Tuesday, April 5, 2016

D is for DOYLE, AS IN SIR ARTHUR CONAN

                                  PULP FICTION
                      late 1800’s – mid 1950’s


Sherlock Holmes, the world's most famous literary detective

Though a practicing physician, Doyle had long written on the side and in 1886 he played around with stories centered on an ‘amateur private detective’, called ‘J. Sherrinford Holmes’. The outcome was the Sherlock Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet  (1887). No top-drawer publisher would take it and it was eventually serialized as a Christmas giveaway in a magazine and was called a ‘shilling shocker’ - Pulp Fiction for the masses. 


A Study in Scarlet was loved by the public and Doyle followed it up with The Sign of Four, another Holmes adventure that was well received. The Holmes craze took off early in 1891 when Doyle submitted six short stories the Strand Magazine. The editor realized that Doyle was the greatest short story writer since Edgar Allan Poe. Whey Doyle tired of writing Sherlock Holmes stories, he killed off the detective and the Strand Magazine lost 20,000 subscribers overnight. Distraught readers took to the streets wearing black armbands. After years, Doyle wrote the Hound of the Baskervilles. Much as Doyle disliked Sherlock Holmes, he became one of the wealthiest of British men of letters. Doyle wrote 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories and 4 novels. 

 
   He was a prolific writer whose other works include   
 fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, 
 poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.Wikipedia


                                                                                                                           The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive.  Wikipedia


                                  
                                                                    
                                                                           

 The White Company is a historical adventure by Arthur Conan Doyle set during the Hundred Years' War and printed in 1891.Wikipedia

                                                                                                             

T


Tales of Terror and Mystery is a volume collecting 12 short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle and first published in 1922. The collection is in two parts: Tales of Terror with horror stories, and Tales of Mystery with stories with strange schemes









Always, 
Em-Musing 


12 comments:

The Brown Recluse (TBR) said...

I wish I were more of a book-reader. I have plenty of books that I've started, not many of them have I finished. My poor Kindle is chock-full of books I have even to begin to read.
These books do sound interesting...I sure didn't know Sherlock was back from the dead! lol

Elizabeth Varadan, Author said...

I've been so busy trying to re-read Sherlock Holmes stories and catch up on pastiches inspired by them, I haven't read the other Doyle works. I was startled to see he was the author of The Lost World, though. I remember seeing that a movie was out by that name a few years ago.

Unknown said...

Sherlock Holmes has been such an inspiration for my own writing--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was just brilliant.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Big fan of Sherlock Holmes and his other creations. It's cool to see so many authors continuing the stories of Sherlock.

Anonymous said...

Love Sherlock Holmes! I forgot Doyle wrote The Lost World. That's a fantastic collection of book covers, there.

mshatch said...

How interesting! I had no idea Doyle wrote anything other than Sherlock Holmes stories.

Liz A. said...

It's easy to forget that he did kill of Sherlock Holmes at one point. But he kind of let the movies do with him what they would. Interesting lesson there.

Liz A. from
Laws of Gravity

Unknown said...

He didnt write enough. As a child I could not put his work down. As an adult Ive read his entire works over and over. He really was a master at his craft.
What a great topic for the month.
Im blogging from Fill the cracks and Moondustwriter's Blog. Happy A to Zing!

H.R. Bennett said...

I own two full collections of his works and I'm always sad that "Baskervilles" is the one most known by people since there are so many fantastic stories. I personally always enjoyed "Scarlet" myself.

Nilanjana Bose said...

Massive fan of Sherlock Holmes and Doyle. Cool choice for letter D


Best wishes,
Nilanjana
Madly-in-Verse

Adam said...

If you haven't seen the show version with Benedict Cumberbatch, you're really missing out.

Deniz Bevan said...

Ooh, I've never seen these covers before! The most recent Doyle related book I read was Julian Barnes' Arthur and George.