Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle
Despite (or because of) the tremendous success of hisSherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle always tended to play down their value and importance in his life. Just before his death in 1930, he drew a memorable  sketch of his life's work. Conan Doyle portrayed events from his life as a series of packing cases being loaded onto a wagon and pulled by a flea-bitten workhorse. Perhaps the heaviest case of all, notes Daniel Stashower in his fascinating  biographyTeller of Tales, is the one that reads "Sherlock Holmes."Stashower's intent is to show that Conan Doyle wasnotSherlock Holmes,  and that his life consisted of much more than the now ridiculed spiritualism to which he devoted much of his later years. He succeeds to a surprising degree, convincing us thatThe White CompanyandSir Nigel(forgotten novels that Conan Doyle thought were his best) are indeed worth reading. As for the spiritualism, Stashower meticulously places his subject's long fascination with it into a compassionate and fully researched social context. We come away certain that Conan Doyle (along with many other worthy citizens of the period) really believed in it.--Dick Adler