Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
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His letter to Edinburgh’s Scotsman condemned the methods by which his candidacy had been attacked. Though raised a Roman Catholic, he said, he had not been one for many years; ‘my strongest convictions have been in favour of complete liberty of conscience, and I regard hard-and-fast dogma of every kind as an unjustifiable and essentially irreligious thing putting assertion in the place of reason, and giving rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs.’
But, he continued, ‘my early association with the Catholic Church leaves me with no bitterness toward that venerable institution, which contains many of the most saintly men and women whom I have ever known. My own recent experience is enough to show me the vile slanders to which they are subjected.’
For the moment, at least, Conan Doyle had lost his taste for political campaigning, especially as practised in Edinburgh. ‘Looking back,’ he remarked twenty years later, ‘I am inclined to look upon Mr Plimmer as one of the great benefactors of my life.’
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, OCTOBER 16, 1900
I left Edinburgh, leaving behind me a dignified statement of my experience which never stooped to allude to individuals but kept to principles. This appeared in the Scotsman and I will send it to you. It will clinch the effect which has been produced by my candidature, and Edinburgh will be safe for me in the future. It would have cost much time and worry to unseat Brown, & only led to a fresh Election which must have been fought with great bitterness. The maniac Plimmer we must leave to the public prosecutor, if he will take it up. I arrived here last night to find four huge telegrams from Edinburgh to return to do this or that, open bazaars &c. It amused me. If any division of Edinburgh should be open it will be mine by heredity now—I mean my inheritance. But I had rather fight the Central for it is the most difficult and the most historical & honourable.
Conan Doyle’s mentor Andrew Lang might have predicted the outcome. ‘The literary man is not taken seriously,’ he had written two years earlier: ‘When the professed man of letters enters another field he becomes an amateur, and must expect to be treated as such. A literary man is not taken seriously in the House of Commons.’*
Meanwhile the Boer War continued, in a new phase of guerrilla warfare for which the Boers were well prepared. Britain was already being accused by the Boers and their supporters in Europe and America of using inhumane weapons such as dumdum bullets, and of herding Boer noncombatants into concentration camps to die of disease and starvation. Conan Doyle had already reacted angrily to such charges, even though critical of British mismanagement of the camps. Now, just as the first edition of his history, The Great Boer War, came out, an ugly counterinsurgency campaign seemed unavoidable.
to Mary Doyle OCTOBER OR EARLY NOVEMBER 1900
You are to take the History which will reach you, tear off the back, loosen the leaves, and so send it with my best wishes to Dr Griffiths. I know it will shock your orderly soul, but that is what I send it for.
Thank you, dear, for your most sweet letter. I rejoice that you like the book. Some critics are so absolutely unable to understand good from bad that it fills one with despair. But in the long run it is the average educated man who decides. Of course this History will have to be kept up to date with fresh editions. I fancy a storm will break over me sooner or later—must do so when you think how freely I have handled Rhodes, Kitchener, Buller and so many other bigwigs. But I shall welcome it, as a tribute to my frankness. There has been a plethora of war books & they get in the way of mine but the fittest will most certainly survive. I hope no fitter will turn up.
Yesterday I took Mrs Langman and Tootsie, such a queer couple, out to dinner and theatre. It went very well. The proofs of the book have been scattered or destroyed. I have lots of bits but no complete set. The MS I bound and gave to Touie. I am doing the same with the MS of ‘A Duet’ for J. I earnestly try that my love shall not make me inattentive. J’s aunt, a very rich old Edinburgh lady, has died. Lived at Carlton Terrace (is it?) near the Carlton Hall. Probably left most of her money to charities, as she was great on Ministers, but perhaps J’s father may profit.
[P.S.] Charming letters from Innes & Lottie. I inquired at the War Office and find that Innes’ Battery is the 12th Field, now in China. It returns to India and Innes is to await it there. So I understand. I suppose that means all his uniforms must be changed.
to Mary Doyle
I have written a polite note to Connie (which, between ourselves, is more than she deserves)—so am I not a dutiful son.
Very busy founding my Rifle Club.* I have quite enough to do. Fourth edition of the War ordered, 12500 copies all told up to now. At 15000 I clear off my advance payment. They cant print it fast enough.
I told Connie she was welcome at Undershaw and that I would do anything for her if I could. I cant say more. But to tell me not to feel hurt is, with all respect to you, Mammie, simple nonsense. I do and must feel hurt. And I dont feel better by contemplating the fact that William is half Mongol half Slav, or whatever the mixture is.
I have been having many fights with the Military over the army in the Times, MacMillan, Cornhill &c. Something will come of it.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW
I am so sorry about your old friend. I am afraid that it is a blow to you, though for himself it must have been a release. What a grand thing death is in some ways—it is dignified and releases one from the petty and sordid things which pull down the soul.
I went up today to try & get Connie to come down, but found her disinclined for the effort, so I brought Claire instead. She seems a charming girl.† I never meet one member of the family (except you) who does not consider that Oscar is being ruined—It seems to me very shocking and yet I dont know what to do about it.* Connie is not strong enough to be bothered about it at present anyhow.
I dont know that I have any particular news. Dont send me any letters which you want back ever—for the chances are 10 to 1 against your getting them; I am always busy correcting & enlarging my history, which is selling merrily. 20,000 are now printed, and I expect a large Xmas sale for it.
I went up to London today to meet the Princess Christian and Prince Somebody (her son) at Lady Jeune’s.† A very nice homely body & we got on very well together.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW
Would you have the goodness to help me in putting my accounts to order. I am not quite clear how we stand. I could work it out by going over my books (for I am, I assure you, quite methodical in money matters) but it will probably be quicker to apply to you. I have some recollection of paying over £100 since my return but I am not sure how much of your allowance was paid before I went to Africa. Let me know, like a dear, and if you are at all short I will send a cheque by return. I am very busy one way and another.
1. Keeping my history up to date. I have eternal letters on the subject, and constant new information.
2. Organising my riflemen. I have about 60 and shall get 100—all very keen.
3. Much private business & pleasure of various sorts.
4. Fighting the military critics. I have an article dealing with them all in January Cornhill.
Those are the main things but there are many others. On the other hand I keep in good training, play hockey & golf, shoot when I get a chance, and am very fit.
His effort to ‘fight the military critics’ included, on October 25th at London’s Pall Mall Club, speaking alongside a war correspondent who had been captured by the Boers but had escaped to come home and win a seat in Parliament: Winston Churchill, at the outset of his long political career at the age of twenty-five.
It also included ‘Some Military Lessons of the War’ in October’s Cornhill, in which he called for trained civilian reserves in these years of mounting competition between Britain and Germany. A large civilian militia was unwelcome to the British military establishment and its sometimes haughty professional soldiers, despite recent history in South Africa. Colonel Lonsdale Hall, a writer for the Time
s, wrote a critique dismissing Conan Doyle’s views, but Conan Doyle retorted with the observation that ‘I have no desire to “teach” professional soldiers, but my contention is that free discussion should be permitted and encouraged upon military matters. A civilian’s argument cannot be disposed of by merely writing “(sic)” after it.’*
The battle of words grew thick and furious into the new year, when Conan Doyle launched the Undershaw Rifle Club and called for others to follow suit. (Kipling, who had also been out to South Africa during the war, was also creating a rifle club where he now lived in England.) Looking to spread the gospel, Conan Doyle wrote to the editor of The Strand Magazine:
to H. Greenhough Smith UNDERSHAW
I’ll tell you how to make an excellent article and one which will do much good.
Come down yourself and see my Hindhead Commando of Burghers practising at the butts. Wait a little until I have them a little more developed. It will be an object lesson to all England. Bring a photographer and take types of them and their methods. Wednesday & Saturdays are their days, so if you give me a weekend you will see them perfectly. I am sure it will interest you. I’ll let you know when.*
My history keeps me too busy for any other work. I have to incorporate all fresh information. When I have anything on the stocks I’ll let you know. Poor Sherlock R.I.P.
Meanwhile, Conan Doyle sought opportunities to enjoy Jean Leckie’s company under chaperoned conditions—apparently proposing a golfing excursion in Dunbar, a venue that did not meet with his mother’s approval.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, JANUARY 1901
All blessings, dearie, for this New Year. May it bring good to all of us!
I sent a ‘Songs of Action’ to your friend with leave to use a ‘Lay of the Links’.
Wood, Trevor, Evie Driver & Joey Hoare have been here for Xmas—all very merry. I hope Wood will stay all his holidays, as he is very useful & cheery—plays with me &c.†
All right about Dunbar, dearie. No doubt you are right. But no place can possibly be too quiet for us. That is what we want. But your district in March would do right well. A few books & a golf links—voila tout. Dear J is very well & so pleased with your letter. She is very good in her difficult situation.
30,000 Histories have now been sold in England, 9000 in the Colonies, I dont know about America. Certainly over 50,000 altogether. It is really splendid. My military views will, I think, do good, and have never been shaken in essentials. My rifle club progresses. You would have been charmed at the scene on Bank holiday, gentlemen, cabmen, peasants, shopboys all so absorbed in the same thing. Such good sport. The prize (an 8/6 clock) was taken by the pot boy at the Hut [a local inn].
Touie has been in bed a week but rather as a prevention than a cure.
Goodbye, darling. Take care of these letters which refer to private matters.
to Mary Doyle REFORM CLUB, PALL MALL, LONDON
I have been three days at such a nice little golf hotel at Ashdown Forest in Sussex. So clean and nice, with a private sitting room available & unlimited golf and fresh air.
Now suppose you were to come South again, and you and I were to go to this hotel for a few days. It would be sweet. Then suppose at your invitation J came to join us. Then in a few days I would ask Stewart Leckie the brother for a couple of days golf—he is very keen—and then he & J could go back together. How is that? Do you think it would work? Would it be better than any scheme you have in your head? Would it suit you? I shall be so keen to hear your view. We should probably have the hotel to ourselves. A fortnight there would fairly set me up.
She fell in with his plans readily enough, but he also found opportunities to get away to Ashdown Forest without her, though apparently never unchaperoned.
to Mary Doyle ASHDOWN FOREST HOTEL, FOREST ROW, SUSSEX
Here I am down here for a few days and getting new life all the time. No, dearest. I assure you there is nothing amiss with me save need for a holiday after a long spell of work. When I am here playing golf I feel 21. Stewart Leckie the brother came down for a couple of days golf, and by some extraordinary chance his sister came down with him. Strange, was it not? And we had such a healthy innocent time—all as natural as possible. But if Touie goes to France we can do our little holiday beautifully. Sometimes we think of this place—which is charming only slow for you, unless you learn golf. Sometimes we think of the New Forest which I should love you to see—it is the grandest thing in England, and sometimes of the North Countree if we could be quiet and incognito. But we will see if Touie goes.
to Mary Doyle ASHDOWN FOREST HOTEL, FOREST ROW, SUSSEX
I got your charming letter here this morning for which all thanks. I have been feeling rather run down lately so had the happy idea—or rather J had, for she is quite a guardian angel in such matters—to throw everything up for a few days and come here with Hamilton and play golf all day. I cant tell you how much better I am already and by the end of the week I shall expect to be entirely myself once more. We shall live in the open air all day, and with good temperate diet as well we shall be much the better. He has been rather overworking & needed a change as well as I. I daresay I am feeling the strain of a hard years work last year, and also my soul is naturally & inevitably rather wrenched in two all the time. I am most careful at home and I am sure that at no time have I been anything but most considerate and attentive. But the position is difficult, is it not? Dear J is a model of good sense and propriety in the whole thing. There never was anyone with a sweeter & more unselfish nature.
The sale of the book has naturally eased down but will be renewed when I am able to get out my supplementary chapters at the end of the war. I had a small windfall by selling the serial rights for £500 to ‘The Wide Wide World’—which was very unexpected. I am doing some studies of Criminal Cases for the Strand Magazine, and Sherlock is doing very well still in America so that altogether we are going to have a good year pecuniarily. I sent £147 to aid Innes to balance his exchequer, but bar foreign service I think he will now be fairly selfsustaining. Don’t allude to the above in writing to him or he might think that I grudged it—which I dont.
My life is such a rush with its many pressing practical interests that I have little chance of that inner life and good reading which you so rightly and wisely recommended. Of Novalis I know nothing—save the name.* The spiritual side of me seems all choked by the pressure of work, but no doubt it is there—I feel it is—and will clear itself some day.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, FEBRUARY 1901
Here I am back and full of health—thanks to Dr Ashdown Forest. I enclose cheque and will write fully soon. Today I will devote to putting in three days work upon my history. I mean that history to be an Annuity in itself. I have just received my article about the Queen from New York. I like it. Have sent it to J to send to you.
Victoria, after reigning an unprecedented sixty-three years, had died in January. Conan Doyle had covered her funeral for the February 3rd New York World, recording the end of the era personified by the Queen-Empress ‘to which 400,000,000 of us who dwell under the red-crossed flag looked as the centre of all things, the very heart of our lives, our inspiration, our standard of duty, the dear mother of us all’.
‘I fear what I wrote is not good but I did my best,’ he told his mother, but ‘it was a great sight. I wished you had been at my side.’
The Edwardian era had now begun. Though a playboy while Prince of Wales, Edward VII, now sixty, would surprise many by the seriousness he brought to his new position as King.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, FEBRUARY 1901
My health has much improved during the last three weeks. I don’t think anyone understood how low I was, but she insisted on my stopping work, going to Ashdown & changing my diet. I have done all this and largely given up smoking and the result is a very great improvement in my general health. But I shall most certainly need a holiday in March.
Ashdown has been found out by too many of our friends now. Touie has sudd
enly dropped France & wants to go to Torquay, whither she starts on Friday next from London. I expect she will take a month. That being so it would seem strange if I went for a change with you to some other part of the South, like the New Forest. Therefore we come back to the north again. Kendal sounds very nice in that note. The alternative is Dunbar or St Andrews or any of these golfing centres. On the whole why not Kendal? But then her plans must be consulted before we can finally fix that. I have to go to Edinburgh for the Burns Banquet on March 23rd. My holiday must be going there or coming back. I should love to get a clear fortnight if it might be. We should avoid Easter by taking it before I go to Edinburgh. I am free after March 6th. Think it out, dearest, and let me know how it all seems to you. Rooms would be better than a hotel if we could get real nice ones. Or if you decide against Kendal you could both meet, go to Dunbar, and I would join you there from Edinburgh. I understand that it is beautiful, good golf, historic associations, sea &c.&c. It’s a bit of a tangle, but whatever you do do comfortably. My Riflemen are all popping away outside which does not help to clear my mind.
You heard of course that Innes was sent straight on from Hong Kong to Wei-hei-Wei. It will be very cold there. I tell him he has evidently been sent to overawe Russia.
Innes had been redeployed from India to a British enclave in northern China. ‘I shall be so anxious to hear from you and to know what is on the cards,’ Conan Doyle wrote on February 21st: ‘Do they expect trouble in the north with Boxers, or have they sent you to overawe Russia or what is it?’ (The Boxers were a Chinese nationalist movement whose siege of foreign legations in Peking the previous summer had been relieved by a multinational task force.) ‘No news in particular here,’ Conan Doyle continued: ‘They kindly offered me an order for my services in S. Africa but I did not take it.’