Arthur Conan Doyle

31:4 Book Reviews "Thus, in an acute, lurid, antifeminine symbolism and a fashionable, loudly proclaimed espousal of evolutionist and eugenicist theories, men everywhere, of every possible political persuasion, declared their emancipation from the viraginous, decapitating sword of woman's regressive, degenerative concern for the real." And these men will presumably "sound the call of gynecide" after Wilde's Herod: "Kill that woman!" Now how does Dijkstra know that "men everywhere " had this fantasy or wish? Has he moved from one fantasy to another? And how does he know that "women of the tum of the century had to suffer untold humiliation" from such a fantasy? Here, again, Dijkstra converts an assumption into a fact and simultaneously confounds cause with effect. The relationship between fantasy and a "real" effect is a difficult problem, which does not seem to trouble Dijkstra. On the last page of the book, the "Fuhrer" makes his appearance (almost comically, though presumably Dijkstra is deadly serious) to set things right and restore "masculine power": "Fantasies of genocide thus opened the door to the realities of genocide." A dramatically compelling statement, perhaps, but history should be more complex. Karl Beckson ____________________________________Brooklyn College, CUNY___________ ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE Allen Eyles. Sherlock Holmes: A Centenary Celebration. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. $22.50. Jon L. Lellenberg, ed. The Quest for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Thirteen Biographers in Search of a Life. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. $19.95. A Study in Scarlet, the first of Conan Doyle's 60 stories about Sherlock Holmes, was published in 1887. In Sherlock Holmes: A Centenary Celebration Allen Eyles commemorates that initial appearance of Holmes and chronicles the development of his character, first in Doyle's original stories, then in plays, motion pictures, radio drama, and finally in television films. Eyles's introduction suggests three reasons for Holmes's great popularity in the late Victorian era: the stories were innovative, they often seemed to allude to contemporary scandals and crime, and Holmes himself was a unique character. It is, of course, the character of Holmes that continues to intrigue innumerable readers today. Eyles has almost as much to say about the narrator of nearly all the stories, Holmes's friend Dr. Watson, as about Holmes. The doctor functions as an integral part of Doyle's fictional technique. In the chapters that follow Eyles discusses the creation of Holmes and traces the publication of each story in chronological order, including brief biographical facts about Doyle and some comments on the strengths and weaknesses of various tales. He also records the artist for each story as it appeared in both Britain and America and reproduces illustrations by Sidney Paget who established the image of Holmes in The Strand, by Frederic Dorr Steele who further embellished the Holmesian figure in Collier's in America, and by numerous other artists. 481 31:4 Book Reviews There have been many dramatic reworkings of the Holmes material. Doyle himself tried to write a Holmes play or two, somewhat unsuccessfully. The best and most popular stage play was both written and performed by the American William Gillette. During the 1930s and 1940s there were various radio series about Holmes, and, of course, there have been many films both for movie theaters (where Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce became Holmes and Watson for a whole generation) and on television. Eyles considers all of these briefly, then fills his book with a copious selection of pictures—illustrations from the original stories, colorful magazine covers, photos from plays, stills from films. As one turns the pages, one becomes aware of how often the artists and dramatists have added their own distinctive touches to Doyle's concept of Holmes. Sidney Paget introduced the deerstalker cap in his drawings; actor/ playwright William Gillette smoked the curved pipe and spoke the well known phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson." None of these appear in Doyle's original portrait of the detective. However, whether a reader is familiar with Doyle's fiction or not, anyone on being confronted with a deerstalker, an Inverness cape, a pipe, a magnifying glass or any combination of these, recognizes at once who is being represented and what his profession is. This...