Book Review: Doyle’s World — Lost & Found: The Unknown Histories of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Doyle’s World — Lost & Found: The Unknown Histories of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Square One Publishers: November 7, 2023) is written by two unabashed Holmes buffs, Drs. Daniel Friedman and Eugene Friedman. It’s a lively book that mines the history and world surrounding the author’s life to provide more context and connections than an average reader might have ever thought about between one author’s life and his work.
The authors are a father-and-son team of pediatricians, and lifelong Sir Arthur Conan Doyle / Sherlock Holmes scholars. They coauthored previously the conjectural biography The Strange Case of Dr. Doyle — and realized there was a lot more to say. In Doyle’s World, they do just that, demonstrating an obvious ease and comfort with discussing Doyle’s life and times. They are clearly in their element when drawing (and often uncovering) connections between historical events, people Doyle encountered, and the myriad plot twists and characters in the Holmes tales.
As the Friedmans delve into Doyle’s influences and motivations, they also extend well beyond the Sherlock Holmes stories into Doyle’s quite multifaceted career — and, as such, they also act as welcome revisionists of a biography too often confined to one aspect. Doyle was far more than the writer of astonishingly successful detective stories: he was also a physician, a scholar, an author and playwright, a public figure, an activist, and an avid Spiritualist.
Doyle’s belief in our need and ability to communicate with the dead certainly clashed, at least on the surface, with his profound understanding of science. But as the Friedmans point out, Doyle’s belief in Spiritualism was no anomaly: many in the 19th century held a deep fascination with the dead, often played out in dramatic séances and other attempts to connect with the afterlife.
Indeed, one chapter of Doyle’s World chronicles Doyle’s explorations and studies into the subject, including the many personages and events he would have come in contact with at the time — as well as a few fiascos. There’s a lively account of a séance involving Doyle; his second wife, Lady Jean Leckie (also an ardent Spiritualist, who acted as the medium); and the famed magician Harry Houdini (whose wife had been asked to wait outside). Instead of convincing Houdini he’d just experienced the presence of his dearly departed mother, the séance had the opposite effect. Leckie “channeled” in perfect English; Houdini’s mother, on the other hand, spoke only German.
This is merely one example of a whole host of stories in a book that’s not a fast read, but nor should it be. Topics are covered in copious detail, with layer upon layer of context and explanation. The authors write in a chatty, anecdotal manner that matches the tone of the many Victorian-era quotes and excerpts they include, making for a rather seamless, immersive transition between the world now and the world then. It’s clear these authors love the tweedy, ornate, and slightly gossipy style of conversation (as well as writing) at play in Doyle’s day, as well as the spirit of conjecture, investigation, obsessive exploration, and also the sense of mystery of the era. They have also published here in this book — for the first time — two short stories that the Friedmans believe were actually written by Doyle in the late 1800s under a pseudonym. The book also benefits wonderfully from a collection of distinctive black & white illustrations featured at key points in the book — all of which were created for the project by Ben Moody, Diana Leto, Scott Hanna, and legendary comics artist Ramona Fradon.
If the world of Sherlock Holmes and its ever-inventive creator Doyle grip you in the same thrall that it so clearly has the Friedmans, then Doyle’s World — Lost & Found will be a great read. It’s packed with lore, real-life detail, ambitious assertions, and an obvious — and infectious — love of its subject.
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