My Amazon Review of Michael Sims' "Arthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Sherlock Holmes"

When Dr. Doyle Became Sherlock Holmes

Michael Sims has written a very long biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle centered around his most famous character, Sherlock Holmes. It is a book that I wanted to like. The beginning of the book is terrific discussing Doyle’s as an avid reader with an alcoholic father and his medical school training at the University of Edinburgh medical school. There he comes under the sway of Professor Joseph Bell, a very shrewd diagnostician with dominant personality.  It is Bell along with Edgar Allan Poe’s detective Auguste Dupin that the Sherlock Holmes character is molded.

Also of interest are the original illustrations for the Sherlock Holmes series. It is those illustrations from the 1890s that for our image of Holmes and Watson today. Moreover Holmes’ dear stalker hat is a creature of the illustrator, not Doyle himself.

This is all to the good, but the book goes on and on dealing with Doyle’s medical practice, his life in Portsmouth and the problems of getting published. For me the book is way too long. Thus I can only recommend Sims’ book to a real Sherlock Holmes geek.

For the complete Amazon URL see:

https://www.amazon.com/review/R39WGQ2SW449YI/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv