The Uncanny Worlds of Conan Doyle

In this concluding collection of the Spiritualist writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned Doyle biographer and Sherlock Holmes authority, Kelvin I Jones, looks at the impact of the author's obsession with psychic experiments, and his global attempts to prove the existence of an afterlife, had upon both his private and public lives. In the detailed and extensive introduction, Jones charts the nature and depth of his infatuation with his erstwhile mistress and second wife, the parvenu and medium, Jean Leckie. He also reveals the extensive debts the writer incurred by his campaign tours, the expensive lifestyle he was obliged to maintain, and the increasing disaffection he was forced to endure by a largely hostile media, both in the UK and in other countries. The picture of Doyle that emerges, is, as Jones comments, that of 'a weary and wounded warrior, ' whose reckless, but brave struggle against the odds seemed at times to be of heroic proportions.