Nov 22, 2011
You may recall that we had
Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower on the show [Episode 13]
when they published Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in
Letters in 2007. The pair has returned with
another publication, but this time it's one that is even more
intriguing.
In 1883, when he was just twenty-three, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
wrote The Narrative
of John Smith while he was living in Portsmouth
and struggling to establish himself as both a doctor and a writer.
He had already succeeded in having a number of short stories
published in leading magazines of the day, such as
Blackwood’s, All the Year Round, London
Society, and the Boy’s Own Paper — but as was
the accepted practice of literary journals of the time, his stories
had been published anonymously. Thus, Conan Doyle knew that in
order to truly establish his name as a writer, he would have to
write a novel.
The only wrinkle is that once Conan Doyle finished this novel, it
went missing in the post, never to be seen again.
Join Burt and Scott as we discover how this lost manuscript has
made its way to publication, some 125 years after it was first
written, and why it had never before made its way to the public
eye.
As to the Editor's Gas-Lamp for this episode...well, we'll make
that our little surprise that you can discover within the show.