The mystery of Conan Doyle and the penny difference

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little book of essays about books and reading Through the Magic Door (1907) is a treasure trove of material that has inspired a whole string of articles. 

After taking a last look at these essays, I started working my way through Conan Doyle's autobiographical work Memories and Adventures (1924) in the hope of finding similar material.

I soon found something interesting from the days when he was a third-year student; it reminded me of an amusing, article-inspiring anecdote in the earlier work. 

From Memories and Adventures:

“I used to be allowed twopence for my lunch, that being the price of a mutton pie, but near the pie shop was a second-hand book shop with a barrel full of old books and the legend “Your choice for 2d.” stuck above it. Often the price of my luncheon used to be spent on some sample out of this barrel, and I have within reach of my arm as I write these lines, copies of Gordon’s Tacitus, Temple’s works, Pope’s Homer, Addison’s Spectator and Swift’s works, which all came out of the twopenny box.”

In this previously-quoted extract from Through the Magic Door, Conan Doyle describes how he had to chose between spending his modest daily allowance on his lunch or on a book:

“...my student days, when times were not too affluent. Threepence was my modest allowance for my midday sandwich and glass of beer; but, as luck would have it, my way to the classes led past the most fascinating bookshop in the world. Outside the door of it stood a large tub filled with an ever-changing litter of tattered books, with a card above which announced that any volume therein could be purchased for the identical sum which I carried in my pocket.”

So what happened here?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed that it was possible to communicate with the dead. If I could do that, I would ask him for an explanation!

As I have no way of contacting the great man, I will just have to guess why these two accounts differ in the detail.

Could Conan Doyle have misremembered details of his student days when creating the later work? Perhaps over the years threepence had changed in his mind to tuppence and the sandwich to a pie!

Perhaps he was remembering two different years and two different bookshops, with the threepenny version coming from his earlier years as a student. In connection with the later years, he mentioned that every shilling of his money was needed at home; perhaps he cut down and stopped buying beer.

Where is Sherlock Holmes when you need him!

A very clever way to build a personal library

After producing the string of articles inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little book of essays Through The Magic Door, I started reading his autobiographical work Memories and Adventures in the hope of finding more material suitable for highlighting on here. 

I found an amusing little anecdote about someone who devised a clever way to build a book collection:

“...young lady...had a large amount of guile underlying her simplicity. Writing from Warsaw, she stated that she had been bedridden for two years, and that my novels had been her only, etc., etc. So touched was I by this flattering statement that I at once prepared an autographed parcel of them to complete the fair invalid’s collection. By good luck, however, I met a brother author on the same day to whom I recounted the touching incident. With a cynical smile, he drew an identical letter from his pocket. His novels had also been for two years her only, etc., etc. I do not know how many more the lady had written to; but if, as I imagine, her correspondence had extended to several countries, she must have amassed a rather interesting library.“

Although I can't help admiring her ingenuity, I also feel disgusted with the effrontery of this brazen scrounger when I remember that as a student Conan Doyle had often gone without food to buy books for his collection. 

I wonder if she ever got anything out of John Buchan and Rudyard Kipling!  

Conan Doyle with some of his legitimately-acquired books circa 1890:

Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: some common elements

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.