Award-winning author Daniel Stashower was kind enough to drop by the local Sisters in Crime chapter and discuss his latest book, Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, which he co-authored with fellow Doyle expert Jon Lellenberg and Charles Foley, Doyle's great-nephew. (I mentioned this book briefly back in November when Dianne Riehm had Stashower as a guest on her show). The book, which has been nominated for both Edgar and Agatha Awards this year, is a collection of previously-unpublished letters from the creator of Sherlock Holmes, beginning from the time Doyle was eight years old until 10 years before his death.
Stashower explained how difficult the process was, as Doyle was notoriously bad about dating his letters. The authors had 2,000 sheets of paper to work with (only 10% of which were dated), in no particular order, many of which had been separated from the other companion pages. Doyle's friend James Ryan even once prophetically told Doyle that his neglectfulness regarding dates would one day wreak havoc with his biographers.
One of the most fascinating aspects of working with these letters, according to Stashower, was how they allowed his warmth and personal voice to shine through, being at times hilariously funny, such as the letter he wrote to his mother after the birth of his daughter, an event he hadn't told her about in advance.
Most of the letters are to his mother Mary Doyle, to whom he was close and felt he owed a huge debt after she kept the family of seven children together throughout his father's alcoholism and institutionalization. Stashower recounted how three of Doyle's younger sisters took governess jobs to help put Doyle through medical school. As the oldest son, Doyle became in essence the man of the household, helping to support his mother and later his sisters, too, after recalling them from their posts once he had established himself in his practice.
Upon being asked whether Doyle was more the model for Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Watson, Stashower replied that it was probably a litte of both. Personality-wise, he was more Dr. Watson, and certainly his medical career was a key factor in developing that character. However, Doyle had his bouts of Holmsian issues, saying that "I suffer from my nerves sometimes more than people know." Although not a drug addict like Holmes, Doyle once experimented with a gelsemium and wrote up his experiences for medical journals, finally quitting altogether when he passed out and lost control of his bodily functions.
Stashower is not only an expert on Arthur Conan Doyle, but a novelist himself, and his lifelong fascination with magic (he's a card-carrying member of the Society for American Magicians) led him to write four books based on Harry Houdini as the protagonist or a central character. In his talk, Stashower touched on the relationship between Houdini and Doyle, the former a fierce skeptic, and the latter a proponent of spiritualism. Although they began as friends and Houdini would continue to respect Doyle's writing, they ended as antagonists due to their differences on the issue.
If you're going to the Malice Domestic conference in Arlington, Virginia in April, Stashower is going to be the Toastmaster for the banquet, so you'll get a chance to hear him in person then.
