Adrian Conan Doyle - Works About His Father

Works About His Father

Sir Arthur's widow Jean chose a spiritualist, the Rev. John Lamond, to write an authorised life of him, Arthur Conan Doyle: A Memoir (John Murray, 1931). The memoir emphasised his paranormal interests but was not what readers wanted, so after their mother's death Adrian and Denis grudgingly allowed Hesketh Pearson to write Conan Doyle: His Life and Art (Methuen, 1943). But Pearson's book offended Adrian and Denis by saying that the secret of Arthur Conan Doyle's success was that he was the "common man". Adrian threatened criminal proceedings against Pearson's "fakeography", and wrote an article in protest, and later a book The True Conan Doyle (John Murray, 1945). Later "When the BBC commissioned an anniversary talk from Hesketh Pearson, Adrian announced that if it went ahead it would never broadcast another Sherlock Holmes story. The Corporation cravenly caved in." Lycett states that Pearson had met Arthur Conan Doyle at Francis Galton's home before the First World War. Pearson had idolised him from an early age, but was disappointed to find a thick-set broad-faced man with no more mystery than a pumpkin, who fulminated against Sherlock Holmes for preventing him from writing the historical novels he wanted.