Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower
though preparations were complicated by the fact that he was rapidly outgrowing his clothes, at not quite fourteen years old.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, MARCH 1873
I would be very glad if you sent me a necktie for Easter. Before the end of the year I daresay, I shall have to write for more clothes, both those trousers of Papa’s are rather worn out, and my last year’s suit has grown rather short, and will soon be well-nigh useless. that heather-suit you got me wears splendidly, there isn’t a single scratch in it, and it doesn’t show dirt a bit. it serves me now, but when summer comes, I’m afraid it will be rather too heavy & hot. Excuse my writing, I hurt my thumb at hockey, and cannot bend it properly.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, APRIL 1873
we have been having desperately hot weather lately. Even our french boy finds it hot, he keeps saying ‘it is tres chaud, very chaud, chauder than dans France.’
I had a talk with the rector yesterday. he said he was extremely pleased at the report he had to send home about me, and especially that I had overcome all sulkiness or ill temper I used to have. he also said there was scarcely a boy in the house who had done better!
The Anglican Alphabit seems to be a great favourite. I saw another thing in some paper about Papa, it said ‘Great men’s footsteps, a pleasing story, with 4 capital engravings by C. A. DOYLE.
I have read all Tottie’s letters, they are very nice. I am glad she is going to be ‘a child of Mary’. I hope she will be at home before I return, and will stay at home the whole vacation.
Though Charles Doyle tended to drink the payment he received for extra-curricular work as an artist, he was still busy in these days with commissions from magazines and publishers, and his work as an illustrator was still well regarded. The Anglican Alphabet was new—and he a surprising choice as its illustrator, for he like the other Doyles was an ardent Roman Catholic. Brave Men’s Footsteps (its title recalled incorrectly in Arthur’s letter), subtitled A Book of Anecdote and Example in Practical Life, had been published the year before. Its editor was James Hogg, who presumably remembered Charles Doyle’s work when his son started submitting stories to him.
Conan Doyle’s sister Annette was apparently considering joining the religious order to which her London aunt belonged, the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. It was devoted to good works, did not require adherents to wear habits, and allowed them to live in homes of their own.* His aunt Annette Doyle shared one with her bachelor brother, illustrator Richard Doyle, famous for ending his association with Punch in 1850 over its anti-Catholic views.
Conan Doyle learned that another sibling had arrived, his only brother in a family that included three sisters, with more to come. Perhaps to please his mother, he wrote in French this time to inquire about the baby.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, APRIL 1873
I’ve been quite busy recently with my lessons, and haven’t had the time to write to you as I would have liked to do. I am very happy to know that I have a little brother, that is charming, write me quickly and tell me what his name is and what he looks like. love to everyone, I am very tired from writing this little letter.
The boy’s name, he soon learned, was John Francis Innes Hay Doyle, although it would be some time before the family decided what to call him on a daily basis. After ‘Frank’ at first, they eventually settled on Innes, but Arthur first called him Geoff, and then Duff.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
After dinner it was growing rain, however we determined in spite of the weather to set out at once for Clitheroe the usual place visited on the Academy walk, so we all donned water-proofs and sou’westers. we set off, smoking to keep off the cold. I bought a nice little pipe with an amber mouthpiece, which I enjoyed very much. At last we reached Clitheroe and we all ordered what we wished in the way of drink. I got a bottle of lemonade but some, I am ashamed to say, tossed off whole tumblers of raw brandy. We passed through some curious pits where excavations were being made for fossils. I found there a most curious stone, all covered with petrified worms, whose coils I could see distinctly.
After a nice walk we reached home, where we found a jolly feast ready for us, in what is called, in the book I sent you, the do-room. Mr Splaine made a new speech, and we made great havoc among the eatables. we had a very jolly day on the whole. next morning I noticed the brandy-drinkers, however, who did not seem at all the better for their do.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JUNE 1873
I am glad to hear that my report was a good one. I have got my prize now for certain, and it will be a much more honourable one than any other that I have got yet, as Syntax is one of the hardest schools in the house, and certainly not more than eight in the class will get a prize. I am trying to improve in my French and I have read a great many books in that language lately. I will tell you a few of them to see if you have ever seen them. ‘Vingt milles lieus ses les mers’ by Jules Verne, ‘Don Quixote’ ‘cingt semaines dans un balon’ by Jules Verne, ‘Napoleon et le grande armeé’ ‘Voyage dans soudain’ ‘La Roche des Mouettes’ ‘Voyage d’un Enfant a Paris’ ‘Le Fratricide’ ‘Les Russes et les anglais’ ‘Enfants du Capitaine Grant’ ‘a la lune et de retour’ and a lot more, and I am getting to relish them quite as well as English books.
Our master, Mr Splaine, has been up at the Tichbourne Trial, he was appointed as librarian to bring up some old charts of the college. he has now returned and told us all his adventures with great gusto.
I hope you are all well at home, has little Frank got any teeth yet? I suppose he won’t be able to walk by the time I come home.
Like Scott’s novels, Jules Verne’s visionary work would take root in Conan Doyle’s mind, and Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea can be readily felt in Conan Doyle’s 1929 science-fiction novel, The Maracot Deep, in which undersea explorers travel to a kingdom on the ocean floor.
The Tichborne Claimant, one of England’s most famous legal cases, fascinated Stonyhurst, for it dealt with a mysterious figure who claimed to be the long-missing Sir Roger Tichborne, a Stonyhurst graduate and heir to a fortune, who had been presumed lost at sea in 1854. For twelve years Lady Tichborne refused to believe that her son was dead, and she kept a light in the entrance of Tichborne Hall to enable him to find his way home in the dark. In 1866 she received a letter from a butcher in Wagga Wagga, Australia, a man known locally there as Arthur Orton, who declared—amid apologies for his lax correspondence—that he was her long lost son.
When he arrived in England Lady Tichborne welcomed him, but other members of the family denounced him as an impostor, and his claim turned into the longest and most convoluted proceeding in British legal history. It was finally dismissed in 1871, and now, in 1873, Orton was on trial for perjury. Conan Doyle followed avidly ‘a case of identity’ (to cite the title of an early Sherlock Holmes story) that seemed lifted from the pages of Alexandre Dumas—ending in Orton’s eventual conviction and ten years in prison. The trial was still underway when the 1872-73 school year came to an end.*
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JULY 1873
I have been to the taylor and I showed him your letter, explaining to him that you wanted something that would wear well, and at the same time look well. he told me that the blue cloth he had was meant especially for coats, but that none of it would suit well as trousers, he showed me a dark sort of cloth, which he said would suit a blue coat better than any other cloth he has, and would wear well as trousers. On his recommendation I took this cloth, I think you will like it, it does not show dirt, and looks very well, it is a sort of black and white very dark