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Sherlock Holmes. All stage impersonations and drawings of Sherlock Holmes, his best-known creation, are, says Doyle, very unlike his original idea. The detective had, as imagined by Doyle, "a thin, razor-like face, with a great hawk's-bill of a nose and two small eyes, set close together on either side of it." But the original illustrations, done by the late Sidney Paget, were posed for by the artist's handsome younger brother. Future illustrators have followed Paget. The name of the character was originally planned as "Sherringford Holmes." Dr. Doyle has always felt that the popularity of the Holmes stories has obscured the value of his other more pretentious works.
The Politician. For a while, Dr. Doyle planned for himself a political career. He stood twice for Parliament.
The Book. These memories are simply and effectively told. They consist largely of anecdote, to which the author's unusually stirring career lends itself. On almost every page we find him defending frail beauty with his fists, dodging shrapnel, seizing would-be suicides on the Thames embankment, solving—or attempting to solve—criminal mysteries. Of the intimacies of his life —his mental career—he says relatively little, save for occasional discussion of the psychic phenomena which are his chief interest.
* Memories and Adventures—A. Conan Doyle—Little, Brown ($4.50).