Episode Details

"a man of letters" [WIST]

We're pleased to welcome two noted authors to the show this week: Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower. The recently edited a biography about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle along with Doyle's great-nephew Charles Foley. Comprised of hundreds and hundreds of letters, the book is already a critical success and is gaining popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. We talk with Jon and Dan to get some of the behind-the-scenes information from them.

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Show Notes

• Introduction of Jon & Dan, their qualifications
• Why this biography is so different, after 20 others
• Where did all of these letters come from?
• Working with the Conan Doyle estate
• The heavy influence of Mary Doyle in her son's life
• Jon & Dan share perspectives of working with original letters - the good & the bad
• More of the bad: a chronologist's nightmare
• Looking at Conan Doyle's faith and his turn to spiritualism
• Did the editors find any surprises or new discoveries?
• How the biographers view their subject now, after working so closely with his letters
• The Editor's Gas-Lamp: The Baker Street Journal, Volume 4, No. 1, 1949 (Old Series)
• Show wrap-up

Links

• Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
• Jon's other related work: The Quest for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Thirteen Biographers in Search of a Life
• Dan's related work: Teller of Tales: The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Berg Collection at the New York Public Library
• The University of Minnesota Libraries' Sherlock Holmes Collections
• The I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Facebook Group