Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Graham Greene, the West, and Human Factors
- 2 Imperialism and Sentiment: Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and the Mountbattens
- 3 Forster's Views on Race and Class and Moral Imperatives
- 4 Kipling on Goodness and the Great Game
- 5 Political Perspectives and Moral Fervour in Joseph Conrad
- 6 Henry James on Personal Relations: Looking Beneath and Beyond
- 7 The Heroic Vitalism of D. H. Lawrence
- 8 James Joyce and the Life of Dubliners
- 9 Evelyn Waugh and the City of Aquatint
- 10 Virginia Woolf and Time's Chariot
- 11 Robert Graves' Sense of History
- 12 Christopher Isherwood and Berlin in Decline
- 13 Aldous Huxley and the Dangers of a World Without Ideas
- 14 Somerset Maugham and the Strengths of Simplicity
- 15 Agatha Christie and the Magic of Murder
- 16 Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
- 17 Galsworthy and Social and Sexual Transition
- 18 The Unchanging World of P. G. Wodehouse
- 19 Frank Richards and the Preposterous Excesses of Billy Bunter
- 20 John Buchan and a Life beyond Letters
- 21 Richmal crompton's William and the Charms of the Unorthodox
- 22 Edith Nesbit and the Pleasures of Childhood
- 23 The Excessive Vitalism of Bernard Shaw
- 24 The Melancholia of Katherine Mansfield
- 25 J. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Never Grew Up
- 26 Kenneth Grahame's Singular Mr Toad
- 27 The Wicked Worlds of George Orwell
- 28 Enid Blyton's Evocations of Britain
- 29 Tolkien and the Pursuit and Achievement of Power
- 30 Transitions in the Worlds of C. S. Lewis
- 31 Noël Coward and the Games People Play
- 32 Rattigan's Sensitivities
- 33 Lawrence Durrell and the Uses of Sexuality
- 34 Anthony Powell and the Hollow Heart of the New England
- 35 Angus Wilson and the Pursuit of Values
- 36 William Golding and the Limits of Civilization
- 37 Anthony Burgess and the Energy of the Outsider
- 38 The Ineffable Angst of Samuel Beckett
- 39 Pinter and the Politics of Literature
- 40 Ian Fleming's Establishment and its Guardian
- 41 Le Carré's Hard-pressed Concept of Honour
- 42 Beyond Shadows – Naipaul's Brilliant Bad Temper
- 43 Muriel Spark and Remembrances of Mortality
- 44 The Bizarre Worlds of J. G. Ballard
- 45 Simon Raven's Extravagant Decency
- 46 Salman Rushdie's Magic
- 47 Vikram Seth's Romanticism
- 48 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Pictures of Past and Present
- 49 The Relentless Anguish of Kazuo Ishiguro
- 50 Gerald Durrell's Human Zoos
- 51 T. E. Lawrence and the Limits of Commitment
16 - Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Graham Greene, the West, and Human Factors
- 2 Imperialism and Sentiment: Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and the Mountbattens
- 3 Forster's Views on Race and Class and Moral Imperatives
- 4 Kipling on Goodness and the Great Game
- 5 Political Perspectives and Moral Fervour in Joseph Conrad
- 6 Henry James on Personal Relations: Looking Beneath and Beyond
- 7 The Heroic Vitalism of D. H. Lawrence
- 8 James Joyce and the Life of Dubliners
- 9 Evelyn Waugh and the City of Aquatint
- 10 Virginia Woolf and Time's Chariot
- 11 Robert Graves' Sense of History
- 12 Christopher Isherwood and Berlin in Decline
- 13 Aldous Huxley and the Dangers of a World Without Ideas
- 14 Somerset Maugham and the Strengths of Simplicity
- 15 Agatha Christie and the Magic of Murder
- 16 Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
- 17 Galsworthy and Social and Sexual Transition
- 18 The Unchanging World of P. G. Wodehouse
- 19 Frank Richards and the Preposterous Excesses of Billy Bunter
- 20 John Buchan and a Life beyond Letters
- 21 Richmal crompton's William and the Charms of the Unorthodox
- 22 Edith Nesbit and the Pleasures of Childhood
- 23 The Excessive Vitalism of Bernard Shaw
- 24 The Melancholia of Katherine Mansfield
- 25 J. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Never Grew Up
- 26 Kenneth Grahame's Singular Mr Toad
- 27 The Wicked Worlds of George Orwell
- 28 Enid Blyton's Evocations of Britain
- 29 Tolkien and the Pursuit and Achievement of Power
- 30 Transitions in the Worlds of C. S. Lewis
- 31 Noël Coward and the Games People Play
- 32 Rattigan's Sensitivities
- 33 Lawrence Durrell and the Uses of Sexuality
- 34 Anthony Powell and the Hollow Heart of the New England
- 35 Angus Wilson and the Pursuit of Values
- 36 William Golding and the Limits of Civilization
- 37 Anthony Burgess and the Energy of the Outsider
- 38 The Ineffable Angst of Samuel Beckett
- 39 Pinter and the Politics of Literature
- 40 Ian Fleming's Establishment and its Guardian
- 41 Le Carré's Hard-pressed Concept of Honour
- 42 Beyond Shadows – Naipaul's Brilliant Bad Temper
- 43 Muriel Spark and Remembrances of Mortality
- 44 The Bizarre Worlds of J. G. Ballard
- 45 Simon Raven's Extravagant Decency
- 46 Salman Rushdie's Magic
- 47 Vikram Seth's Romanticism
- 48 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Pictures of Past and Present
- 49 The Relentless Anguish of Kazuo Ishiguro
- 50 Gerald Durrell's Human Zoos
- 51 T. E. Lawrence and the Limits of Commitment
Summary
It was well after I had finished this series of twentieth century English writers that I was reminded that I had left out one of the most influential. This was Arthur Conan Doyle, and I suppose the reason was that he seemed to me very much a Victorian writer. But though his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, seems every inch a Victorian, ensconced in his bachelor pad in Baker Street, his most memorable adventure as I see it, The Hound of the Baskervilles, was published in 1901. Conan Doyle went on to write many more stories about Sherlock Holmes, before his death in 1930, and also created in the second decade of the new century another character, whom I find as fascinating as Holmes. It makes sense, then, to include him here, as in effect the father of the popular detective novel, with a hero who is certainly much more iconic than his closest challenger, the Belgian Hercule Poirot.
But before I concentrate on the Sherlock Holmes books, I will glance at Professor Challenger, who first saw life in 1912 in The Lost World, a splendid science fiction yarn set in South America, with dinosaurs and pterodactyls and dangerous apes. These are all dealt with firmly by a cast of intrepid adventurers that seemed to epitomize British pluck. Oddly enough, however, one of them was supposed to have been based on Roger Casement, the Irish diplomat and explorer who was later executed for treason during the Irish uprising against the British. Though Conan Doyle broke up his friendship with Casement, he did argue against his execution, on the grounds that he must have been mad.
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- Twentieth Century ClassicsReflections on Writers and their Times, pp. 72 - 75Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2013