Conan Doyleby Hesketh Pearson
Rating: ★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1974
Pages: 256
Genre: Biography
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
Conan Doyle (1859-1930) will always be remembered for the character of Sherlock Holmes, but he was a prolific writer—of short stories, of science fiction and historical fiction1including The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. In his comprehensive biography, Pearson considers how his life is reflected in his books—including his background as a doctor and his enduring (and public) belief in spiritualism.
Not quite what I expected, I don’t think. I knew this wasn’t going to be a typical biography, just based on the slimness of the volume, but it sat on the TBR shelves for a few years because I really have to be in the mood for the tedium that comes with biographies. However, Pearson skipped the tedious bits and instead, this is more an overview of Conan Doyle’s life. In that it’s a great ‘first look’ at this magnificent author’s life.
My problem, and hence the three stars, is that it’s truly a mystery whether Pearson even liked Conan Doyle. This is not an unbiased look at a literary titan’s life – it’s totally biased. But which way? Throughout the text, Pearson is extolling Doyle’s genius, praising his ability to write gripping tales, and at the same time calling him simple whenever he can. He uses the word ‘simple’, and I could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he means ‘free from guile’ – which Doyle was – but he takes snipes at him in other ways too that makes me wonder.
Pearson continued to irritate me the further along in the text I went; he went off on a long diatribe about the difference between having an imagination and being fanciful. Apparently, Shakespeare had imagination, but Doyle was merely fanciful, as, apparently, was Edgar Allan Poe. He also kept referring to “the war of 1914-1918”, or “the 1914-1918 war”, refusing to call it World War I, or even the Great War. This bugged me more than it should have.
But the part that pissed me off the most was the last chapter where he tackles the elephant in the room – Doyle’s embracement of spiritualism. It is, to put it mildly, extremely unsympathetic, unbiased and, frankly screw mildly, the man was sneering and contemptuous and couldn’t have written it more condescendingly if he tried. He made me want to thump him right between the eyes for his extraordinary poor form. I could rant about this for ages, but I’ll save time and just say, the last chapter cost him a star and a half.
It’s an easy and informative read, but unless you can tolerate an author who talks out of both sides of their mouth in a completely biased fashion, there are probably better biographies of Conan Doyle out there.