Great Lives S30E05: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a radio program (S30E05 of series Great Lives) produced by BBC aired on 30 april 2013 on BBC Radio 4. 30 minutes.



Audio

Great Lives S30E05: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


Speakers

  • Matthew Parris : BBC host.
  • Gyles Brandreth : Author of pastiches including Oscar Wilde and Conan Doyle (2007-2012)
  • Andrew Lycett : Author of biography "Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes" (2008)


BBC presentation

Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. This always irritated him, and he tried to kill off the great detective, only to bring him back by popular demand. But there was more to Conan Doyle than Holmes. A sportsman who helped bring skiing to the Alps, a campaigner against the Belgian atrocities in the Congo, and most startlingly, a convinced spiritualist who became embroiled in a public argument with Harry Houdini over whether it was possible to make contact with the dead. The paradox of Conan Doyle's life was that, having invented the most rational, cerebral fictional character of all time, he himself embraced superstition and behaved in ways that caused even his allies to despair of his credulity.