The Real World of Sherlock Holmes: The True Crimes Investigated by Arthur Conan Doyle

Rating:
Summary: Holmes Creator Turns Amateur Sleuth
Review: As well as the creator of legendary sleuth Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also something of an amateur detective himself. This book explores the many cases he involved himself with, although in most of them his part is minimal. However, he did help with some memorable investigations - Jack the Ripper, Dr Crippen and the disappearance of Agatha Christie for starters.

Unlike Holmes, though, most of Doyle's observations proved inconclusive. As well as this, the authorities were sometimes loath to accept his findings, and the author, Peter Costello, implies that several innocents were executed for wont of incriminating evidence. Throughout Doyle's long career, though, his crusading nature and willingness to stand up for the truth are impressive attributes.

This book concerns itself with Doyle as Holmes creator only in passing. Here we see the author as an ever-inquisitive seeker of solutions to real-life crimes, a passion he later directed to the Victorian fad of Spiritualism. Indeed, there are some crimes he claimed to have solved through consultation with then-famous mediums. Costello wisely leaves judgement on this score up to the reader.

As an addendum to Doyle's more familiar literary achievements, this book serves it purpose well and provides many interesting insights into the Victorian and Edwardian crime scene.

Rating:
Summary: Holmes Creator Turns Amateur Sleuth
Review: As well as the creator of legendary sleuth Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also something of an amateur detective himself. This book explores the many cases he involved himself with, although in most of them his part is minimal. However, he did help with some memorable investigations - Jack the Ripper, Dr Crippen and the disappearance of Agatha Christie for starters.

Unlike Holmes, though, most of Doyle's observations proved inconclusive. As well as this, the authorities were sometimes loath to accept his findings, and the author, Peter Costello, implies that several innocents were executed for wont of incriminating evidence. Throughout Doyle's long career, though, his crusading nature and willingness to stand up for the truth are impressive attributes.

This book concerns itself with Doyle as Holmes creator only in passing. Here we see the author as an ever-inquisitive seeker of solutions to real-life crimes, a passion he later directed to the Victorian fad of Spiritualism. Indeed, there are some crimes he claimed to have solved through consultation with then-famous mediums. Costello wisely leaves judgement on this score up to the reader.

As an addendum to Doyle's more familiar literary achievements, this book serves it purpose well and provides many interesting insights into the Victorian and Edwardian crime scene.

Rating:
Summary: A look at the Holmesian side of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Review: This is a quite interesting book that chronicles the real-life interests of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in an assortment of past and contemporary crimes and, in so doing, provides bits of insight into the molding and evolution of the character of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle did not actually take an active part in all of the cases discussed here; several were historic cases to which he took an interest and, in most cases, puts his thoughts in writing. As one can imagine, he did receive a great many requests for help from readers far and wide; as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, some desperate folks looked upon Doyle himself as a last resort when the authorities proved unable to assist them.

The author makes much of an episode involving the death of a young man in the young Dr. Doyle's care, citing this as a true springboard to the creation of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle had taken in a young man suffering from meningitis, and the lad died during the night. A police detective popped by for a visit concerning the case, and this may have given Doyle a real sense of how easily an innocent man might find himself branded a criminal. In this particular case, Doyle might have given the lad too much of the standard treatment, he had already taken a shine to the lad's sister (whom he married some months later) who stood to inherit a decent amount of money upon her brother's death, and an anonymous letter to the police had alerted them to Doyle's involvement in the first place. Had a fellow doctor not been there to see the patient just hours before his death, an exhumation of the body in and of itself could have destroyed Doyle's young medical career. Exactly one year later, he sat down to begin A Study in Scarlet. The whole experience also, Costello suggests, spurred Doyle's lifetime interest in helping those who look guilty but may possibly be innocent.

Costello follows a chronological approach to the cases that interested Doyle, and it is quite interesting to see the changes that followed upon Doyle's full embrace of spiritualism in the fall of 1916. Thus, when Agatha Christie disappeared, for example, Doyle sought insight from a psychometrist (whose prediction did hit the target) - this new dependence on the supernatural marks an intriguing dissonance with the harsh rational analysis of evidence by the great Sherlock Holmes himself. Doyle's involvement in the Crimes Club is intriguing for the very reason that the discussions of this informal group of armchair sleuths remain quite secretive to this day.

Among the crimes that interested Doyle were the theft of the Irish crown jewels (from the care of his cousin), the mystery of Jack the Ripper (of course), the Crippen murder case, the Vanzetti and Sacco case, a number of American crimes, as well as crimes he stumbled upon during his travels to Australia and South Africa. A few seem to bear special mention. First and foremost is the case of George Edalji, the son of a vicar from India and his English wife. Edalji was convicted in 1903 for the crime of mutilating farm animals in his community over a period of months. The evidence looks quite ridiculous, but the Home Office and local police were less than helpful to Doyle in his efforts, even when Doyle basically wrapped the whole case up in a pretty little bow and handed it to them; he did succeed in getting Edalji released after serving only half his sentence, but the authorities seemed implacable in their persecution of the man for what amounts to nothing more than the color of his skin. Then there was the case of Oscar Slater, who was convicted of the 1908 murder of Miss Marion Gilchrist. While Doyle had no illusions as to the unsavory character of Slater himself, he spent sixteen years trying to prove Slater's innocence. The murderer, it seems clear, was a Dr. Charteris, whom the police conspired to protect owing to the fact that he belonged to one of the most influential families in Scotland. Doyle had a personal connection to a few cases. His old friend Sir Roger Casement was convicted of treason for trying to foment an Irish rebellion, and Doyle was very much surprised to learn in 1921 that his former chauffeur Jules Bonnot had gone on to become the infamous "motor-bandit" of France.

Perhaps the most interesting facet of this book is the illumination it shines upon some of the sources for Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as actual cases he investigated did inspire a number of his fictional stories. This is by no means a biography of Doyle, of course, and in some cases more information is really required in order to reach a fuller understanding of Doyle's interests and reactions. While he may have been called upon in certain cases to exercise his own deductive reasoning, Doyle never exceeded the role of amateur criminologist and in a few cases his involvement probably did more harm than good. Still, all of this helps the Holmesians among us to get a better idea of how much of Doyle himself went into the creation of the most famous detective of all time.