Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #5. Gary Lovisi
Saturday Journal 12:19 (Apr. 1884). 433-435, 461-463. Rpt.
—. Letter to John Gore. Cited in Baring-Gould, p. 690.
—. Letter to Mary Doyle (November 20, 1888). Cited in Lellenberg, p. 256.
—. “The Parasite” Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (11 Nov.–2 Dec. 1894) 4 parts.
—. Vampire Stories. New York: Skyhorse, 2009. Ed. by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Martin H. Greenberg.
—. “The Winning Shot” Bow Bells (11 July 1893) 61-67. Rpt.
Eighteen-Bisang, Robert. “Dracula by Arthur Conan Doyle” The Sherlock Holmes Journal 29:3 (Winter 2009) 4-98.
Eighteen-Bisang, Robert and Elizabeth Miller, ed. Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
Davies, David Stuart. The Tangled Skein. Channel Islands, Alderney: Island Publishing, 1992. Rpt.
Estleman, Loren D. Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula; or The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1978. Rpt.
Keefauver, Brad A. “Sherlock Holmes and the Secretly Dead: A Case of Near Fatal Close-Mindedness” in The Baker Street Chronicle 4:5 (Sept./Oct. 1984).
Lellenberg, John, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley, ed. Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Penguin Press: New York, 2007.
Mason, Bill. “A Tale from the Crypt: Unearthing Dracula in Sherlock Holmes” Holmes & Watson Report #42 7:2 (May 2003) 24-32.
McNally, Raymond T. and Radu Florescu. In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends. Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1972.
Maclaglan, Sir Eric. Cited in Baring-Gould, p. 685; n. 19.
Nordan, Pierre. Conan Doyle: A Biography. Holt, Rinehart & Winston: New York, 1967.
Redmond, Christopher. In Bed with Sherlock Holmes: Sexual Elements in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Stories of the Great Detective. Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1984.
Redmond, Donald A. Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Sources. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992.
Saberhagen, Fred. The Holmes-Dracula File. New York: Ace Books, 1978. Rpt.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New Westminster: Archibald Constable and Company, 1897. Rpt.
—. Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving. London: William Heinemann, 1907 (revised edition).
—. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Tells of His Career and Work, His Sentiments Towards America, and His Approaching Marriage” New York: World (23 July 1907) E1a-f.
d
BIOGRAPHICAL ASPECTS OF “THE RESIDENT PATIENT,” by Bob Byrne
Biographers and devotees of Sherlock Holmes have written much regarding who the detective was modeled after. Joseph Bell is widely regarded as the primary inspiration, a belief bolstered by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own words more than once. In his autobiography, Memories and Adventures, Doyle said, “I thought of my old teacher Joe Bell, of his eagle face, of his curious ways, of his eerie trick of spotting details. If he were a detective he would surely reduce this fascinating but unorganized business to something nearer to an exact science.” Add another comment, “Sherlock Holmes is the literary embodiment … of my memory of a professor of medicine at Edinburgh University.”
But Holmes was certainly not based on just one person. It has been asserted that one can find bits of Doyle himself in the great detective. His second wife said that her husband had the Sherlock Holmes brain, solving mysteries that puzzled the police. Seemingly more likely is that the stolid, patriotic Doctor Watson drew in great part from his creator.
But can we examine one of the sixty Holmes tales and discover biographical pieces of Conan Doyle? As a matter of fact, we need look no further than The Adventure of the Resident Patient and Dr Percy Trevelyan.
Trevelyan is a young doctor with great potential but limited finances. He is struggling along, hoping he can save enough so that in ten years he could open a posh practice in the medical district. Quite unexpectedly, a complete stranger named Blessington arrives at Trevelyan’s room and makes an astonishing offer. Blessington will let a house, furnish it, pay for maids and take care of the other expenses. Trevelyan just has to run a successful practice and his benefactor will keep three-quarters of the profit. In addition, Blessington will become the story title’s resident patient, his heart condition cared for by Trevelyan.
The young doctor, barely believing his good fortune, agrees to the deal and quickly establishes a thriving practice. Before Blessington’s arrival, Trevelyan’s future appeared to be one requiring a great deal of hard work before he could harbor any hope of success. But his generous benefactor had given the doctor the capital needed to become almost an overnight sensation. Was there a Blessington in Arthur Conan Doyle’s life? Well, sort of.
Doyle’s start in practice also featured a benefactor, though it is quite a different, yet still absorbing, story. In early 1882, Doyle had just completed a stint as a ship’s doctor on an African route. It was not a particularly enjoyable experience and he did not sign on for another tour at sea. Much like Dr Watson in A Study in Scarlet, Doyle was ‘free as air’ and was back in Edinburgh when he received a telegram from a school friend, George Turnavine Budd. Now a doctor, Budd is a larger than life character in Doyle’s story.
Back before Doyle had gone on the aforementioned sea voyage, Budd had urgently summoned him to Bristol, where Budd’s practice was located. It turns out that Budd had gone bankrupt and hoped Doyle could bail him out. Budd was frustrated to learn that Doyle was in no financial condition to aid him, but then, apparently laughed the whole matter off. In the end, advised by Doyle, Budd gained extensions from his creditors. However, Doyle had no idea that Budd would then flee the town, leaving said creditors with worthless promises.
Now, with Doyle back on land and wondering what to do, Budd sent him another telegram, this time from his new practice in Plymouth. Budd, an outrageous individual, told Doyle that he was a huge success, with thirty thousand patients in the last year and that he wouldn’t even cross the street to see Queen Victoria. He promised to give Doyle all his visiting and surgery patients, as well as midwifery cases, guaranteeing his friend at least three hundred pounds the first year.
Though this sounded too good to be true, Doyle packed quickly and headed off to Portsmouth, much to his mother’s displeasure. Called by her son ‘The Ma’am,’ Mary Foley Doyle had a great deal of influence over her son all his life (Doyle can safely be called a mama’s boy). She had never liked Budd and did not trust him now. In retrospect, one has to admire her perceptiveness.
It seems that Budd was a talented doctor, a showman, and a quack all rolled into one. He comes across in writings by Doyle and Doyle’s biographers as a sort of medical Barnum and Bailey. Albeit, a very successful one. At the end of each day, he would march down the center of the street from his practice, the day’s gold and silver earnings held out in front of him in a bag. The word ‘bombastic’ echoes through the mind when reading about Budd.
Doyle himself acknowledges that his book, The Stark Munro Letters, tells “in very close detail the events of this time,” with Budd being identified as one ‘Cullingworth.’ In fact, it is so accurate (with a few exceptions) that in his autobiography he borrowed from that book, rather than rewriting events using Budd’s actual name. Safe to say, Budd/Cullingworth was as intriguing a character as Doyle ever made up himself.
Doyle saw firsthand Budd’s flamboyant approach to medicine, which consisted of free consultations inevitably concluded with a prescription that was not free. Patients waited hours to see the dynamic Budd and a few were treated by Doyle as the partnership moved forward. As he did throughout his life, Doyle frequently exchanged letters with his mother. Upon learning from her son that Budd was not going to repay his Bristol creditors she wrote many uncomplimentary things about the man. This was not an isolated incident and it would have repercussions.
After displaying