Arthur Who Wrote Sherlock

Fans of the legendary fictional detective Sherlock Holmes will delight in this picture book biography of Holmes’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Told in the present tense, the story begins with Arthur’s early childhood. Born into a poor family, with a father who struggles with alcohol and mental health issues, Arthur escapes into a fantasy world thanks to his mother who tells him amazing stories and teaches him to read at a very young age. Wealthy uncles pay for Arthur’s boarding school tuition. Arthur dislikes school, but he excels at sports and storytelling. At 17, he enrolls in medical school where he becomes the assistant of Dr. Joseph Bell. Dr. Bell’s powers of observation are exceptional and, years later, form the basis of Sherlock Holmes’s character. In order to pay for his medical studies, Arthur works at a variety of jobs – on a whaling ship in the North and on a steamship in Africa – chalking up adventures that will eventually come in handy with his writing. Not quite established in his fledgling medical practice, Arthur fills his time with writing and sends his manuscripts to publishers.

Years pass, during which Arthur writes a few novellas. Finally, he gets a brainwave: he will write short mystery stories, featuring Sherlock Holmes that will appear in a monthly magazine. These stories prove to be extremely popular with readers, so much so that Arthur runs out of ideas and can’t keep up with the fan mail. Sherlock Holmes is both a blessing and a curse. The solution is to have Holmes killed off, but readers are outraged and cancel their subscriptions to the magazine. Arthur then writes whatever he likes for the next eight years, but, when he realizes that the story he is working on needs a detective, he resurrects Holmes, explaining to readers that Holmes didn’t really die; he was merely hiding out from his nemesis, Moriarty.

Though the majority of the book is about Arthur’s writing and the detective that made him famous, there is brief information about his family, his interests, and his sense of justice (Doyle was known to work tirelessly to help those who were wrongly convicted of crimes and occasionally helped the police to solve crimes).

Bailey does an excellent job of creating the historical setting. She offers insight into the events that inspired young Arthur’s love of the written word and the struggles that resulted from his fictional character’s immense popularity. A lengthy author’s note at the back of the book describes Bailey’s fascination with Sir Arthur and provides further biographical information about him.

Like the story, the detailed illustrations thoroughly engage the reader. Rendered in muted tones in watercolour, pencil, and according to the illustrator, “a pinch of Photoshop”, they marry the text seamlessly and are in keeping with the story’s Victorian setting.

Arthur Who Wrote Sherlock, Bailey’s homage to the iconic Sherlock Holmes, once called “the world’s most famous man who never was”, and his incredibly talented creator is sure to please fans of the books and just might entice new ones.