I'm reading "Arthur Conan Doyle - A Life in Letters" which is just fascinating. I particularly loved the letters he wrote as a school boy; they are so hilariously Victorian in tone with their fascination with health and mortality, mixed with the abrupt changes of subject that you can expect from any 8 year old. It's all, and I only paraphrase very slightly here, 'Sadly two boys died last week of the croup. 50 new books were bought for the library which is very jolly now'. Brilliant!
At present I'm reading the letters he wrote as a struggling young doctor trying to earn some extra money by writing short stories for magazines whenever he had a spare moment. He hasn't created Holmes yet, but he is en route.
I only bought the book because it was on the sale table last time I had the pleasure of being in a large book shop, and I wasn't sure what to expect from it. So far my affection for Conan Doyle has remained untarnished; even though I'm completely sure we would disagree on any number of subjects my impression of him remains charmingly avuncular. Of course I'm not even half-way through the book yet, I may still end up throwing it across the room in disgust. (I'll try to remember to update this post when I've finished it.)
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