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57th out of 92 books
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32 voters
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The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name is recognized the world over, for decades the man himself has been overshadowed by his better understood creation, Sherlock Holmes, who has become one of literature's most enduring characters. Based on thousands of previously unavailable documents, Andrew Lycett, author of the critically acclaimed biography Dylan Thomas, offers the firs...more
Hardcover, 416 pages
Published
December 18th 2007
by Free Press
(first published 2007)
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This biography almost contains too much detailed information and quotes from too many relatively unimportant letters for the general reader. It also portrays a man certainly not likeable, an almost protypical Victorian with all the limitations that meant. The contradictions of his character were rather extreme - a medical scientist who created the most rational detective yet who believed in spiritualism and seances; a man who prided himself on his integrity but who carried on an affair while his...more
Kaitron
added it
I think you are going to see some sherlock holmes on my to read list soon...
Well, not read, completely. There is a lot of really good stuff here, but it is a very dense book with lots and lots of detail and I just can't seem to concentrate on it. I think I might be in a "no non-fiction" mood lately which doesn't bode well for the books I've got here right now from the public library. Besides this one I have one on Edgar Allan Poe and another on Lee Harvey Oswald. I'll give them all a chance but I really, really just want to read fiction right now.
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I never knew there was so much more to Sir A.C.D.than Sherlock. I was fascinated from so many angles: Victorian Royalty and society;Spiritualism; Interaction with so many famous contempories; the book business at the time etc. unlike so many comments on this book, I found the details compelling.
I really wanted to like this and read it. It was just too detailed and information packed, and not good information. So I gave up on it two hundred pages in it. Wish I could have liked it better.
It is rare that I give up entirely on books, but I will make an exception for this book. I am usually a love of non fiction, and I am a lover of Sherlock Holmes, and I have been waiting for a good biography on the man who created the series, but I take great issue with this one. Lycett creates a portrait of Holmes as a bumbling buffoon who just stumbled on the dynamic duo. I don't think that I am being naive when I say that this cannot be accurate; after reading the Sherlock Holmes collection...more
This is not a quick read, but it is densely packed with interested information about the man and his times. The author does a nice job in fleshing out the man, his foibles, and his idiosyncrasies, although I can't say that I would have enjoyed meeting Conan Doyle in the flesh (although I imagine that I would feel the same about most Victorian men).
Don't miss the afterword, which gives an excellent impression of the lengths the author had to go through to get this book done. The g...more
Don't miss the afterword, which gives an excellent impression of the lengths the author had to go through to get this book done. The g...more
This book was a big disappointment. Overstuffed with pointless details drawn from family letters and diaries, it fails to convey anything new or interesting about Doyle and is a slow and tedious read. It doesn't give any sense of an overall shape to his life and includes little discussion of his writing (and isn't that why we're interested in him, after all?). Martin Booth's The Doctor and the Detective is a better read and a more satisfying biography.
Simply awesome. As a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, it was amazing to be able to learn the history of the stories and the author. Two thumbs up.
Kathryn
added it
I did not like this book, and in fact quit about half way through. This was too detailed in the people he met than in how he found his ideas or how he wrote his books. I felt it was very boring and would not recommend it to anyone.
I love Sherlock Holmes. I enjoy reading about the fin de siecle and the people who inhabited it. Unfortunately, this book just didn't grab me -- I found the author's style dull and unappealing.
Interesting but also tedious. I read every word. And enjoyed it well-enough. But nothing over the top.
Bryan R
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