straggler of ‘15’, a story about an aged veteran of the Battle of Waterloo that he had now turned into a one-act play. According to Irving’s stage manager, Bram Stoker (later famous as the author of Dracula), both of them saw instantly that its humour and pathos made it a perfect vehicle for Irving’s skills, and that he must purchase the entire rights.
Irving did, and changed the play’s name to A Story of Waterloo (later shortened to Waterloo). ‘Irving fell in love with the character [the aged Corporal Henry Brewster],’ wrote Stoker, ‘and began to study it right away. The only change in the play he made was to get Sir Arthur—then “Dr” or “Mr”—Conan Doyle to consolidate the matter of the first few pages into a shorter space. The rest of the MS. remained exactly as written.’*
Though it would be a while before Irving had an opportunity to perform it, it was a great coup for the young writer, and the start of his long associations with them.
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, MARCH 7, 1892
My heart is gladdened today by the Progressive victories in London. I fear
however that the Government have made such a blunder by identifying itself with the policy of the Reactionaries that London, which has been the centre of Unionism, will go nearly solid the other way at the Elections.
I have finished the Refugees, and have saved my hero & heroine instead of slaying them as was my intention. I found that the latter half of the book became so sombre that if I added this final tragedy the effect would be overwhelming. I am now fairly satisfied with it all.
Yesterday I pilgrimaged to Boxhill with Barrie and ‘Q’ where I made the acquaintance of good old Meredith and of Leslie Stephen. M is very fine, so quaint and fiery and courtly—talks as he writes in a strain which would be affected in another man, but in him seems perfectly natural—Went to the Austro-Prussian war but arrived just after Sadowa to see only ‘the tail of it wildly wagging’—‘She is a little star painted on the ceiling, and you a vestal flame flickering up towards it’ to his daughter on her admiring Mrs Oscar Wilde. ‘The jelly, Annie, seems as treacherous as the Trojan horse’ to the servant as she bore round the pudding. A mighty connoisseur of wines, a pessimist as to the British Empire, an ardent social reformer—those were his main points. Leslie Stephen seemed a shy student of 50, bearded, long, with vulture features, two great warts & thin nervous hands. His eyes are very kind and human. Q is an athletic sporting ruddy haired youth—but has a fine trick in telling a story.†
to Mary Doyle KIRRIEMUIR, SCOTLAND
Just a line to tell you that all is well with me. I saw our friends in Edinburgh—Ida looking all well and Mrs D younger than ever & most kind to me. I went into a shop to buy some paper with Ida, and the man behind the counter gave a great scream ‘Why, you’re just Mr Doyle himsel.’ He had seen a photo somewhere. You may think how amused we were.
I went down and lunched with the redoubtable one legged Henley—the original of John Silver in Treasure Island.* He has a most extraordinary menage. He is the editor of the National Observer, the most savage of critics, and to my mind one of our finest living poets. Then I came up here where I found the Barrie menage even more extraordinary than that of Henley, but I have been very jolly indeed. We went for a fifteen mile walk over the hills yesterday, and are none the worse for it.
I go on tomorrow to The Forbes Arms, Alford, Aberdeenshire—so write to me there. You’ll be ready to come down with me, dearest, won’t you? I’ll be a week at the fishing & should not spend more than two days in Yorkshire for I have my work waiting for me. I am sure that this fine Scotch air is doing me good.
The good simple folk here think that Barrie’s fame is due to the excellence of his handwriting. Others think that he prints the books himself and hawks them round London. When he walks they stalk him and watch him from behind trees to find out how he does it.
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, NOVEMBER 1892
Arrowsmith writes in great spirits to say that he has sold 27000 Great Shadows and they still boom. That is good considering that Xmas is still afar.
Joe Bell has an article on me in the Xmas Bookman. I wonder what on earth it is all about. We send the Illustrated. Do you see Payn’s comments on the Shadow.
Conan Doyle had dedicated The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ‘To My Old Teacher, Joseph Bell,’ who gave it a luminous review in The Bookman—touching unawares upon Conan Doyle’s quandary as he pondered his future as a writer:
Conan Doyle’s education as a student of medicine taught him how to observe, and his practice, both as a general practitioner and a specialist, has been a splendid training for a man such as he is, gifted with eyes, memory, and imagination…such are the implements of his trade as a successful diagnostician. If in addition the doctor is also a born storyteller, then it is a mere matter of choice whether he writes detective stories or keeps his strength for a great historical romance as is The White Company.
And with the birth of his first son on November 15th, his impulse was to draw upon The White Company for a name:
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, NOVEMBER 1892
I think as he will be Conan we can dispense with Michael. Connie’s brilliant idea which has rather taken our fancy here is to call him Arthur Alleyne Conan Doyle, after the ‘White Company’. As she truly says, we owe more to the Company than to any of our male kin. We would then call him Allen, which would prevent confusion with me. We shall be anxious to hear what you think.
In the end, it was Arthur Alleyne Kingsley Conan Doyle, called Kingsley.
By 1893, Conan Doyle was involved in an unlikely collaboration with James Barrie on a comic operetta, Jane Annie; or, The Good-Conduct Prize, which Barrie had agreed to write for Richard D’Oyly Carte, the famed producer of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas.
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, JANUARY 1893
I am exceedingly busy over the opera. It has almost assumed its final form, and I have no doubt that it will see the light before Easter. Every day I am in town over it. I had a dinner invitation from a Huguenot Society in recognition of the first chapters of the Refugees. I am going. I have no doubt the girls give you all the domestic news.
Connie talks of visiting you when Innes goes in February. We have abandoned the idea of a long voyage this year, but hope to have a week or 10 days in Paris early in May—that will be instead of a Scotch fishing trip. Innes was here on Saturday and gave us a good report about you. He is looking very robust.
Some queer letters yesterday, one from Miss Tonge on the Refugees, one from an Alex Cargill, banker of Edinburgh, on Holmes and handwriting.
Goodbye, dearest—Off to town to meet Carte and Barrie.
By May, when Lottie had come to South Norwood to live, Jane Annie had opened at the Savoy Theatre—and while it would last into July, it was doomed despite Conan Doyle’s optimism (and Lottie’s remarks in boldface):
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, MAY 1893
I am writing this very luxuriously lying on the sofa and dictating to Lottie but please to realise that it is me who am talking.
First of all the question of the hour, the opera. There can be no question that it did not go on the first night as we had hoped.* Of course between ourselves the plot and dialogue which are the things for which we have been principally slated are about as much mine as they are yours, still as I should have shared the praise it would be rather mean if I did not take my bit of blame without grumbling. About half the lyrics are mine and I was to have one third of the profits. I still think in spite of all critics (and so does L.) that the dialogue for the most part is admirable, too neat and subtle in fact for an audience which is looking for broad effects. We have now cut some of the heavier numbers and substituted light ones and the thing goes more briskly. The booking is fair and the audiences seem pleased, so we have every hope of making it a success still. The Cartes and everybody are very nice and plucky. As to the plot there is no denying that it is very thin, but I should like to know what comic opera plot is not. Gilbert’s operas generally have no plot at all. (Hear! Hear!)
George Bernard Shaw, then a music critic, called it ‘the most unblushing outburst of tomfoolery that two responsible citizens could conceivably indulge in publicly.’* What the public wanted from Conan Doyle were more Sherlock Holmes stories that he was loath to write. To another distinguished critic, James Ashcroft Noble, he expressed his dissatisfaction:
I have to thank you for more encouragement in my literary work than I have received from any other man, and it is a pleasure to me to see that the passages which have appealed most to you are those which are my own favourites. Your most kind words encourage me to go on putting my very best into my historical work. One is so tempted to scamp when one sees that nine out of ten critics don’t know the difference between a mere boys book of adventure, and the careful study of an historical era with painstaking character-drawing founded upon the records of those days. I was dissatisfied myself with the Refugees, though there were scenes, such as the description of the little mutilated Jesuit in the last volume, and that where Louis opens the court letters which wo
rked out fairly well. But the colourlessness of hero & heroine as well as the change of scene, with the Atlantic rolling between the two halves of the book, are serious defects.† Still as far as work & pain go I did all I could to atone for this. I have only once been satisfied with my own work and that was in the case of ‘The White Company’ which will most certainly outlive and outweigh its eight comrades. It is as certainly my highest point as poor ‘Girdlestone’ is my lowest.
But why should I bore you by talking about my own work. Your own is most familiar to me, not only from your critical work but from your Essay on the Sonnet, your lectures & other sources. It gives me fresh heart to have the approbation of such a judge.
Today there came a Holmes proof & m.s. The latter I send you if it may be worthy of a place in your little collection.
He had already announced a breathtaking decision to his unhappy mother:
to Mary Doyle SOUTH NORWOOD, APRIL 6, 1893
I am in the middle of the last Holmes story, after which the gentleman vanishes, never never to reappear. I am weary of his name. The Medical stories also are nearly finished, so I shall have a clear sheet soon. Then for play writing and lecturing for a couple of years.* A fellow who is just back from the States says that Holmes is doing very well over there. Let us hope so, and that Harper’s may be trusted as to returns and accounts.