SIR A. CONAN DOYLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1920, Page 10 (Supplement)

SIR A. CONAN DOYLE.

INTERVIEW WITH CREATOR OP "SHERLOCK HOLMES." While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is today far more interested in spiritualism than in anything- else, as his interview on the Bitbjeet wth a Times representative demongrratee, the New Zealand public is interested rather in Conan Doyle, the author, than in Conan Doyle, the spiritualist. The people want to know about, and see, the man who wrote the cleverest and most fascinating of all detective stories. But suggest something like this to the visitor and he slumps back in his chair, half impatiently. It is just as if one confronted a man with a bit of his past life, which he would willingly repudiate. Still, interviewers cannot be kicked out.

'No. I do not think I shall write any more novels—unless I can see a novel which will help the people to more clearly understand spiritualism," said Sir Conan Doyle. "I am writing an account of my travel, however, which I shall call 'The Wanderings of a Spiritualist.' I shall recount my experiences in Australia and New Zealand, my impressions of people I have motMr. Hughes, and various others. That will be the jam around the pill, for my book, of course, will deal essentially with the purpose of my mission here." BIRTH OP SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Sir Conan Doyle talked almost with reluctance about the creation of Sherlock Holmes—a character of fiction who has passed into immortality besidt Mr. Fjckwick, Iftbinson Crußoe, the Count of Monte Chrisjo, and other distinguished company. He began to write while he was engaged at Southsea as ft general practitioner, and his first book, •*A Study in Scarlet", published in 1887, introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world. He sqjd the whole of his rights in that book to a publisher for £25. "I suppose the publisher made thousands out of it," remarked Sir Conan, "not taking the cinema rights into consideration. Not that that matters—we had never dreamed of such a thing" as cinema rights when I wrote the book." Other books followed quickly—one may see the impressive list in "Who's Who"—and the medical practice came to an end in 1890. From then on Conan Doyle climbed rapidly to fame as author and traveller. The interviewer remarked on the wide knowledge of scientific facts disclosed in the Sherlock Holmes books, but Sir Conan said that, in writing the Holmes stories, he never "read up" particularly. He made use, of course, of the scientific knowledge of the average medical man, and.he had alwajs been an omniverous reader, with a good memory. He had thus acquired a superficial knowledge of many sciences.

FO:!,:.IJORLY A MATERIALIST. "In the course of my reading," and Sir- Conan swung back determinedly to the subject which now dominates his ■life, "1 examined spiritualism. I approached spiritualism as a sceptic. I was a strong materialist—in fast, my book, 'The Stark Munro Letters,' published in 1888, is written from the materialist's point of view, I became deeply interested in spiritualism, but it was only after many years of study that I was converted to spiritualism. A reference to the charlatanism and trickery which have raised such prejudices against spiritualism in the popular mind aroused the traveller to defence and retaliation. He mentioned the men of powerful intellect who had adopted spiritualism—Lodge, Crookes, Stead, were some of the fameus names —and asked if these men would have accepted such a creed unless they had made tho investigation of which they were capable and satisfied themselves as to whether it was trickery or not. "One positive result in science will outweigh fifty negative ones," he said.