The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes
Subtitle: The life and times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
By: Andrew Lycett.
Edition: 1st Free Press hardcover ed.
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2007 December
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 559
ISBN-13: 9780743275231
Copyright date: 2007
Subjects: Literary; Biography & Autobiography / Literary; General; Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; Biography/Autobiography
Description: Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name is recognized the world over, for decades the man himself has been overshadowed by his better understood creation, Sherlock Holmes, who has become one of literature's most enduring characters. Based on thousands of previously unavailable documents, Andrew Lycett, author of the critically acclaimed biography Dylan Thomas, offers the first definitive biography of the baffling Conan Doyle, finally making sense of a long-standing mystery: how the scientifically minded creator of the world's most rational detective himself succumbed to an avid belief in spiritualism, including communication with the dead.
Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Always romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and fool-hardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle's life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his wayward, alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his nearly fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena. Lycett reveals the evolution of Conan Doyle's nature and ideas against the backdrop of his intense personal life, wider society and the intellectual ferment of his age. In response to the dramatic scientific and social transformations at the turn of the century, he rejected traditional religious faith in favor of psychics and séances -- and in this way he embodied all of his late-Victorian, early-Edwardian era's ambivalence about the advance of science and the decline of religion.

The first biographer to gain access to Conan Doyle's newly released personal archive -- which includes correspondence, diaries, original manuscripts and more -- Lycett combines assiduous research with penetrating insight to offer the most comprehensive, lucid and sympathetic portrait yet of Conan Doyle's personal journey from student to doctor, from world-famous author to ardent spiritualist.
Notes: Originally published: Conan Doyle : the man who created Sherlock Holmes. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 479-509) and index.
Table of contents: title: Two Irish Families; title: Early years in Edinburgh 1859-1868; title: Stonyhurst and Feldkirch 1868-1876; title: Edinburgh university 1876-1881; title: On the road-Ireland, West Africa and Plymouth 1881-1882; title: Bush Villas, Portsmouth 1882-1883; title: Marriage and A study in scarlet 1884-1886; title: Discovery of spiritualism 1887-1888; title: Birth of a daughter 1889-1890; title: Vienna and London 1891-1892; title: Tennison Road, South Norwood 1892; title: Swiss interlude 1893-1894; title: America, Egypt and Undershaw 1894-1897; title: Jean Leckie 1897; title: Boer War and aftermath 1899-1901; title: The hound of Baskervilles to Louise's death 1901-1906; title: Edalji, second marriage and Windlesham 1907-1908; title: Pre-war: from Cornwall to Canada 1909-1914; title: First World War 1914-1918; title: Spiritualist mission 1919-1924; title: Bignell Wood and death 1925-1930.