Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

I hope you are all well. the vacations are coming rolling towards us again. I am trying to keep up my French reading in order to be able to read the ‘Du Monde’ to you during the holidays.

P.S. I am cocksure of a prize.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, MAY 1872

I enjoyed your last letter very much, thank you for the leave. I have already been measured and I will appear in them in the course of a week. this is my cricketing costume, a small peaked white flannel cap (provided by the College for all), a bulging out light yellow flannel shirt, loose trousers of the same description, & white shoes with long sharp spikes sticking out of the soles, to prevent me from slipping when bowling. The sight of 250 boys all dressed like this, and all laughing and running about, is a very imposing one.

The Rector came into the studyplace yesterday and gave us a lecture which he finished by saying that last year several parents had been annoyed at his sending their boys back in their usual dress, and had said that they had expected him to get their boys vacation suits, so he told each boy to write home & ask whether they are to get clothes or not. of course I don’t care whether I get them or not.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

This is my last letter this year. I will be at Edinburgh on Wednesday at quarter past five. I will take care of everything. I will get my trunk and get a cab and drive to you. don’t let Lottie and Cony go to bed till I come, please!

I have arranged everything about my clothes I am to take two suits home with me the suit I got some time ago and my old grey clothes. my brown ones are completely worn out. I will, I think have to get some more clothes for next year. All the schoolbooks are taken up now I’m as happy as a lark. I hope I will find you all well and comfortable when I return I also hope that Papa will get some vacation and then we will go walks together. won’t I pitch into Walter Scott’s novels.

Conan Doyle’s liking for Sir Walter Scott had been growing for months, fanned by early exposure to Ivanhoe and Rob Roy. Over the summer, as he ‘pitched into’ the rest of Scott, Conan Doyle felt a powerful stirring of the imagination. ‘They were the first books I ever owned,’ he said, ‘long before I could appreciate or even understand them. But at last I realized what a treasure they were.’ Just as future generations of schoolboys would read Sherlock Holmes by the glow of flashlights, Conan Doyle found himself huddling up among the ‘glorious brotherhood’ of the Waverley novels: ‘I read them by surreptitious candle-ends in the dead of the night, when the sense of crime added a new zest to the story.’

When he returned to Stonyhurst in the autumn he had a new respect and passion for history. There was little sign of this new studiousness on the return journey, however, as he and Jimmy Ryan set off firecrackers in the train carriage.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, AUGUST 1872

I have not told you the events which happened on my journey yet. So I will tell you them now.

Ryan and I let off crackers and romped till we came to Carstairs. There we waited 45 minutes for the perth train.

we then went on a long, long way without anything happening, when suddenly a man said Oh Look at the Chinaman. there sure enough was one of the Burmese puffing and blowing like a steam engine, they had a splendidly filled out saloon at the end of the train, but they left us near Carlisle. we then bowled on quickly till we came to Preston so I and Ryan ran and looked in all the vans for our luggage, but no luggage appeared, I was quite frightened. I asked several guards but none of them knew anything about it. at last an old fellow suggested that it might be in the next train. so I sat & waited and in

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of an hour up came the train, the very first thing taken out was my trunk. I then drove to the Red Lion, here I met one of the fathers the first thing he said to me was, I dispense you from eating fish today (an ember day) so I got some meat soup I found the stockport bus, and drive here. the driver killed a hedgehog running across the road.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

there is tremendous bustle going on here. all who are not going home at Xmas, being mostly foreigners are writing to the rector for Xmas boxes, and those who are going are eager to know all the arrangements there are about 50 of the Lower Line stopping here, but only 6 or 7 of the higher line, which is very jolly, as we can all be taken out fishing or anything.

I must tell you about my box now. as it is twice as long vacation, I will require a rather larger box to keep me in good. well in the way of meat you may send what you think will do me, the usual thing is a turkey or goose, a piece of ham a German sausage, a piece of tongue or a chicken, and then one or two boxes of sardines for fast days. please don’t send any of that potted lobster, it is very nice, but very little of it gives me Diarhoea. then there is a cake (a small one will do) & piece of shortbread, then a box of figs, and a few buns or small cakes.

1 doz apples. 2 doz oranges and

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a dozen pears. then

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lb of London mixture, a packet of Butter Scotch and a packet of Furgusson’s Edinburgh rock then a Bottle of Clarat (don’t put water in for it will be diluted here) and some raspberry Vinegar, and anything you find expedient…

After making it safely through the holiday without the ill effects of potted lobster, Conan Doyle looked forward to the Easter break, though preparations were complicated by the fact that he was rapidly outgrowing his clothes, at not quite fourteen years old.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, MARCH 1873

I would be very glad if you sent me a necktie for Easter. Before the end of the year I daresay, I shall have to write for more clothes, both those trousers of Papa’s are rather worn out, and my last year’s suit has grown rather short, and will soon be well-nigh useless. that heather-suit you got me wears splendidly, there isn’t a single scratch in it, and it doesn’t show dirt a bit. it serves me now, but when summer comes, I’m afraid it will be rather too heavy & hot. Excuse my writing, I hurt my thumb at hockey, and cannot bend it properly.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, APRIL 1873

we have been having desperately hot weather lately. Even our french boy finds it hot, he keeps saying ‘it is tres chaud, very chaud, chauder than dans France.’

I had a talk with the rector yesterday. he said he was extremely pleased at the report he had to send home about me, and especially that I had overcome all sulkiness or ill temper I used to have. he also said there was scarcely a boy in the house who had done better!

The Anglican Alphabit seems to be a great favourite. I saw another thing in some paper about Papa, it said ‘Great men’s footsteps, a pleasing story, with 4 capital engravings by C. A. DOYLE.

I have read all Tottie’s letters, they are very nice. I am glad she is going to be ‘a child of Mary’. I hope she will be at home before I return, and will stay at home the whole vacation.

Though Charles Doyle tended to drink the payment he received for extra-curricular work as an artist, he was still busy in these days with commissions from magazines and publishers, and his work as an illustrator was still well regarded. The Anglican Alphabet was new—and he a surprising choice as its illustrator, for he like the other Doyles was an ardent Roman Catholic. Brave Men’s Footsteps (its title recalled incorrectly in Arthur’s letter), subtitled A Book of Anecdote and Example in Practical Life, had been published the year before. Its editor was James Hogg, who presumably remembered Charles Doyle’s work when his son started submitting stories to him.

Conan Doyle’s sister Annette was apparently considering joining the religious order to which her London aunt belonged, the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. It was devoted to good works, did not require adherents to wear habits, and allowed them to live in homes of their own.* (#ulink_cb1d14a6-19a3-54b3-b62d-54a974053726) His aunt Annette Doyle shared one with her bachelor brother, illustrator Richard Doyle, famous for ending his association with Punch in 1850 over its anti-Catholic views.

Conan Doyle learned that another sibling had arrived, his only brother in a family that included three sisters, with more to come. Perhaps to please his mother, he wrote in French this time to inquire about the baby.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, APRIL 1873

I’ve been quite busy recently with my lessons, and haven’t had the time to write to you as I would have liked to do. I am very happy to know that I have a little brother, that is charming, write me quickly and tell me what his name is and what he looks like. love to everyone, I am very tired from writing this little letter.

The boy’s name, he soon learned, was John Francis Innes Hay Doyle, although it would be some time before the family decided what to call him on a daily basis. After ‘Frank’ at first, they eventually settled on Innes, but Arthur first called him Geoff, and then Duff.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

After dinner it was growing rain, however we determined in spite of the weather to set out at once for Clitheroe the usual place visited on the Academy walk, so we all donned water-proofs and sou’westers. we set off, smoking to keep off the cold. I bought a nice little pipe with an amber mouthpiece, which I enjoyed very much. At last we reached Clitheroe and we all ordered what we wished in the way of drink. I got a bottle of lemonade but some, I am ashamed to say, tossed off whole tumblers of raw brandy. We passed through some curious pits where excavations were being made for fossils. I found there a most curious stone, all covered with petrified worms, whose coils I could see distinctly.

After a nice walk we reached home, where we found a jolly feast ready for us, in what is called, in the book I sent you, the do-room. Mr Splaine made a new speech, and we made great havoc among the eatables. we had a very jolly day on the whole. next morning I noticed the brandy-drinkers, however, who did not seem at all the better for their do.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JUNE 1873

I am glad to hear that my report was a good one. I have got my prize now for certain, and it will be a much more honourable one than any other that I have got yet, as Syntax is one of the hardest schools in the house, and certainly not more than eight in the class will get a prize. I am trying to improve in my French and I have read a great many books in that language lately. I will tell you a few of them to see if you have ever seen them. ‘Vingt milles lieus ses les mers’ by Jules Verne, ‘Don Quixote’ ‘cingt semaines dans un balon’ by Jules Verne, ‘Napoleon et le grande armeé’ ‘Voyage dans soudain’ ‘La Roche des Mouettes’ ‘Voyage d’un Enfant a Paris’ ‘Le Fratricide’ ‘Les Russes et les anglais’ ‘Enfants du Capitaine Grant’ ‘a la lune et de retour’ and a lot more, and I am getting to relish them quite as well as English books.

Our master, Mr Splaine, has been up at the Tichbourne Trial, he was appointed as librarian to bring up some old charts of the college. he has now returned and told us all his adventures with great gusto.

I hope you are all well at home, has little Frank got any teeth yet? I suppose he won’t be able to walk by the time I come home.

Like Scott’s novels, Jules Verne’s visionary work would take root in Conan Doyle’s mind, and Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea can be readily felt in Conan Doyle’s 1929 science-fiction novel, The Maracot Deep, in which undersea explorers travel to a kingdom on the ocean floor.

The Tichborne Claimant, one of England’s most famous legal cases, fascinated Stonyhurst, for it dealt with a mysterious figure who claimed to be the long-missing Sir Roger Tichborne, a Stonyhurst graduate and heir to a fortune, who had been presumed lost at sea in 1854. For twelve years Lady Tichborne refused to believe that her son was dead, and she kept a light in the entrance of Tichborne Hall to enable him to find his way home in the dark. In 1866 she received a letter from a butcher in Wagga Wagga, Australia, a man known locally there as Arthur Orton, who declared—amid apologies for his lax correspondence—that he was her long lost son.

When he arrived in England Lady Tichborne welcomed him, but other members of the family denounced him as an impostor, and his claim turned into the longest and most convoluted proceeding in British legal history. It was finally dismissed in 1871, and now, in 1873, Orton was on trial for perjury. Conan Doyle followed avidly ‘a case of identity’ (to cite the title of an early Sherlock Holmes story) that seemed lifted from the pages of Alexandre Dumas—ending in Orton’s eventual conviction and ten years in prison. The trial was still underway when the 1872-73 school year came to an end.* (#ulink_b9fdd9de-5424-5fb0-afc7-6efa1f13a3ce)

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JULY 1873

I have been to the taylor and I showed him your letter, explaining to him that you wanted something that would wear well, and at the same time look well. he told me that the blue cloth he had was meant especially for coats, but that none of it would suit well as trousers, he showed me a dark sort of cloth, which he said would suit a blue coat better than any other cloth he has, and would wear well as trousers. On his recommendation I took this cloth, I think you will like it, it does not show dirt, and looks very well, it is a sort of black and white very dark cloth. You must write and tell me beforehand if you are going to meet me at the station. I know nothing about the train yet, but I will let you know when I learn. My examen is finished so I have finished all my work for the year, but of course it is kept profoundly secret who has got a prize. I trust I am among the chosen few.