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  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407093086
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 528

The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle



The definitive biography of an enduringly fascinating figure, told with panache and full of new material unavailable to any previous biographers.

As the creator of Sherlock Holmes, 'the world's most famous man who never was', Arthur Conan Doyle remains one of our favourite writers; his work is read with affection - and sometimes obsession - the world over. Writer, doctor, cricketer, public figure and family man, his life was no less fascinating than his fiction.


Conan Doyle grew up in relative poverty in Edinburgh, with the mental illness of his artistically gifted but alcoholic father casting a shadow over his early life. He struggled both as a young doctor and in his early attempts to sell short stories, having only limited success until his Sherlock Holmes stories became a publishing phenomenon and propelled him to worldwide fame. Whilst he enjoyed the celebrity Holmes brought him, he also felt that the stories kept him from more serious work.

Beyond his writing, Conan Doyle led a full life, participating in the Boer War, falling in love with another woman while his wife was dying of tuberculosis, campaigning against injustice, and converting to Spiritualism, a move that would ultimately damage his reputation.

During his lifetime Conan Doyle wrote more than 1,500 letters to members of his family, most notably his mother, revealing his innermost thoughts, fears and hopes: Russell Miller is the first biographer to have been granted unlimited access to Conan Doyle's private correspondence. The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle also makes use of the writer's personal papers, unseen for many years, and is the first book to draw fully on the Richard Lancelyn Green archive, the world's most comprehensive collection of Conan Doyle material.

Told with panache, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle is an unprecedentedly full portrait of an enduringly popular figure and an outstanding literary biograhy.

  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407093086
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 528

About the author

Russell Miller

Born in East London, Russell Miller began his career in journalism at the age of 16. While under contract to the Sunday Times magazine, he won four press awards and was voted Writer of the Year by the Society of British Magazine Editors. He is the author of eleven previous books, including the widely acclaimed Nothing Less than Victory, the acclaimed history of the legendary Magnum photo agency Magnum: Fifty Years at the Frontline of History and Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent.

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Praise for The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle

A judicious and entertaining biography

Ludo Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times

A sympathetic account... highly readable

Independent

A useful general introduction to new readers of Conan Doyle

The Times

Miller has written a good, eminently fair and sensible biography

Scottish Review of Books

The most comprehensive Conan Doyle life to date... There is strong meat in this impressive biography

Mail on Sunday