Α study in Arthur Conan Doyle

Of course. Doyle’s works are now in the public domain, and how can, institutions or festivals such as, the Homes Fest, help continue the legacy of this great man? Like, how do they work? And do you think that they are a good tool to approach young people or, broader and more difficult audiences and introduce them into this new world of Sherlock Holmes? And not only, because, from what I read, it’s not just about Sherlock Holmes.I know that Doyle really loved many other, characters he wrote about other than Sherlock.

Correct. He, himself, as I think you know, was not a great lover of his creation, Sherlock Holmes. But he wrote many other fantastically good stories. My own favorites and my step grandma’s favorite was The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard.
So, you’re quite right. The aim of the Conan Doyle estate is to make people aware of all the other characters he created. So we currently, are discussing with 1 US television company, very famous television company, to produce a series with different character. Professor Challenger, who is the main character in The Lost Room. And so this series in the States will probably come out next year or maybe the year after.
It’s been delayed by the act of right to strike in the US. In Britain, we have a television company who helps to produce, television series on Brigadier General, which is my favorite character. So, we have these, the festival, which is mostly about Sherlock Holmes, but not only. And, yes, we want to bring it to a young audience, an audience who perhaps many of young people, not just young people, don’t know who Conan Doyle is. So we are trying to tell the world what kind of great guy he was.

Okay. So, because, you know, I had my questions in an order, but as we’re going through and we’re discussing, you’re making references to things that I want to ask and learn about. So, I’ll move on to one of the other questions. Professor Challenger, I read about him, on your site. What does he have, that Holmes doesn’t, and how could he fascinate us with his development as a character? Because, you know, he’s largely undermined compared to, Sherlock Holmes’ legacy.

Oh, yes. See, it’s actually different. He’s a, he’s a scientist, but very emotional. He’s, very aggressive. Loses his temper. And he, has a big beard (laughter). And although he’s a scientist, which, of course, in a way, Holmes was as well, he doesn’t behave like a rational scientist, and he’s much more emotional. And I think he’s he’s attractive for that reason. Whereas Holmes is, yes, more rational, he is less emotional.

Do you think that Doyle, in a way, purposefully creates these 2 characters to be so different? We have these very cold and bland Sherlock Holmes that shows very little emotion, then we have this character with this very deep and human side, and maybe it was an attempt of story to cover all aspects of human nature in a way.

Yes. I think it very much so. And, that’s why he preferred the character, professor Challenger. As I said earlier, it is very strange. He did not like Sherlock Holmes, but the creation of Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant creation. But I think Doyle himself preferred doctor Watson. He preferred professor Challenger. Everyone else but Sherlock.

That’s right. Yeah. So, it was, in a way, Sherlock was his own nemesis even though he created him. And, like, maybe that delves into how diverse Dory’s personality was. And, like, what aspect or what side of him impressed you the most, and which could be developed independently? I’m talking about Doyle not Sherlock this time.

I think the thing that impressed me most was his incredible ability to produce so much work. I mean, he was a workaholic. Yeah. And I I’ll give you an example. It’s not yet known, but I recently had to collect a whole lot of papers, from a law firm. And among these papers was a small card from, Connan Doyle written by him to his literary agent, who was called A.P. Watt. And this was written in 1926, 4 years before he died. And he in it, he says to his literary agent, number 5 is done. I managed to do it in one day, and I managed to play 18 holes of golf.
Now what he’s referring to is the 5th of the final Sherlock Holmes stories. And he managed to write that story in one day. In one day. The whole Sherlock Holmes story, in one day, and he played a full round of golf. He also wrote a huge number of independent books. He wrote one about the history of the First World War, 8 volumes. He conducted, campaigns to try and, reverse, injustices. People who had been, unjustly imprisoned, he fought for them, and the amount of work he did, was quite extraordinary. So that’s what I admire about him.

And that’s what I was thinking as well that he had this nurtured ability. Well, not nurtured. Like, innate ability, to phrase it better, to write such amazing stories about Sherlock, yet he despised doing so. It’s a very, interesting antithesis.

Yeah. It is. And it’s Paradox. He, what he loved doing was to write history books. And he wrote, and he researched a huge amount, so he got big details from history books of the Middle Ages in Britain and France. They were very good stories. I’ve read 1 or 2. But the dialogue is terrible. Awful dialogue. But he thought that these books were superior, and he got very angry that people didn’t see it as he did.

Yeah. But his mother understood. I read about him that, for such a great author, he had a huge problem with punctuation, if I’m not correct. Right?

His writing is very easy to read. He seemed to make no mistakes. He never crossed out in all the letters that that I’ve read. Almost never seen blurs. His punctuation was sometimes a bit odd. The strangest thing and very frustrating for his biographers, is that he hardly ever dated a letter. So, you have to guess from the content of the letter when he wrote the letter.

Moving on to another question regarding literature. My Greek culture led me to a connection that makes, the concept of his works even more magnificent. So, you know, the heroes of Iliad and Odyssey, Odysseus, Achilleas, and all the others.
They’re mythical, yet so many people believe that they’re true figures that once upon a time existed. So, Homer and Doyle, in a way, are the only ones who created myths that break down the boundaries between imagination and reality. So what are your thoughts on this? I just think It just proves, you know, how genius, Doyle was not only as a writer, but as a figure, as an intellectual person.

Well, he would be very grateful to hear that. (laughter) He was angry, I think, throughout his writing life, throughout his adult life, that, he wasn’t taken more seriously as a thinker. Of course, when he began his campaign, to persuade the world that, spiritualism was not the new not a religion, but, but that you could speak to the dead. You could make contact with with your loved ones. He was ridiculed, and he lost a lot of his reputation. But he he’d given a lot of thought to it, and I think we, we shouldn’t belittle him. He believed it passionately. He was fooled. I I personally I’ve looked at the, photographs I got, the original photographs that he had of the fairies, the Cottingley fairies. And I I cannot believe anybody could believe they’re real. But he believed they were real. But everybody else, I think, could see they were not. That did undermine his reputation, but he was a wide thinker, a deep thinker, and, he was, in a way, an intellectual. But the problem is in the British culture, an intellectual is not somebody who’s admired.

It’s usually the one who stands out the most. I understand. Obviously, I think, you know, supernatural is such a big part of human nature, and because we’re sensible creatures, we want to make sense of what we cannot understand. But I guess that at the time people were not able to see behind his need to connect with spiritualism.

But they didn’t. They mocked him. Yeah. And Houdini in New York showed him, that he was he was wrong. But Doyle was absolutely convinced, that he was right. Blinded by his passion anyway.

So, the Baker Street Irregulars were founded in 1934 and had its members presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, as well as countless academics. I also learned about a project Edinburgh university press is running related to this topic. We see the impact that, though it had both on the irregulars and Edinburgh University Press. So, can you tell me the story behind this move, the project that the university is running?

Well, the, Edinburgh University Press approached, the estate, I think it was 3, 4 years ago, and, the general editor, Douglas Kerr, who lives in London, he and I communicated, and he said, that with the estate, provide finance for help. So for the Edinburgh University Press to produce, scholarly edition of works, you know, of Conan Doyle’s works. So, and the plan is that over the next 20 years, they will produce 2 or 3, books.
Here’s one of them which is Doyle’s Primaries and Adventures. It’s not a very good picture of Doyle in my opinion, but they decided to have that. And it is a beautifully produced book with the notes on the, about half the book. So that’s why it’s called a scholarly edition. It means that every single sentence in the original book is analyzed and explained. So, it’s from scholars of Conan Doyle. So, we have provided money to help them publish these books.

Okay. So, the final question for tonight because I must let you carry on with your cooking duties afterwards. When Poirot died, the American press published an obituary. It was the first time that they did that for a fictional hero. In England, there hasn’t been such a response, for one of Doyle’s figures.
Maybe Oxford for example, could do something of that manner. And I’m just wondering like, where did the phlegmatic British humor go? Like, why is there this lack of, empathy and sympathy, for Doyle? I think it was mostly what I was just talking about.

His reputation was much, much less than it had been when he died. And I agree with you. I think there was a sense of humor failure. But I can’t really answer the question. Maybe there is no one. I think that, I don’t think there is. All I can say to you, and I know you know this, is that wherever I have been in the world, I would say most people that I meet assume that Sherlock Holmes is real. Many of them have never heard of Conan Doyle. It’s something we spoke about earlier. Changing the subject a little bit.
The thing that I always makes me is that Doyle was a very funny writer. The reason I love the adventures of Brigadier Gerard, that character, French Napoleonic officer, during the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century, is because they’re very, very funny. And I think some of the Sherlock Holmes stories have a lot of comedy in them. And once, again, one reason why I don’t think Doyle’s history books were so successful is because there’s no comedy. He was too serious.
But, anyway, that doesn’t answer your question. It’s really an extra thing.