Much of that world, of course, has been lost. The British Clean Air Act of 1956 would consign to his

One summer evening in 1889, a young medical school graduate named Arthur Conan Doyle arrived by train at London s Victoria Station and took a hansom cab two and a half miles north to the famed Langham Hotel on Upper Regent Street. Then living in obscurity in the coastal town of Southsea, near Portsmouth, the 30-year-old ophthalmologist was looking to advance his writing career. The magazine Beeton s Christmas Annual had recently published his novel, A Study in Scarlet , which introduced the private detective Sherlock Holmes. Now Joseph Marshall Stoddart, managing editor of Lippincott s Monthly , a Philadelphia magazine, was in London to establish a British edition of his publication. At the suggestion of a friend, he had invited Conan Doyle to join him for dinner in the Langham s opulent dining room.
Amid the bustle of waiters, the chink of fine silver and the hum of dozens of conversations, Conan Doyle found Stoddart to be an excellent fellow, he would write years later. But he was captivated by one of the other invited guests, an Irish playwright and author named Oscar Wilde. His conversation left an indelible impression upon my mind, Conan Doyle remembered. He had a curious spas inns resorts in northern california precision of statement, a delicate flavour of humour, and a trick of small gestures to illustrate his meaning. For both writers, the evening would prove a turning point. Wilde left with a commission to write his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray , which appeared in Lippincott s June 1890 issue. spas inns resorts in northern california And Conan Doyle agreed to produce a second novel starring spas inns resorts in northern california his ace detective; The Sign of Four would cement his reputation. Indeed, critics spas inns resorts in northern california have speculated that the encounter with Wilde, an exponent of a literary movement known as the Decadents, led Conan Doyle to deepen spas inns resorts in northern california and darken Sherlock Holmes character: in The Sign of Four s opening scene, Holmes is revealed to be addicted to a seven-percent solution of cocaine.
Today the Langham Hotel sits atop Regent Street like a grand yet faded dowager, conjuring up a mostly vanished Victorian landscape. The interior has been renovated repeatedly over the past century. But the Langham s exterior monolithic sandstone facade, with wrought-iron balconies, French windows spas inns resorts in northern california and a columned portico spas inns resorts in northern california has hardly changed since the evening Conan Doyle visited 120 years ago. Roger Johnson, publicity director of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, a 1,000-strong band of Holmes devotees, points to the hotel s mention in several spas inns resorts in northern california Holmes tales, including The Sign of Four , and says it s a kind of shrine for Sherlockians. It s one of those places where the worlds of Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes come together, he adds. Others include the Lyceum Theatre, where one of Conan Doyle s plays was produced (and a location in The Sign of Four ), as well as the venerable gentlemen s clubs along the thoroughfare of the Strand, establishments that Conan Doyle frequented during forays into the city from his estate in Surrey. Conan Doyle also appropriated St. Bartholomew s Hospital in central London as a setting; it was there that the legendary initial meeting between Holmes and Dr. Watson took place.
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Charles Doyle, an alcoholic who would spend much of his later life in a mental institution, spas inns resorts in northern california and Mary Foley Doyle, the attractive, lively daughter of an Irish doctor and a teacher; she loved literature and, according to biographer Andrew Lycett, beguiled her children with her storytelling. Marking the sesqui centennial of Conan Doyle s birth, Edinburgh held a marathon of talks, exhibitions, walking tours, plays, films and public performances. Harvard University sponsored a three-day lecture series examining Holmes and Conan Doyle s legacy. This past spring, novelist Lyndsay Faye published a new thriller, Dust and Shadow , featuring Holmes squaring off against Jack the Ripper. And last month, of course, Holmes took center stage in director Guy Ritchie s Hollywood movie Sherlock Holmes , starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson.
A persuasive case can be made that Holmes exerts just as much hold on the world s imagination spas inns resorts in northern california today as he did a century ago. The Holmesian canon four novels and 56 stories continues to sell briskly around the world. The coldly calculating genius in the deerstalker cap, wrestling with his inner demons as he solves crimes that befuddle Scotland Yard, stands as one of literature s most vivid and most alluring creations.
Conan Doyle s other alluring creation was London. Although the author lived only a few months in the capital before moving to the suburbs, he visited the city frequently throughout his life. Victorian London takes on almost the presence of a character in the novels and stories, as fully realized in all its fogs, back alleys and shadowy quarters as Holmes himself. Holmes could never have lived anywhere else but London, says Lycett, author of the recent biography The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur spas inns resorts in northern california Conan Doyle . London was the hub of the empire. In addition spas inns resorts in northern california to the Houses of Parliament, it had the sailors hostels and the opium dens of the East End, the great railway stations. And it was the center of the literary world.
Much of that world, of course, has been lost. The British Clean Air Act of 1956 would consign to history the coal-fueled fogs that shrouded many Holmes adventures and imbued them with menace. ( Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets, Conan Doyle writes in The Sign of Four . Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches spas inns resorts in northern california of diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. ) The blitz and postwar urban redevelopment swept away much of London s labyrinthine and crime-ridden East End, where The Man With the Twisted Lip and other stories are set. Even so, it is still possible to retrace many of the footsteps that Conan Doyle might have taken in London, to follow him from the muddy banks of the Thames to the Old Bailey and obtain a sense of the Victorian world he transmuted into art.
He first encountered london at the age of 15, while on a three-week vacation from Stonyhurst, the Jesuit boarding school to which his Irish Catholic parents consigned him in northern England. I believe I am 5 foot 9 high, the young man told his aunt, so she could spot him at Euston station, pretty stout, clad in dark garments, spas inns resorts in northern california and above all, with a flaring red muffler round my neck. Escorted around the city by his uncles, young Conan Doyle took in the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and the Crystal Palace, and viewed a performance of Hamlet , starring Henry Irving, at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End. And he went to the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud s wax museum, then located in the Baker Street spas inns resorts in northern california Bazaar (and on Marylebone Road today). Conan Doyle viewed with fascination wax models of those who had died on the guillotine during the French Revolution as well as likenesses of British murderers and other arch-criminals. While there, the young man sketched the death scene of French radical Jean-Paul spas inns resorts in northern california Marat, stabbed in his bath at the height spas inns resorts in northern california of the Revolution. After visiting spas inns resorts in northern california the museum, Conan Doyle wrote in a letter to his mother that he had been irresistibly drawn to the images of the murderers.
One summer evening in 1889, a young medical school graduate named Arthur Conan Doyle arrived by train at London spas inns resorts in northern california s Victoria Station and took a hansom cab two and a half miles north to the famed Langham Hotel on Upper Regent Street. Then living in obscurity in the coastal town of Southsea, spas inns resorts in northern california near Portsmouth, the 30-year-old ophthalmologist was looking to advance spas inns resorts in northern california his writing career. The magazine Beeton s Christmas Annual had recently published his novel, A Study in Scarlet , which introduced the private detective Sherlock Holmes. Now Joseph Marshall Stoddart, managing editor of Lippincott s Monthly , a Philadelphia magazine, was in London to establish a British spas inns resorts in northern california edition spas inns resorts in northern california of his publication. At the suggestion of a friend, he had invited Conan Doyle to join him for dinner in the Langham spas inns resorts in northern california s opulent dining room.
Amid the bustle of waiters, the chink of fine silver and the hum of dozens of conversations, Conan Doyle found Stoddart to be an excellent fellow, he would write years later. But he was captivated by one of the other invited guests, an Irish playwright and author named Oscar Wilde. His conversation left an indelible impression upon my mind, Conan Doyle remembered. He had a curious precision of statement, a delicate flavour of humour, and a trick of small gestures to illustrate spas inns resorts in northern california his meaning. For both writers, the evening would prove a turning point. Wilde left with a commission to write his novel, The Picture of Dorian spas inns resorts in northern california Gray , which appeared in Lippincott s June 1890 issue. And Conan Doyle agreed to produce a second novel starring his ace detective; The Sign of Four would cement spas inns resorts in northern california his reputation. Indeed, critics have speculated that the encounter with Wilde, an exponent of a literary movement known as the Decadents, led Conan Doyle to deepen and darken Sherlock Holmes character: in The Sign of Four s opening scene, Holmes is revealed to be addicted to a seven-percent spas inns resorts in northern california solution of cocaine.
Today the Langham Hotel sits atop Regent Street like a grand yet faded dowager, conjuring up a mostly spas inns resorts in northern california vanished Victorian landscape. The interior has been renovated repeatedly over the past century. But the Langham s exterior monolithic sandstone facade, with wrought-iron balconies, French windows and a columned portico has hardly changed spas inns resorts in northern california since the evening Conan Doyle visited 120 years ago. Roger Johnson, publicity director of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, a 1,000-strong band of Holmes devotees, points to the hotel s mention in several Holmes tales, including The Sign of Four , and says it s a kind of shrine for Sherlockians. It s one of those places where the worlds of Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes come together, he adds. Others include the Lyce