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Roberta 's Reviews > Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle
Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle
by Daniel Stashower
by Daniel Stashower
I was looking for, a non-fiction biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, one that does not treat Sherlock Holmes as a real person. This book won the 1999 Edgar (Allan Poe) Award for Best Biographical Work and came highly recommended. It is not one of the books that indulges in the fantasy that Conan Doyle was just a literary agent who helped Dr. Watson get his stories published.
I knew very little about Arthur Conan Doyle before reading this book so it was interesting to find out how many of the 19th century's authors and other prominent people knew him and were friends with each other. The index is practically Who's Who of the 19th and very early 20th centuries. It is funny to imagine Conan Doyle hanging with Oscar Wilde.
The Teller of Tales opens with a Preface and an Introduction that I should have skipped. They almost form a very short summary of the book as well as an apology for Conan Doyle being nothing like Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle himself is quoted as saying "The doll and it's maker are never identical." And that is only too true in this case. But it would have been easier to have come to that realization in the course of reading the book rather than have it splashed on me like acid in the Preface.
There is a trade-off in the absence of footnotes. On one hand, it is easy to read apace, unhindered by citations or references to sources. On the other hand, the reader is left to guess how the author came to certain conclusions. For example: that Agatha Christie had "mixed feelings" about Conan Doyle involving himself in the search when she went missing (he consulted a psychic) and that Conan Doyle's first wife was totally unaware of his (view spoiler) although it was apparently common knowledge. I marked it as a "spoiler" in case you are the other person who didn't know.
I am wondering now if The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Biography might have been a better choice.
Note to author: Influenza is a virus so it is pretty much totally indifferent to antibiotics (Page 126) which is why about 36,000 people still die from it every year. Which means the author is just about as good a doctor as A.C.D.
I knew very little about Arthur Conan Doyle before reading this book so it was interesting to find out how many of the 19th century's authors and other prominent people knew him and were friends with each other. The index is practically Who's Who of the 19th and very early 20th centuries. It is funny to imagine Conan Doyle hanging with Oscar Wilde.
The Teller of Tales opens with a Preface and an Introduction that I should have skipped. They almost form a very short summary of the book as well as an apology for Conan Doyle being nothing like Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle himself is quoted as saying "The doll and it's maker are never identical." And that is only too true in this case. But it would have been easier to have come to that realization in the course of reading the book rather than have it splashed on me like acid in the Preface.
There is a trade-off in the absence of footnotes. On one hand, it is easy to read apace, unhindered by citations or references to sources. On the other hand, the reader is left to guess how the author came to certain conclusions. For example: that Agatha Christie had "mixed feelings" about Conan Doyle involving himself in the search when she went missing (he consulted a psychic) and that Conan Doyle's first wife was totally unaware of his (view spoiler) although it was apparently common knowledge. I marked it as a "spoiler" in case you are the other person who didn't know.
I am wondering now if The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Biography might have been a better choice.
Note to author: Influenza is a virus so it is pretty much totally indifferent to antibiotics (Page 126) which is why about 36,000 people still die from it every year. Which means the author is just about as good a doctor as A.C.D.
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