While reading about the lives of Rudyard
Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I noticed that they had a few elements in
common in addition to having lived in Southsea - in Kipling's case suffering terribly in the House of Desolation there and in Conan Doyle's case thriving in his doctor's practice.
Artistic fathers
Both men had fathers who illustrated their
books.
Conan Doyle’s father Charles Altamont Doyle
was one of the first artists to depict Sherlock Holmes. His drawings were used
for the 1888 edition of A Study in Scarlet.
John Lockwood Kipling illustrated his son’s
Jungle Books.
Bereaved wives
Both Rudyard Kipling and Conan Doyle married
women they met through the women’s brothers, brothers who both died young.
Conan Doyle met fellow Southsea resident
Louise Hawkins when her brother Jack became a patient of his. He took the young
man into his care at his house in Elm Grove, but the patient soon died. He was
only 25 years old. Dr Doyle and Louise soon became engaged and then married.
Unfortunately, she too died young and Conan Doyle remarried.
Rudyard Kipling met American-born Caroline
Starr Balestier when her brother Wolcott, a writer and publisher who wrote a
book jointly with Kipling, introduced her to his famous friend. Wolcott died
two years later at the age of 29, and Kipling proposed to Caroline soon
afterwards.
