Minstead – Arthur Hofn

From One Arthur To Another

On my return to this fair isle, after having lived abroad for a while, I discovered the rather bizarre past time of visiting the final resting places of people who I have in some way admired. It’s a strange connection. I’ve blogged about finding where Agatha Christie is buried and even though our lives missed out on overlapping by just a few years to be able to still visit and pay my respects to such a brilliant person (not that I believe in any way life continues) is a fascinating temporal quirk. Of course if you can do it for someone who passed a few years before your birth, if you know where they are, you can go right back in time! (See also Jerome K Jerome)

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930). The author of the much adored Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes was many things, but mainly he was brilliant, and of course if you create and write for a character who is a genius you have to have have a large level of intelligence yourself, not as much as your creation as you already know the answers and you put the clues there, but even working from the other side, it takes a lot of the little grey cells, no sorry that’s another other.

Due to the Benedict Cumberbatch series, Sherlock Holmes is once again enjoying and gaining a large degree of fans, and yes I know it’s been over a decade since the first episodes and more than five years since the last episode went out; still it’s very popular and that is mainly due to the fact the the base text is extraordinary. But imagine that, as a writer your works continue to be loved and interpreted in ways by each successive generation across the media, frankly I’d be happy with just one generation.

To go back to the beginning, the first Sherlock Holmes story to be published was in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887. It was the novel A Study In Scarlet and it seems it didn’t quite take off. However it was then published in other formats, including book form, the Victorians seemed to think that you needed to have the story in a newspaper or magazine in parts before it was actually put into a book. There then followed three other full novels and the fifty six short stories which were published in The Strand magazine (and now available in five collections), it became, as we’ve said, a considerable success.

If you’ve not read any of the books or short stories you may be a little overwhelmed as to where to start. Unlike other writers with big cannons this isn’t actually that confusing. There are only really nine actual books you would need to buy and you can get them all in one volume as a Complete Works, it’s what I have and I just dipped into it to start off with before I began at the beginning with A Study In Scarlet and just carried on. This worked for me.

“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, A Study in Scarlet

Although it’s the first one A Study In Scarlet would become atypical of how to read Sherlock Holmes stories. I found a website that listed the word count for each of the anthologies, added them together and the divided by 56; the average word count for a Sherlock Holmes short story is 8,138 words. A Study In Scarlet is 43, 625 words. It’s also odd in that the format of the novel is in two halves and I don’t want to spoil it by explaining what I mean by that; it’s trick Conan Doyle pulls again elsewhere. Of course read this, but if you are looking to start with the typical short story go for the anthologies.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was first published in 1892 and contains fourteen cases of intrigue. As with any collection the quality varies, but this is a good read and you start with the well known A Scandal In Bohemia, which I would suggest is the perfect place to begin, from then on you will have hours of happy reading.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Scandal in Bohemia

Conan Doyle did write other things, including The Lost World, but his name will always be tied to the Detective of Baker Street, and that happened even whilst he was alive. Here is the writer’s dilemma: of course you want success, to dream of the levels Conan Doyle had would lead to disappointment, but imagine then having achieved it with one book and all people are interested in is for you to keep writing sequels. The other ideas you have are ‘yeah ok, sounds good, but when’s the next X book coming out?’; it must get frustrating and I believe it did for Doyle, hey he even killed Holmes off and it wasn’t enough.

We may think, just be grateful, like a singer when the crowd only want to hear one song, because at least they want you and you’ve made enough money you can then do the other things even if it’s for a smaller audience. But even just imagining I can understand the frustration, no wonder the writers of books and songs get sick of their most famous works when the public never do.

On a sunny day a few years ago I found myself in the New Forest and I decided to drop by the village of Minstead where little horses roam freely and occasionally come and ask you for food. In the graveyard is the final resting place of Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife Jean, and at the time, dotted about were a small pipe and other memorabilia connected with the beloved Detective. I guess when you’ve written something so brilliant it will never leave you… and at the end of the day it’s no bad thing, not really.

Buy The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes – by Arthur Conan Doyle
Buy A Study In Scarlet – by Arthur Conan Doyle
Buy The Complete Sherlock Holmes – by Arthur Conan Doyle