Illustration from Société d'Édition et de Publications, 1906 |
This episode, we join an expectant father as he pensively awaits the arrival of his first born, in ‘The Curse of Eve’, one of Conan Doyle’s Round the Red Lamp stories.
You can read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Curse_of_Eve
Or listen to a Librivox recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZevaD0khms
(begins 2:07:35)
And listen to the episode here:
A closed-caption version of the episode will appear two days
after the episode date at our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSy23ujzPCKpttfaUwceFfA
Synopsis
Writing and publication history
Jerome K Jerome |
Delayed by writing The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes,
Conan Doyle began writing ‘The Curse of Eve’ at the end of December 1893,
around the time of his son Kingsley’s first birthday.
Conan Doyle read a version of the story at the Authors’ Club
meeting on 8 December 1893, which drew negative responses, especially for the
grim ending in which the wife died and the father turned his anger on the baby.
Daily Express journalist Ralph Blumenfeld recorded the grim evening in
his memoir RDB’s Procession (1935) and Francis Gribble, editor of Phil
May’s Annual, gave his account of the reading to Hesketh Pearson for
Pearson’s Conan Doyle – His Life and Art (1943).
However, the secretary of the Authors’ Club, Douglas Sladen,
thought the story left “a most profound impression” and congratulated Conan
Doyle on the realism of the main character in particular (Life in Letters,
p.328).
Although Jerome accepted the story, he did not print it. Instead,
Conan Doyle rewrote the story in 1894, writing to his mother in May that he intended
to change the ending and have the mother survive.
‘The Curse of Eve’ was one of several stories not serialised
which first appeared in Round the Red Lamp when it was released on 23
October 1894.
Reaction
Harper's Weekly review, December 1894 |
Harper’s Weekly felt the story ‘shock[ed] us into a
state of seriousness far less bracing than bitter’ while The Pall Mall
Gazette compared the book as a whole to experiencing a nightmare.
London Evening Standard: “this sort of thing would be
all very well in the columns of a medical journal, or told to a party of
professional men with a taste for such details, but it is, we contend, unfit
for publication in a work of fiction meant for the general public.”
The Writer: A Monthly Magazine for Literary Workers,
December 1894, said that any ‘objector to morbid realism’ would have left out ‘The
First Operation’, ‘The Curse of Eve’ and ‘Sannox’ from the collection (the last
being “worst of all” and difficult to find an excuse for its publication).
The Speaker: “Ought the tragical realities and
painful commonplaces of the sick room and the death bed to be made the theme of
fiction?”
Realism and the medical profession
Pritchard the poisoner |
For all he is thought of as a romantic writer, Conan Doyle
was also an advocate of realism. When W. H, Smith’s refused to stock George
Moore’s novel, Esther Walters, which concerned a housemaid falling
pregnant by a footman and choosing to raise the child alone, Conan Doyle wrote
indignant letters to the press in support of Moore. In September 1893, a few
months before writing ‘The Curse of Eve’, Emile Zola had been celebrated at an
Authors’ Club meeting as “the evangelist of realism,” at a meeting Conan Doyle
is believed to have attended.
The story features more realistic descriptions of doctors
and specialists than one tends to find in other stories in Round the Red
Lamp, where GPs tend to be overwhelmingly good and surgeons overwhelmingly
bad. The GP, Dr Miles, is aloof, distracted and insensitive, while the
specialist, Dr Pritchard, though materialistic, has a kindly nature.
Conan Doyle may be having a swipe at the medical profession
in ‘The Curse of Eve’ by depicting Johnson’s difficulties accessing medical
help, and the additional sums he had to pay for his wife’s care and the baby’s
safe delivery. The name Pritchard may be a reference to the murderer Dr Edward
William Pritchard (1825-55), who poisoned his wife and mother-in-law.
Conan Doyle’s criticisms were mirrored by A J Cronin in his
1937 novel, The Citadel, the novel that inspired the NHS. Cronin was
also a Scot of Anglo-Irish descent, a former ship’s surgeon, a celebrated athlete,
and a doctor who turned his back on the profession to write fiction.
The Authors’ Club
The inaugural dinner of the Authors’ Club, which took place
on 30 June 1892, is famous for Oscar Wilde denouncing censorship of his play Salome
by the Lord Chamberlain.
Francis Gribble was an early attendee of the Club. Gribble
was editor of Phil May’s Annual and this may be the connection that led
to Conan Doyle’s short story ‘Jelland’s Voyage’ appearing in this obscure
journal. Authors’ Club secretary, Douglas Sladen, was a frequent visitor to
Japan and his book The Japs at Home (1892) opens with a chapter on Yokohama
where ‘Jelland’s Voyage’ is set. See Episode 20: https://www.doingsofdoyle.com/2021/11/20-jellands-voyage-1892.html
Conan Doyle’s connection with the Club continued to his
death. At a meeting in July 1896, he was called upon to justify killing off
Sherlock Holmes, to which he replied: “I hold that it was not murder, but
justifiable homicide in self-defence, since, if I had not killed him, he would
certainly have killed me.”
On 1 March 1909, Conan Doyle gave the keynote speech at an
Authors’ Club dinner in honour of the centenary of the birth of Edgar Allan
Poe. He won the billiard tournament (for the fourth time) in 1924. On his
death, he left £50 to the Authors’ Club, and a wireless set.
Sladen, in his memoir Twenty Years of My Life (1914),
wrote in glowing terms of Conan Doyle’s status among his peers, describing him
as “the man to whom the profession would undoubtedly look for a lead in any
crisis.” (p.74).
See C. J. Schuler, Writers, Lovers, Soldiers, Spies: A History of the Authors' Club of London, 1891-2016 (The Authors' Club, 2016).
Related Works by Conan Doyle
‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ (1891)
‘Jelland’s Voyage’ (1892) – see Episode 20
Round the Red Lamp (1894)
‘The Case of Lady Sannox’ (1893) – see Episode 6
Next time on Doings of Doyle
A young doctor enters a prize-fight to earn his tuition fees in ‘The Croxley Master’ (1899). You can read the story here.
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