by Michael Sims
In discussing the background of nineteenth-century detective fiction in Arthur and Sherlock, at times I drew upon my research and writing for anthologies I have edited on this topic. I would like to thank the excellent editors with whom I worked on those books: Michael Millman, the former editorial director of Penguin Classics who commissioned my first such collection, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief; Elda Rotor, the current editorial director of Penguin Classics, who commissioned my Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes and The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime: Forgotten Cops and Private Eyes from the Time of Sherlock Holmes; and George Gibson, editor of all my books with Bloomsbury, who launched my Connoisseur’s Collection series with them and thus edited The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Detective Stories. Elda also asked me to write an introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Anna Katharine Green’s novel The Leavenworth Case, the research for which further sketched in for me details of the genre and era.
Thank you to the invaluable crew at the Greensburg Hempfield Area Library, who track down obscure tomes with Sherlockian finesse: Sara Deegan, Jessica Kiefer, Christine Lee, and Aurea Lucas. Also many thanks to library director Linda Matey and to Diane Ciabattoni and Donna Davis. Perpetual gratitude to the former director and my ongoing pal, Cesare Muccari.
Gwen Enstam and Duncan Jones, with the Association for the Study of Scottish Literature, helpfully critiqued the Edinburgh chapters. Friend and historian John Spurlock discussed this book and other aspects of history and science many times. Jon Erickson, friend and science reference librarian at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University, was essential, as usual. Jerry Felton, Robert Majcher, and Katherine Neely keep yours truly typing. Thank you, Brian and Sarah and Elliott Ferrell, for great conversations while dining and boating and beaching; and Elliott, come over soon and play with Vance’s new cars.
Notes
OVERTURE: REMEMBERING
brass plate suspended from a wrought-iron railing: Stavert, frontispiece.
Patients wishing to consult Arthur strode along Elm Grove: Donald A. Redmond, 32.
number 1, Bush Villas: ACD, A Life in Letters, 160, tells when he moved and where; 161 reproduces ACD’s labeled sketch of the street; Stavert, 16, shows 1880s advertisement for the hotel, with view of house, church, and hotel; an 1879 architectural plan of the church’s renovations, plus a description of the neighborhood, appeared in the 21 November 1879 issue of the Building News, available at http://archiseek.com/2012/1879-elm-grove-baptist-church-southsea-hampshire/#.VG5TXN5_a2w; a mid-1880s photograph, and a close-up of 1880 street map of Portsmouth, are at www.conandoylecollection.co.uk/lancelyn-green-downloads/05-summer-ACD.pdf.
Bush Hotel: See newspaper advertisement for hotel in Stavert, 16.
Arthur enjoyed . . . billiards in the hotel and playing bowls: Stavert, 15.
the arched entryway on the left: ACD, A Life in Letters, 163; ACD’s sketch, 161; photo of ACD at Bush Villas, 185
small waiting room: ACD, A Life in Letters, 183.
his hearty, infectious laugh: Blathwayt comments upon this trait himself, as do others among ACD’s friends and interviewers.
wooden blinds: ACD, A Life in Letters, 167.
later he wrote it into one of his novels: ACD 1895, chap. 15. ACD asserted more than once that this novel was autobiographical, details of which have been confirmed by many scholars.
Only his name on the spine: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 8.
Bell would have approached crime-solving: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 8.
PART 1: DR. BELL AND MR. DOYLE
“Physiognomy helps you to nationality”: How, 188.
CHAPTER 1: A SUPER-MAN
“So now behold me, a tall strongly-framed”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 3.
crowded gaslit amphitheater: Liebow, 135.
how a Red Indian in North America might behave: ACD, quoted by Blathwayt.
“Well, my man”: Details in this opening section not otherwise cited derive from ACD’s own reminiscences, in his memoir Memories and Adventures (especially chap. 2, “Recollections of a Student,” and chap. 11, “Sidelights on Sherlock Holmes”), and from his comments quoted at length in How. See also Harold Emery Jones, who attended Bell’s medical classes alongside Conan Doyle, and who quoted only slightly different dialogue in a very similar account. Note, however, that both accounts were written after Sherlock Holmes’s own approach was famous.
accent called “educated Edinburgh” . . . tanned, muscular: Scarlett, 699.
Bell’s high-pitched voice: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 3.
observant man ought to learn a great deal . . . Regarding female patients: Saxby, 23–24.
some mustached or bearded: Based upon numerous photographs of students from this period, including of ACD; e.g., portraits from 1880 made in the studio of James Howie Jr. at 60 Princes Street; see www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_C/0_cabinet_prints_howie_6_edinburgh_medical_students_1880.htm.
Arthur would pay his four guineas: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 24; amounts and payment method confirmed in various contemporary university sources.
unusually kind figure: ACD, quoted in How.
especially to women and children: Liebow, 68, 85, 134.
appointed senior surgeon to the infirmary: Liebow, 125–126.
“extra-academical instructors”: Liebow, 125–126, 140–141.
Tired-looking young men in black coats or tweed: ACD, Red Lamp, “His First Operation.”
grand three-winged, U-shaped Royal Infirmary building: description of infirmary not otherwise cited derives from Grant, 4:297–300.
glassmakers had glazed . . . joiners had donated: Grant, 4:298.
trying to cram each year’s classes into a half year: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 3.
he scrawled countless notes: Bell, “Adventures”; Liebow, 130–131, 134.
the student asked the professor to repeat details: Bell’s description of ACD’s response, in Scarlett, 700; ACD’s account, ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 3.
Joe Bell—as students and friends affectionately called him: Saxby, 13.
Rather short, with angular shoulders: Scarlett, 699; much of it echoed in Liebow.
His eyes, with their unusual two tones of blue: Stoker.
grades of Satisfactory in all classes: Miller, 60.
Bell came to consider him one of the most promising men: Saxby, 21–22.
Surgical outpatients might walk in: Liebow, 128.
during the next year fifteen thousand patients: Turner, 197.
Arthur and other efficient clerks interviewed patients: Liebow, 128, quoting ACD’s former classmate, Dr. Clement Gunn
seventy or eighty per day: How, 186.
When Arthur began working as clerk: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 26.
He was proud of his reputation: Jones, vi.
“never neglect to ratify your deductions”: Jones, v.
“What sort o’ crossing did ye have from Burntisland?”: Lancet, August 1, 1956. To conform with other quotations within my text, I have slightly modified the Scots dialect in this particular account to match the form of other quoted dialogue, without changing the wording.
“Quite easy, gentlemen”: MacGillivray, 121.
“a super-man”: Curor.
“We thought him a magician”: Quoted in Wallace, 27.
CHAPTER 2: YOUR POWERS OF DEDUCTION
“It is no wonder that after”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1.
Škoda . . . guided Hebra: Finnerud, 225–226.
“This man is a tailor”: Quotations by Hebra and examples of his method derive from a student, Fox, 103–106. Klauder pointed me to Tardieu and Fox.
Auguste Ambroise Tardieu: See Tardieu.
Dupuytren . . . mentioned in Gustave Flaubert’s novel: Flaubert mentions Dupuytren in chap. 11 of pt. 2. The Balzac story is available i
n many editions; for background, see Moulin.
in the attic of the main building: Grant, 4:298–299.
polished deal operating table . . . a tin tub filled with sawdust: ACD, Red Lamp, chap. 2, “His First Operation.”
the doctor simply threw him out of the clinic: Anecdote by ACD’s contemporary student C. E. Douglas, quoted in Liebow, 134–135.
“What is the matter with this man, sir?”: Jones, 14, is the source for this entire dialogue.
the life of a student instead of a patient: Jones, vi ff.
Joe Bell seemed irresistibly colorful: Some details (such as liveried coachman) from Scarlett, 699.
Bell mimicked his own revered mentor: Liebow, 129.
He also credited Syme: Harrison, A Study in Surmise, 234–235.
“Try to learn the features of disease”: Bell, “Adventures.”
Bell had served as house physician: Westmoreland and Key, 326.
he discovered in his late teens: See entry on Syme in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911).
“My aim has been to describe”: Bell, Manual of the Operations of Surgery, ix.
brilliant paper on epithelial cancer: Liebow, 51.
“Whilst discharging his duties”: Liebow, 49–50.
Arthur too considered Bell kind: How, 186.
he traced both his love of the world: Liebow, 56–57.
his marriage in 1865: Anonymous, “Obituary, Joseph Bell, M.D.,” 456–457.
“dedicated to God in his cradle”: Saxby, 25.
His wife died in 1874: Anonymous, “Obituary, Joseph Bell, M.D,” 456–457.
Water of Leith . . . a sewer: R. W. B. Ellis, from 1960 Scotsman article, quoted by Liebow, 68.
The disease produced gray mucus: Description of symptoms from Greenhow, 13.
“blankets of a bed”: Hume, “Frances Home,” 62.
promoted the local slang word croup: Moir, 506–507.
identical to illnesses known in the mid-eighteenth century: Greenhow, 12.
Speculations about its cause: Guilfoile, 25.
he drew the infected mucus: Saxby, 32–33.
Afterward he suffered from the disease: Bell, “Notes,” 816–817.
he never lost the limp: Liebow, 135.
By January 1865, Bell was presenting: Bell, “Notes,” 816.
CHAPTER 3: ART IN THE BLOOD
“Oh, Arthur,” his mother exclaimed: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 11–12.
at times Arthur squirmed with embarrassment: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1.
Arthur, who could not have been more than four: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1; Thackeray died in December 1863.
Elegant, bearded, witty: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1.
“more in the class of a work of Art”: Baker, xxi. Details about Matheson not otherwise cited derive from Baker.
grand windows of the Glasgow Cathedral: Beveridge, 265; Georgina Doyle, 31–32.
Our Trip to Blunderland: Jambon.
Rather than sell his infrequent watercolors: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1; Beveridge, 265, quoting Mary Doyle.
so drunk that he could neither recall his own name: Beveridge, 265, quoting letter from Mary Doyle to Dr. James Rutherford at the Crichton Royal Asylum, dated December 3, 1892, and describing events “just thirty years ago—Decr. 62.” Other details of Charles’s behavior in this context not otherwise cited also derive from Mary Doyle, quoted by Beveridge. See also Baker, introduction.
“To know him was to love him”: Beveridge, 265.
At no point could his annual salary plus artwork fees have surpassed £300: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1.
Office of Works placed him on half pay: Beveridge, 265, quoting Mary Doyle.
his superiors, Robert Matheson and Andrew Kerr: See letter from Mary Doyle, dated December 3, 1892, quoted in Norman, 128–130; also Georgina Doyle, 31.
“discharged his duties with diligence and fidelity”: Baker, xxiv.
he asked innocently if his father had been unwell: ACD, A Life in Letters, 79.
He always remembered her stirring porridge: ACD, Stark Munro, chap. 3.
he read to his mother while she knitted: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 2.
He first learned to read French: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 2.
as the eldest son, he felt the burden: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 3.
CHAPTER 4: SEVEN WEARY STEPS
“Stonyhurst, that grand mediaeval”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 2.
one-eyed, pockmarked headmaster: Ibid., 11; Lycett, 26.
Father Francis Cassidy: Ibid., chap. 1.
tolley: Ibid., chap. 1.
Proud, defiant Arthur yearned for respect and affection: Ibid.
half-holiday (Wednesday and Saturday afternoons): Holden, 106–107.
Rapt students sat or squatted: ACD provides these details in “Juvenilia,” although two and a half decades after the fact; they seem a bit too storylike.
Jimmy Ryan . . . classmate Patrick Sherlock: Miller, 110.
relative of Arthur’s Irish aunt: Lycett, 122.
Macaulay, featured Sherlock prominently in his History of England: Macaulay, 1:248, 569, 582; 2:548; 4:passim; and other examples.
His weakest subject was chemistry: ACD, A Life in Letters, 32–33.
“Like pallid daisies in a grassy wood”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap 2.
passing the matriculation exam . . . with honors: ACD, A Life in Letters, 73.
“Well, Doyle, you may be an engineer”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 17.
originally the Anglo-Norman name D’Oil: Ibid., 8.
helped steer Arthur away from Catholicism: Evolution of his attitudes discussed in ibid., chap. 2, “Under the Jesuits.”
he stopped reading English books: ACD, A Life in Letters, 81 (letter to Mary Doyle, May 1876).
he might accidentally modify a neuter noun . . . Admiral Hyde Parker: ACD, A Life in Letters, 78.
the Feldkirchian Gazette: Miller, 40.
By the age of five, he was writing: ACD, “Juvenilia.”
“each man carring a knife gun pistle”: Only thirty words of this story, usually titled “The Story of a Bengal Tiger,” survive, reprinted many places and visible in a scan of the original at https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Story_of_a_Bengal_Tiger.
On the way home in August 1876: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 2.
“I shall look to his development with great interest”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 18–19 (letter from Michael Conan to Mary Doyle, April 11, 1864).
encouraged his obviously intelligent grandnephew to read . . . Poe: Cawthorne, 4–5.
Arthur had admired Poe since boyhood: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 74.
kept a copy of his Tales . . . at Feldkirch: Lycett, 481 n. 47.
to read Poe aloud: ACD, A Life in Letters, 93 (letter to Dr. Bryan Charles Waller, September 9, 1876).
CHAPTER 5: ATHENS OF THE NORTH
“Travellers who have searched the whole world round”: ACD, Firm of Girdlestone, chap. 5.
two miles to the north and east: Black, Black’s Guide to Edinburgh, 2.
It was rich in adjectives for the winds: Stevenson, Edinburgh, 95.
watcher gazing northeast across the Firth: Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1.
German Ocean: a common nineteenth-century English name for what is now called the North Sea; Stevenson uses the term in Edinburgh, 1.
towered four hundred feet: Campbell, 119.
its time gun could be heard: Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1879, 87–88; Gilbert, 132.
The castle stood so high that shepherds in Fife: Stevenson makes the point about the ship visible in Fife in Edinburgh, 14; the rest I pieced together from photographs.
“in one vast expanse”: Black, Black’s Picturesque Tourist, 26.
“Athens of the North”: Ibid., 27.
a bustling market down in the city: Description of the Grassmarket in this paragra
ph derives largely from 1870s photographs by George Washington Wilson.
The drum and bugle . . . could be heard: Stevenson, Letters, letter of October 14, 1873.
bristling with turnpike stairs . . . since the fifteenth century: Ibid., 2:230.
Holyrood’s crumbled abbey stood: Stevenson, Edinburgh, 3, 86.
Greyfriars Kirkyard: Stevenson, Edinburgh, chap. 1.
dark streets of Old Town: Description of Old Town derives primarily from ibid., chap. 2.
The view from many windows: ACD, “Southsea.”
hovels and tenements were torn down: Ballingall, 82; Stevenson, Edinburgh, 17ff.
“Dr. Waller,” as Arthur called him: ACD, A Life in Letters, 79 (letter from ACD in Feldkirch to Mary Doyle, April 1876).
“hard work getting up the subjects”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 80 (letter from ACD to Mary Doyle, May 1876).
Bryan Waller’s family manse in Yorkshire: ACD, A Life in Letters, 153.
paying the entire Doyle family’s rent: ACD, A Life in Letters, 74–75.
a watercolor of many colorful skaters: See Figures Ice-Skating, by Charles Doyle, at www.artnet.com/artists/charles-altamont-doyle/figures-ice-skating-n1E0Pj_6_9oVJy2ITKItHw2; sometimes cited elsewhere as “Skaters on Duddington Loch.”
Duddingston Loch: Stevenson, Edinburgh, 104–105.
Edinburgh Skating Club: Information on sports in Edinburgh at this time largely from Gerald Redmond, ch. 2, “The Traditional Sports of Scotland,” esp. 54ff.
perhaps this change would permit Charles to complete his skating picture: ACD, A Life in Letters, 79 (letter from ACD in Feldkirch to Mary Doyle, April 1876).
