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;) :D
And now, I'm going to begin this morning (it is morning for me, so bear with me when I write these things as you finish your afternoon tea or evening sherry ...) by asking just a few more questions about Sir Arthur and one regarding Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle:
1) What other jobs, besides doctor of ophthalmology and fiction author, did he have?
2) Can you name a very famous friend of his, with whom he had a serious falling out?
3) Which sports did he enjoy?
About Sherlock Holmes:
~ What kind of pipes did Holmes use, and how many were there?
(I rather like this sign - it is outside a tobacco shop in Reykjavik, Iceland.) :)
That's all for now, chaps and dear ladies! Later today, or early tomorrow, I shall share a good deal more info about each of these particular subjects mentioned in my questions today. Do carry on!
Now, @4EverBonded, you caught my attention...!
I may know the second one (a magician?), but I could only wild guess the others...
Skiing is definitely the most interesting sport connected to Sir Arthur, though, and I'll elaborate on that later. Motor sport may be correct, too; I'll be looking that one up! Thanks. Any guesses on another sport?
Glad I made these a tad more difficult. The first one is not so far afield, chaps - I think you could guess or certainly with a little research discover the answer. I'm thinking of two other jobs or roles Doyle took on during his lifetime (and a potential third) ... other than the two main ones listed (fiction author and ophthalmologist).
Dear @ggl007, please give me a name for your guess because you are thinking correctly. :D
* * * * * * *
I'm briefly up in the middle of the night, so pardon me while I ... disappear magically for a while ;)
But first, I just discovered this article on the BBC website and wanted to share it. A new early (1916) Sherlock Holmes film was found, starring William Gillette!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29474334
1) What other jobs, besides doctor of ophthalmology and fiction author, did he have?
One role is that he served at age 20 as a ship's surgeon in the arctic. From this nice Doyle website, http://www.siracd.com/life_ship.shtml:
* * * * * * *
In early 1880 Claude Augustus Currie planned to have the adventure of a lifetime. He was scheduled to go on a whaling expedition as ship's surgeon. At the last minute he couldn't go. He asked a fellow student to take his place. That student was Arthur Conan Doyle. ... The plan was to spend two months hunting seals off the coast of Greenland and then head north to look for whales. Whale oil was used to make soap and lubricants. The baleen, long and bony plates in the whale's mouth, were used to make many things including kitchen utensils and corset stays. ...During the voyage Conan Doyle was rarely called upon to use his medical skills. Instead his primary functions proved to be breaking up fights between the other crew members and keeping John Gray, the captain of the ship, company. ... The Hope returned home In September of 1880. Of that time Conan Doyle would later say, "I came of age in 80 degrees north latitude."
* * * * * * *
Another is as war correspondent and army doctor.
This photo was taken during the Boer War.
PBS website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/peopleevents/pande02.html) sums it up:
* * * * * * *
Around the turn of the century he was involved in two wars, first as a correspondent in Egypt and later running a hospital in South Africa during the Boer War. A popular pamphlet he wrote in support of the latter war led to his being knighted in 1902.
* * * * * * *
And the site http://www.siracd.com/life_knight.shtml gives lots of details:
* * * * * * *
The Boer War, also known as the South African War, broke out in 1899. The governments of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State banded together against Great Britain. The issue of contention was control of the area's mining and farming resources. ...
The Boers, European settlers of mainly Dutch ancestry, had superior equipment and tactics. The British had enormously superior numbers. The difference in manpower was so great that Great Britain expected the war to be a short and relatively easy one. They were wrong. The war lasted from 1899 to 1902 and many lives were lost. ...
Conan Doyle certainly was familiar with the subject of the Boer War. In 1900 he traveled to South Africa to serve as a doctor in a medical unit treating British troops. After his return he researched and wrote The Great Boer War. ...
In the 1902 publication entitled, The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Conduct, Conan Doyle responded to all of the charges leveled against the British. For example, he declared that the "concentration camps" were really refugee camps that the government of Great Britain was duty bound to create. Housing was needed for the women and children displaced during the war. He admitted that the mortality rate in the camps was high. However he pointed out that this was because of disease rather than bad treatment. Many British troops died from the same cause and so Conan Doyle reasoned that the civilians in the camps were being treated at least as well as Great Britain treated its own troops. ...
The work was a success. It was widely read and public opinion about Great Britain's conduct in the Boer Was softened. As a result of this contribution to his country's welfare Conan Doyle was notified that King Edward VII wanted to make him a knight bachelor. ...
Conan Doyle seriously considered refusing the offer. He did not see why he should receive such recognition for merely doing his duty. His mother, who loved family history and heraldry, was horrified to learn that her son might refuse knighthood. She wrote him and argued that he should accept the honor.
In the end Conan Doyle did decide to accept. On October 24, 1902 Arthur Conan Doyle, because of his services to the Crown, became Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
* * * * * * *
So yes, as many of you know, Arthur Conan Doyle was not knighted for his contributions to fictional literature (though many people who do not follow Holmes may assume it is for his iconic Sherlock Holmes) - but rather for his writing and support, as well as medical duties given to his country, during the Boer War.
Information regarding my 2nd and 3rd questions coming soon ... :)
Cheers!
http://www.siracd.com/life_ship.shtml
Conan Doyle became so adept at whaling that the Hope's captain offered him double pay if he would act as harpooner as well as the ship's surgeon on the next voyage. It was a dangerous way to make a living and Conan Doyle declined.
In fact, Conan Doyle's life was in danger several times during the voyage. Once when he was taking part in a seal hunt on the ice flows he accidentally stepped off of the ice and fell into the freezing water. No one had seen him fall and he was initially unable to pull himself out. Luckily he remembered the seal carcass that he'd been working on before he fell. He reached out of the water and managed to grab the seal's flipper. By using the seal's body as leverage Conan Doyle pulled himself out of the water.
In another instance Conan Doyle was on the lancing boat, the boat charged with killing the whale once it had been harpooned, when the wounded animal brought its side fin out of the water and poised it over the boat. The six men on the boat, including Conan Doyle, realized that should the huge fin be brought down on top of them their boat would be sunk. Luckily they managed to maneuver the boat out of harm's way before they were injured.
What a man, what a life! The more I learn of Doyle, the more I see Watson.
Doyle led such an adventurous, varied life! And yes, he feels more and more like Watson to me, too.
I can't wait until I get a break from college and am able to start the biography of his life I purchased in earnest. I've flipped through it and read a few sections, including the time where he basically had a 19th century style rap battle in the London papers with one of his critics, and I'm very excited to learn more about my favorite author. Doyle was larger than life, just like his two most famous creations.
It's this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Teller-Tales-Arthur-Conan-Doyle/dp/0805050744
http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Arthur-Conan-Doyle/dp/1907355804/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412462104&sr=1-2&keywords=simon+parke+Doyle
Conversations with Arthur Conan Doyle (2010) by Simon Parke. I'll try to get both.
Interesting! I don't know how I never saw the Parke book while debating which of the dozens of Doyle biographies to get. I can more than recommend to you the Shashower biography.
I hope to get a wee bit more Doyle info up tonight; just got home.
As @ggl007 guessed, yes, the person I was thinking of was Harry Houdini, the great American magician. He was passionate about exposing fraudulent mediums. Doyle was passionate about spiritualism. Yet Houdini and Doyle were friends for several years, before a deep rift ended their friendship.
This info below is again taken from http://www.siracd.com/life_spirit.shtml: (I bolded parts.)
* * * * * * *
Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle
Harry Houdini is considered by some to be the greatest magician of all time. He specialized in escapes. He could inexplicably extract himself from coffins, mailbags, and safes. In one famous incident he even broke free of handcuffs in Scotland Yard.
Houdini became interested in Spiritualism after the death of his beloved mother. He had hopes of contacting her. However after consulting mediums and attending séances he became convinced that mediums were charlatans. Thereafter he made it a personal mission to expose false mediums.
Conan Doyle first met Houdini in 1920. Oddly enough the two men became friends. Conan Doyle wanted to make Houdini a believer in the movement. He even suspected that Houdini possessed some psychic gifts.
Houdini must have been flattered by the attention of the famous creator of Sherlock Holmes. Also Houdini really did want to believe in the movement. If he could find a genuine medium then he could perhaps contact his mother.
In 1922 Conan Doyle and his family were in America for a lecture tour on Spiritualism. They arranged to meet Houdini and his wife, Bess, in Atlantic City. While the couples were visiting Lady Conan Doyle suggested that they hold a séance. Jean Conan Doyle was an inspired or automatic writer and she felt that she could help Houdini attain what he'd long sought, contact with his mother.
The session went well and Lady Conan Doyle produced fifteen pages of writings supposedly from Houdini's mother. While Houdini didn't doubt that the Conan Doyles sincerely wanted to help him, he did doubt that the message was from his mother. He didn't say anything at the time, but the communication was in English, a language that his mother didn't speak. Also the writings made no mention of the fact that the séance happened on his mother's birthday.
Months later Houdini shared his doubts. Conan Doyle countered that contact between the two worlds produced a natural translating effect. Thusly it was normal that the communication would be in the language of the medium and not that of the spirit. He also stated that things such as birthdays didn't matter to those in the spirit realm.
Although they tried to put this incident behind them their friendship never recovered from the rift.
Summary
Conan Doyle's support of Spiritualism did damage his reputation as he knew it would. He was never one to back away from a fight and the fight for Spiritualism was one he fought until the end.
A few days before his death in 1930 Conan Doyle wrote, "The reader will judge that I have had many adventures. The greatest and most glorious of all awaits me now."
* * * * * * *
An adventurous life, to be sure. More on the truly remarkable Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tomorrow. Time for an evening sherry and one last pipe? Yes, I think so.
I had some doubts about the series, but if you say this, then I have to see it... ;)
Therefore, let me tackle question #3 before I leave for work.
3) What sports did Doyle enjoy?
He was quite the sportsman, throughout his long life, and two mentioned already are correct: skiiing and motoring. Doyle really helped popularize skiing and was happy to promote it. Here is a bit of info about both of those sports, from the same informative website, unless otherwise noted http://www.siracd.com/life/life_ski.shtml: (Again, any bolding is mine, not the websites')
* * * * * * *
Skiiing
It seems odd to think of a time when people didn't ski in Switzerland. However when Conan Doyle arrived in Switzerland in 1893 with his first wife, Louise, that was the situation.
Conan Doyle and his wife moved to Davos Switzerland for his wife's health. Earlier that year Louise was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She was only given a few months to live. However Conan Doyle had heard that the climate of Switzerland was beneficial for tuberculosis patients. While it didn't cure the disease it helped Louise enormously. Instead of dying within a few months she lived until 1906.
...
Conan Doyle had seen skiing a few years earlier in Norway. He noted that the topography and climate of Switzerland was perfect for the sport. He sent away to Norway for some skis.
While he had seen skiing done in Norway he hadn't done much of it himself. Once his skis arrived in Davos he set about teaching himself the sport. He would later say, "On any man suffering from too much dignity, a course of skis would have a fine moral effect."
He was also able to find some local skiers, the Branger brothers. The brothers had been practicing skiing for about a year before Conan Doyle's arrival. However skiing seemed so odd to the locals that the brothers had actually taken to practicing after dark to avoid being mocked and teased by local townsfolk.
Once Conan Doyle mastered the basics he and the Branger brothers decided that they wanted to put skiing to the test. First they scaled the Jacobshorn, a 7,700-foot mountain. Conan Doyle was able to keep up with the more experienced skiers, but it was a challenging climb for him. He stated, "Whenever you think yourself absolutely secure it is all over with you."
Next the three men took a trip to Arosa, a nearby town that in the winter could only be reached by a long railroad trip. The Brangers had made this journey before and knew it to be a treacherous one. It involved crossing a pass of almost nine thousand feet in elevation and traversing some dangerous terrain. However the trip was not without enjoyment. Conan Doyle wrote about the descent into Arosa for The Strand. "But now we had a pleasure which boots can never give. For a third of a mile we shot along over gently dipping curves, skimming down into the valley without a motion of our feet. In that great untrodden waste, with snow-fields bounding our vision on every side and no marks of life save the tracks of chamois and of foxes, it was glorious to whizz along in this easy fashion."
Conan Doyle predicted, "the time will come when hundreds of Englishmen will come to Switzerland for a skiing season." Due in part to his popularization of the sport, Conan Doyle was right.
* * * * * * *
And an interesting article gives more insight, from The Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093609/How-Conan-Doyle-pioneered-Skiing--tweed-suit-8ft-long-wooden-skis.html
Just in part, though I recommend the whole article:
...
But it was skiing that really gripped his mind in the winter of 1895. Inspired by the recent exploits of the Norwegian polar explorer and champion skier Fridtjof Nansen, Conan Doyle asked Tobias Brangger, a sledge-builder in Davos, to get a pair of 8ft-long skis from Norway.
To begin with, Conan Doyle was flummoxed by the great long elm planks strapped to his feet. ‘You put them on and you turn with a smile to see whether your friends are looking at you,’ he said of his first skiing attempts. ‘And then, the next moment, you are boring your head madly into a snow bank, and kicking frantically with both feet, and half-rising, only to butt viciously into that snow bank again, and your friends are getting more entertainment than they had ever thought you capable of giving.'
For weeks, the Swiss were enthralled, and amused, by the distinguished creator of Sherlock Holmes and his ‘awkward movements and complex tumbles’. For Conan Doyle was already well-known in Switzerland for his famous detective.
Indeed, he chose the Reichenbach Falls, near the central Swiss town of Meiringen, as the spot where Holmes was pushed to his death by Professor Moriarty. The installment in the Strand Magazine recounting Holmes’s death appeared while Conan Doyle was in Davos perfecting his skiing.
[After a long and very dangerous skiing trek ...] That evening, Tobias Brangger signed Conan Doyle into their Arosa hotel. In the register, Brangger wrote the word ‘sportesmann’ for Conan Doyle’s profession. The writer was delighted at both the compliment and what he had done to create a new sport in Switzerland.
‘These and other excursions of ours first demonstrated their possibilities to the people of the country, and have certainly sent a good deal many thousands of pounds since then into Switzerland.’ He later wrote: ‘I am convinced that there will come a time when hundreds of Englishmen will come to Switzerland for the “skiing” season.’
Conan Doyle wasn’t wrong. He planned many trips for his friends, and helped Norwegian manufacturers to market their skis. But even he couldn’t predict what a huge impact his first expeditions would have on Davos.
These days, the small Alpine village has become an international hotspot — not just for the schmoozers and policy wonks of finance and politics who were there last week, but also for hundreds of thousands of skiers.
And they owe it all to a Scottish doctor and writer, whose greatest pride came not from creating the world’s best-known detective, but from being considered a true ‘sportesmann’.
* * * * * * *
The following info is from http://www.siracd.com/life/life_sports.shtml
* * * * * * *
Motoring
Conan Doyle was one of the earliest motorists in Britain. He was so taken with this new invention that he apparently bought an automobile without ever having driven one before. The first time he ever drove a car was when he took his car home from the dealer—275 kilometers away from the Conan Doyle residence!
In 1911 Conan Doyle took part in the International Road Competition organized by Prince Henry of Prussia. Known as the Prince Henry Tour, this contest was designed to pit the quality of British automobiles against German automobiles. The route took the participants from Hamburg, Germany to London. Conan Doyle teamed with his second wife, Jean, as one of the British driving teams. ... Each of the ninety cars involved in the contest carried a military observer from the opposite team. Conan Doyle was surprised at the hostile attitudes of many of the German observers. He also heard much talk about the inevitability of war.
The British won the competition, but most of the participants came away with the conviction that war was near.
Cricket, Boxing, Golf - Other Sports
Arthur Conan Doyle was educated at a Jesuit boarding school. His outspoken nature and intellectual curiosity did not make him popular with his teachers. This part of Conan Doyle's life was difficult, but was made more bearable by the sporting events at school. Conan Doyle was a natural athlete and took part in cricket, football (also known as soccer in the United States), hockey, swimming, and rugby.
Golf - Conan Doyle golfed whenever he could. As a world traveler this enabled him to play under many, and sometimes adverse, conditions.
In Switzerland the cows were hard on his self-made golf course. They knocked down his flags. As if that wasn't enough, they would also eat the flags.
On Conan Doyle's first American tour in 1894 Rudyard Kipling invited him to spend a few days in Vermont. During his stay Conan Doyle was able to find some golf clubs and gave Kipling a few pointers. Conan Doyle said they played golf, "while the New England rustics watched us from afar, wondering what on earth we were at."
In a trip to Egypt in 1895 Conan Doyle played golf at a course near his hotel. He stated that, "if you sliced your ball, you might find it bunkered in the grave of some Rameses or Thothmis of old."
He was Captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in 1910 and his wife was Lady Captain the following year.
Cricket- Doyle's childhood love of cricket carried though to his adulthood. He even played on a celebrity cricket team comprised of fellow authors and people from the theatre. Teammates included James M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and A.E.W. Mason (The Four Feathers). The team was called the Allah-Akabarries. This was a combination of Barrie's last name and an Arabic phrase meaning, "May the Lord help us."
Boxing - [Note: The sea voyage talked about here is of the arctic whaler Doyle signed on with as ship's doctor, as mentioned previously in this thread.]
One of the items that Conan Doyle brought along on the voyage was a set of boxing gloves. Jack Lamb, the ship's steward, noticed the gloves as Conan Doyle was stowing his gear. Lamb immediately challenged Conan Doyle to a boxing bout. After the match was finished Lamb was quoted as saying, "So help me, he's the best surgeon we've had! He's blackened my e'e!"
Conan Doyle truly believed that boxing was a "manly art." It plays a strong part in some of his short stories including The Croxley Master, The Lord of Falconbridge and The Bully of Brocas Court.
* * * * * * *
Whew! What an active, sports-filled life! I find it fascinating to read about the diversity of Doyle's interests, his passions and great enthusiasms, his love of physical activity, and the overall fruitfulness of his life. A great writer, a dedicated doctor, an outspoken and strong willed man, and one who seemed to embody Great Ideals. Perhaps that was the Victorian in him.
I have chuckled a lot over some of the things I have read recently about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I can now picture him boxing on a whaling ship, having his flags at golf eaten by goats on a self made Swiss course, motoring in a race with Jean by his side (goggles and scarf askew, no doubt), determinedly learning to ski on a Swiss slope aided by two local brothers, playing a competitive round of cricket with James M. Barrie, and playing football (soccer) as a child at school.
And we know his love of boxing and sports figured into some of his Sherlock Holmes stories. I am now more curious than ever to read some of his other, much less known, stories.
In conclusion, I'll go with once more a quote from the website I am often quoting (siracd.com), because this is such a lovely finish. Doyle's thoughts regarding sports seem to reflect the way he lived his life:
Conan Doyle said this about sports, "To give and to take, to accept success modestly and defeat bravely, to fight against odds, to stick to one's point, to give credit to your enemy and value your friend - these are some of the lessons which true sport should impart."
Cheers!
Great work, friend!
I'll be tackling the pipes of Sherlock next ... probably sometime tomorrow. So, if anyone would like to think of the kinds of pipes Sherlock smoked in Doyle's original stories (and vs. what was shown on film) that will set you up nicely for our next Doyle topic.
Meanwhile, I have run out of sherry and will have to make do with this tidy little bottle of Sangria. Hardly a British drink, but I shall make the sacrifice. :D
So did Holmes smoke a pipe in the original Doyle stories? Yes, he did!
"It's quite a three pipe problem." Sherlock Holmes said to Watson in The Adventure of the Redheaded League. That is a rather catchy way of saying that something will take some time, needs more thought than usual, and is one of the more well known Holmes quotes.
Ah, but which pipe is most firmly envisioned in the public's mind? Well, for many decades now it is a certain very large distinctive pipe, known as the Calabash. It is the pipe that is part of the iconic image of Sherlock Holmes. But this large and memorable pipe never figured in any Holmes story by Doyle. Three other kinds of pipes did; a standard clay, a briar, and a cherrywood.
First, here is some nice info from http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/put-that-in-your-pipe/the-great-detective-and-his-pipes/, an article by Russ Ouellette:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the stories and novels, Holmes had three pipes- a clay, a briar and a cherrywood. His clay, a typical churchwarden style, was smoked often enough that it had colored until black. Watson referred to it as his "disreputable" clay, which he smoked when he was in a "disputatious" or argumentative mood. Little was said about his briar other than to be described as "oily", and next to no information was given about his cherrywood. This collection would seem to make sense considering that Holmes kept his tobacco in the toe of a Persian slipper.
So the obvious question that one might ask would be "What about the calabash?" Nowhere in any of the 60 Holmes pieces that Doyle wrote was there a mention of a calabash. How did Holmes become associated with the large gourd and meerschaum pipe? Because of William Gillette, an American actor who portrayed Holmes on the stage in the early 1900s. Gillette (who built the famous Gillette Castle in Connecticut) wanted a pipe that was easily visible to the audience, but with a deep, pronounced bend that wouldn’t block the audience’s view of his face, and would keep the smoke out of his eyes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ah yes, Calabash pipe! The most famous kind of pipe that is associated with Sherlock Holmes, but one which was never in the original stories.
Here is a photo of William Gillette as Holmes (about 1900, I think)
Since Gillette, many actors have favored the rather flamboyant, certainly hard to miss, Calabash. So it has become firmly lodged in the public's mind as Sherlock's pipe.
Why even the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London sports that style of pipe of its sign:
As well as the underground station for Baker Street (I rather like this!):
A more standard briar type:
and a standard clay "churchwarden" type:
Well, that's all for this morning, gents and ladies. Glad I don't smoke, because if I did I'd be hankering for a nice pipe about now. ;)
More true adventures with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle coming on the morrow. Hope you all have a lovely day. Cheers!
More later this week. It's enjoyable focusing on Sir Arthur, and I plan to continue in this vein for a few more weeks. No lack of material, that's for sure!