by Michael Sims
CHAPTER 6: NO MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
“I do not think that life has any joy”: ACD, “Juvenilia.”
James Thin, Bookseller: ACD, Memories and Adventures recounts his threepence purchases but does not name the bookshop; however, scholars (e.g., Lycett, 57) agree that ACD’s mention of the location and description of outdoor sale bins, etc., firmly indicate that it was James Thin, already a legendary shop beside the university. Full address in various contemporary publications, including Publishers’ Weekly, and a store advertisement in Bookmart: A Monthly Magazine of Literary, Library, and Bibliographical Intelligence, August 1887, 116.
Thomas de Quincey: for description, see Anonymous, “Booksellers of Today”; Froude, 1:415 (letter from Thomas Carlyle to John Carlyle, November 29, 1827).
reminded one observer of Dominie Sampson: Anonymous, “Booksellers of Today,” 83–84. Most of the description of Thin’s shop derives from this article.
James Thin’s siren call to impecunious Arthur: ACD, Through the Magic Door, chap. 1. Titles and reading details in this chapter derive largely from this source, esp. chap. 1, unless otherwise cited.
a treatise on warfare, written in Latin: Ibid., chap. 8.
he dived into books as a refuge: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 1.
the nearby library informed his mother: ACD, “Juvenilia,” seems to disagree with Memories and Adventures.
three-week Christmas holiday: ACD, A Life in Letters, 67. For descriptions of tombs, see Westminster Abbey (Radnor, PA: Annenberg School Press/Doubleday, 1972),
“His body is buried in peace”: ACD, Through the Magic Door, chap. 1, says that he visited grave at age sixteen. For the inscription, see www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/thomas-babington-macaulay.
It was the kind of antique diction: ACD remarks upon this point throughout “Juvenilia” as well as in Memories and Adventures.
Macaulay was typical of the Review’s commitment: Ferris, 1.
Macaulay had long since become: ACD, Red Lamp, chap. 1.
as a young man Arthur admired Macaulay’s authoritative tone: Ibid.
he read them in bed by candlelight: Ibid., chap. 2.
He admired Scott’s adventurous tales: Ibid., chap. 2.
John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle argued: Chandler, 317.
“This must be the devil”: Scott, Ivanhoe, chap. 13.
Arthur thrilled at such scenes: ACD, Red Lamp; ACD, Memories and Adventures, chaps. 2, 3, and elsewhere.
“whose novels have not only refreshed”: Black’s Picturesque Tourist, 38.
Arthur . . . wished that Scott had turned his imagination: ACD, Red Lamp, chap. 2.
Arthur also loved martial poetry: In ACD, Red Lamp, chap. 1, and many places elsewhere, ACD discusses notions of manliness and poetry.
“Unroll the world’s map”: Mayne Reid, 7, 12.
Arthur as a boy spent his time imagining hand-to-hand combat: ACD, “Juvenilia.” All of the examples of his reading adventures in this paragraph derive from this source.
CHAPTER 7: ODE TO OPIUM
“Surrgeanis and Barbouris within”: John Smith, 1. Other details about the college’s early days in this paragraph derive from Smith, 2–5.
Oxford and Cambridge, where many influential faculty members still opposed: Lightman makes this point, 22.
William Rutherford: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901, 333–334. Biographical details not otherwise cited derive from this source.
250 students in his practical physiology course: obituary by J.G.M. in Nature, April 20, 1899, at www.nature.com/nature/journal/v59/n1538/abs/059590a0.html.
Henry Littlejohn: Anonymous, “Sir Henry D. Littlejohn,” 648. Summary of Littlejohn’s teaching style drawn mainly from this obituary, written by a former student.
appointed Littlejohn as Edinburgh’s first Medical Officer of Health: Lycett, 26.
He studied in Paris: Christison, Life, 1:280ff. Much of the summary of his career derives from these two volumes.
Christison was legendary by the time: Anonymous Scotsman obituary, January 28, 1882.
Calabar ordeal-bean: Christison, “Properties,” 193–204.
A fellow of the Royal Society, Garrod was renowned: Storey, 1189–1190.
Arthur signed the flyleaf: Billings, 37.
underlining items and making notes on almost every page: Billings, 38.
“Evaporate excess Colour between Calico”: Quotations from and descriptions of ACD’s copy of Materia not otherwise cited derive from Billings.
“I’ll tell you a most serious fact”: Miller, 59.
CHAPTER 8: DRINKING POISON
Several times in my life: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 5.
“Third year’s student”: Ibid., chap. 3. The account of working with both Richardson and Hoare derive from this chapter.
“by mutual consent”: Ibid., chap. 3.
“No woods, little grass”: ACD, Stark Munro, chap. 5.
earnest payment of one shilling: Pulsifer, 327; ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 3.
He reminded himself that his mother had worked hard: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 4.
he had worked three months without a chat: ACD, A Life in Letters, 111–12 (letter to Mary Doyle, October 19, 1878).
Arthur found himself gazing at a lump of iron: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 5.
Arthur risked his life in a dangerous experiment: ACD first mentions administering gelseminum to himself as an experiment in a letter to Mary Doyle dated June 1879 (ACD, A Life in Letters, 117); an earlier letter to Mary noted that he arrived in Birmingham on June 2 (ibid., 113); thus the experiment must have occurred in June, although his account of it was not printed in the British Medical Journal until September. Description of effects derive from ACD, “Gelseminum.”
an alkaloid pain depressant called gelseminum: Ringer and Murrell, various articles from 1875 through 1878, q.v.
toxic alkaloids of the strychnine family: Hare et al., 739–741, 1618. (Note that Hare uses the spelling “gelsemium,” established as standard soon after ACD was writing; for rationale for name change, see Druggists Circular and Chemical Gazette, 1879, 179.)
“Though much used in America”: Billings, 41; Ringer and Murrell, December 25, 1875.
influenza, ague, and menstrual cramps: Ringer and Murrell, December 25, 1875.
less accepted throughout Europe: James, Guide, 72–73; Billings, 41.
The Lancet had been publishing a series of well-researched articles: Ringer and Murrell, 1875–1878.
“In all these experiments”: Ringer and Murrell, March 18, 1876.
“in doses sufficient to produce decided toxic effects”: Ringer and Murrell, May 6, 1876.
Standards there were so lax: Ringer and Murrell, June 15, 1878.
a woman who died after receiving it as a painkiller following an abortion: Ringer and Murrell, June 15, 1878.
The minim had been introduced in 1809: Powell, 6–7.
CHAPTER 9: INTEMPERANCE
“Would you care to start next week”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 34. Most details of the whaling voyage, including ACD’s observations and thoughts not otherwise cited, derive from this source, chap. 4. As apparent below, the other main sources were the journal and Sutherland.
Students at Edinburgh University were much freer: Ibid., chap. 3.
compiling a list of hosiery: ACD, “Dangerous Work,” 222, n. 11 (March 2).
dispensing tobacco: Ibid., 223 (March 4).
black eye raised the crew’s estimation of their college-educated medico: ACD, A Life in Letters, 123.
“an addle-headed womanly fool”: Ibid., 138 (letter to Amy Hoare, July 1881).
other girls he longed, at least in passing, to marry: Ibid., 140 (letter to Mary Doyle, July 1881).
off to the Isle of May to photograph birds: ACD, “After Cormorants.”
Friends had long urged Mary Doyle: Beveridge, 265.
“INTEMPERANCE—Home for Gentlemen�
��: Norman, 126. Kincardineshire is now part of Aberdeenshire.
comprehensive annual Medical Directory: http://search.wellcomelibrary.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1349810__SThe+Medical+Directory__Orightresult__X5?lang=eng&suite=cobalt.
In early 1881 . . . Blairerno House gained a new inmate: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 23–24, says it was 1879, when ACD was “aged twenty”; Beveridge cites details from the 1881 census records.
the Habitual Drunkards Act of 1879: R. W. Lee, 243–246.
In the foothills of the Grampian Mountains, Blairerno: descriptive details from Georgina Doyle, 41–42.
he daydreamed about rescuing his mother: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 7.
the storm that sank the SS Clan Macduff: ACD, “Slave Coast,” mentions the ship; for wreck information, see www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?71808.
barely able to stand but feeling that he had won another battle: ACD, “Slave Coast.”
He realized that he often acted out of bravado: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 5. The shark anecdote is from this chapter also.
“This negro gentleman did me good”: Ibid.
he could make more money . . . with his pen: ACD, A Life in Letters, 147 (ACD letter to his mother, January 1882).
CHAPTER 10: DR. CONAN DOYLE, SURGEON
“nearly frightened the immortal soul”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 153 (ACD letter to Lottie Doyle).
Arthur liked to brag to his family: ACD, A Life in Letters, throughout, esp. letters to his mother and his sisters.
Capricious and volatile Dr. George Budd: ACD, A Life in Letters, 155ff.; ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 6.
He arrived in June: In ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 7, Conan Doyle says “June or July 1882”; Stavert, 19–22, argues convincingly for late June, even postulating Saturday, June 24.
he liked the holiday atmosphere . . . of Southsea: ACD, “Southsea.”
bustled with yachts and men-of-war: Ibid.
Arthur bought a map: Stavert, 17.
He carried only his ulster: ACD, A Life in Letters.
probably a tin box: Stavert, 9, makes this reasonable assumption.
photographic equipment: Stavert, 9.
a large brass sign: ACD, A Life in Letters, 157.
Filthy urchins scuttled by: Sadden, entry for January 18.
Frequently Arthur stepped over tracks: See photo, Stavert, 11; Portsmouth city history at www.welcometoportsmouth.co.uk/portsmouth%20trams.html.
Bath chairs: Stavert, 10–11, and Portsmouth City Museum, www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1987460.
“At present the soldiers’ wives”: Quoted in Portsmouth City Council, “A History of Council Housing in Portsmouth,” www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/documents-external/hou-100years-history-of-housing.pdf.
Arthur spent his first week locating: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 63.
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 November 21, 1879, issue of the Building News, available at http://archiseek.com/2012/1879-elm-grove-baptist-church-southsea-hampshire/#.VG5TXN5_a2w.
The rent was £40: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 63.
Arthur bought a tired old bed: ACD, A Life in Letters, 161; ACD, Memories and Adventures, 63.
Arthur slept several nights wrapped in his ulster: ACD, A Life in Letters, 162, 184.
The portmanteau, in the back room with nothing but a stool beside it: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 65.
white curtains . . . knickknacks: ACD, A Life in Letters, 199.
downstairs the consulting room was fitted for gas: Ibid., 182–183.
“to get,” he told his mother: Ibid., 166.
few patients dropped in during free hours: Ibid., 175–176.
William Roylston Pike: Ibid.
Kirton, a young dentist whose office was across the street: Stavert, 34–35; “young” determined from details in the Dentists Register, 132 (London: General Medical Council/Spottiswoode, 1904).
One Southsea dentist paid every week: Stavert, 34.
Realizing the irony in this transaction, he confided: ACD, A Life in Letters, 167.
“emerged from the fray without much damage”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 62–63.
Arthur counted upon this tradition: Ibid., 65.
“A man had the good taste”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 180.
Fond of colorful characters: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 68–69.
Once he kept a pottery jug for his troubles: Ibid. he says of the jug, “I have got it yet.”
Once a poor woman begged him to tend her daughter: Ibid., 69–70.
turn him away from the traditional religion of his upbringing: Ibid., 69.
CHAPTER 11: A WEALTH OF YOUTH AND PLUCK
I found that I could live quite easily: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 6.
Arthur’s brother, Innes, arrived in mid-July: ACD, A Life in Letters, 168–169.
“far healthier town”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 165.
a physician lost face with patients: Ibid., 164.
he had grown a mustache: Ibid., 184–185.
volunteering to help fishermen on their boats: ACD, A Life in Letters, 167–168.
In the summer of 1877: Ibid., 97–100.
he had spent his spare time entertaining: Ibid., 120.
mailed home toy French foot soldiers: Ibid., 21.
“I am very happy to know that I have a little brother”: Ibid., 52.
Founded in the twelfth century: Portsmouth City Council, “A History of Council Housing in Portsmouth,” www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/documents-external/hou-100years-history-of-housing.pdf.
“a terrible little dayschool”: Kipling, chap. 1; Green, 44–45.
From the beach he brought home crabs: ACD, A Life in Letters, 172.
“We have vaxenated a baby”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 67. The following dialogue derives from Innes’s letter; wording is precisely as quoted, but punctuation has been altered to conform to contemporary dialogue format.
in letters to his mother he often itemized his parsimonious budgeting: Among countless examples in ACD, A Life in Letters, for example, see 162, 165, 170.
“Lord knows I am as poor as Job”: Ibid., 161–162.
“There is nothing I put my mind to do”: Ibid., 160.
his annual income would rise to £1,000: Ibid., 159.
To his mother he confessed that his indignation: ACD, A Life in Letters, 199.
he saw a “taxgatherer” coming: Ibid., 198 (letter to Charlotte Drummond, n.d.)
Most unsatisfactory: ACD, Memories and Adventures, 70.
chained tomes of Renaissance Oxford: Streeter, xiv.
“We have become a novel-reading people”: Trollope, 108. Griest quotes this line, 3, amid further context on this topic.
Charles Dickens and his primary rival, William Makepeace Thackeray: Griest, 4.
Mudie’s Lending Library: Griest’s is the most comprehensive book about Mudie and the hugely influential circulating libraries.
The library trade was dominated: Griest, 40ff.
“The work has been distended”: Henry James.
Arthur’s favorite novel, The Cloister and the Hearth: ACD, “My Favorite Novelist”; ACD, Magic Door, chap. 6.
“childish egotism”: Quoted in Griest, 116, citing a Reade letter in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
Friends who visited included Claud Currie: ACD, A Life in Letters, 172–173.
One friend pronounced number 1, Bush Villas: Ibid., 173.
rolled them up, inserted them into mailing cylinders: ACD, “Juvenilia.”
popular Welsh writer Rhoda Broughton: ACD himself makes this comparison; ACD, A Life in Letters, 151 (letter to Mary Doyle, March 1882).
“That Veteran” to Al
l the Year Round: Ibid., 171, 174, 182; see All the Year Round, September 2, 1882.
CHAPTER 12: THE CIRCULAR TOUR
to whose pages Arthur had long aspired: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 8.
Like Arthur, he had written many stories before venturing to tackle a novel: Payn, 15ff.
“The Cornhill this month has a story in it”: ACD, “Juvenilia.”
a two-year-old issue of The Cornhill: ACD, A Life in Letters, 170–171. “The Pavilion on the Links” was published in September–October 1880.
Arthur decided that only with publication of a novel: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 8.
The book was more a series of sketches and miniature essays: ACD Narrative of John Smith. His partial rewrite, c. 1884–1893, was published in 2011.
plot somewhat resembled that of A Lost Name: Crawford makes this point, as do other scholars.
“I would need a private graveyard”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 242.
“We know very well what that means”: ACD, Firm of Girdlestone.
“fairly good as light literature goes nowadays”: ACD, A Life in Letters, 270.
“the circular tour”: ACD, Memories and Adventures, chap. 8.
CHAPTER 13: THE UNSEEN WORLD
earliest memory was the sight of his dead maternal grandmother: Georgina Doyle, 35.
feeble patient, who was twenty-five, only a month older: Ibid., 54.
“Both ladies thanked me a very great deal”: ACD, Stark Munro, chap. 15. Actually a phrase precedes this quotation in the sentence.
he died on the twenty-fifth of March: Georgina Doyle, 54.
40 percent of the burials at Highland Road were of children: www.friendsofhighlandroadcemetery.org.uk/history.htm.
God was ordering him to escape: Beveridge, 266. Descriptions of Montrose not otherwise cited, including quotations, derive from this essential article by Beveridge.
Founded in 1781 as the Montrose Lunatic Asylum: Poole, esp. 1–21.
the entire institution came to be called Sunnyside: See www.historic-hospitals.com/gazetteer/angus/.
