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| Detail from S. Paget illustration from 'The Love Affair of George Vincent Parker' |
You can read the stories here:
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Holocaust_of_Manor_Place
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Love_Affair_of_George_Vincent_Parker
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Debatable_Case_of_Mrs._Emsley
And you can listen to the episode here:
A closed-caption version of the episode will appear
two days after the episode date at our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle. Please like and subscribe!
Synopsis
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| 'The Holocaust of Manor Place' |
Writing and publication history
On his return from the Boer War in July 1900, Conan
Doyle entered a new phase of his career as a public figure. He stood
(unsuccessfully) as Liberal Unionist candidate for Edinburgh Central in
September 1900 and soon gained friends among the political elite, among them
Winston Churchill.
Perhaps with his mind turning to public policy
issues, he pitched a 12-part series of true crime retellings to the Strand.
But he soon fell out of favour with the project, perhaps fearing public
reaction, or perhaps finding true crime to be more banal and artless than
fiction.
He had the perfect get out when he and new friend
Bertram Fletcher Robinson hatched the idea for The Hound of the Baskervilles,
on holiday in Cromer, Norfolk, in April 1901. Originally a standalone gothic
novel, the story quickly became a reminiscence of Sherlock Holmes.
The three ‘Strange Studies from Life’ were
originally collected in 1963 by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Society, a
short-lived group. They were later reprinted, with other narratives, by Jack
Tracy in 1988.
Conan Doyle’s interest in true crime
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| Madame Tussauds c. 1900 |
Peter Costello, in The Real World of Sherlock
Holmes (1991), noted that Edinburgh was a centre of early crime writing,
with James McGovan’s City Detective books a notably popular series. Joseph Bell
too was a medical examiner.
In 1872, Conan Doyle saw the play ‘The Courier of
Lyons’, based on the novel by Charles Reade, and delighted that it was “a jolly
play (5 murders).”
In 1874, he visited his aunt and uncle in London and
attended the famous Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors which had tableaus of
three incidents he would go on to write about: the mutiny aboard the Flowery
Land, the Youngman case (Holocaust Manor) and Mrs Emsley. The museum had a
recreation of the room in which Mrs Emsley was found bludgeoned to death.
Margalit Fox, in Conan Doyle for the Defence
(2018), notes that Conan Doyle was a collector of true-crime fiction and, in
1911, purchased 51 volumes from the estate of W. S. Gilbert.
Precursor stories
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| The Story of B24 |
‘The Story of B 24’ (Strand, 1899), one of
the Round the Fire Series, made important points about the frailties of
the criminal justice system, recidivism and responsive and irresponsible
criminals.
Related works about the stories
The Holocaust of Manor Place: For the details of
the trial at the Old Bailey, see https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=def1-723-18600813&div=t18600813-723#highlight
The Love Affair of George Vincent Park: https://www.geriwalton.com/george-victor-townley-and-his-murder-of-elizabeth-goodwin/
The Debatable Case of Mrs Emsley: Sinclair McKay, The
Mile-End Murder – The Case Conan Doyle Couldn’t Solve (2017) and https://thecrimewire.com/true-crime/The-Murder-of-Mary-Emsley
See also the Annual Register 1860 for accounts of the cases Conan Doyle adapted as 'Manor Place' and 'Mrs Emsley.'
The Crimes Club
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| 'The Debatable Case of Mrs Emsley' |
The Club, which began as a private dinner club, was
formed by Arthur Lambton, a barrister, in 1903. Early members included H. B.
Irving, the son of the famous actor, and John Churton Collins. Later members
included Home Office pathologist Bernard Spilsbury and authors Willie Hornung,
J. K. Jerome, and P. G. Wodehouse.
The society was formed as forensic science was
transforming criminal trials and sensational populist accounts of crimes were
dominating the press. The Sherlock Holmes stories stand somewhere between the
two.
In addition to discussing true crime, the club went
on a Ripper tour on 19 April 1905. Frederick Gordon Brown, the coroner who
examined Catherine Eddowes, was the group’s guide. Conan Doyle's interest in Jack the Ripper is the source of some controversy, as Paul addressed in this article on the website. Conan Doyle had previously visited the Black Museum, Scotland Yard's collection of criminal memorabilia, with Hornung and Jerome.
Conan Doyle presented several times, mostly on
Slater and Edalji, but also on the psychic in crime. The latter heralded a
difficult period with the society in the 1920s as Conan Doyle came to be a more
divisive figure.
He briefly left the club in 1927 but presented
again (on Slater) in 1929. After Conan Doyle’s death, the club seems to have
entertained topics that were more humorous and salacious. The club still meets,
and is known by the alternative name ‘Our Society.’
Next time on Doings of Doyle
We will be joined by Jonathan Cranfield from
Liverpool John Moores University to discuss the new Edinburgh Edition of the Memoirs
of Sherlock Holmes. You can find out more here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-memoirs-of-sherlock-holmes.html
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