Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Conan Doyle and war.

Conan Doyle in uniform
from The Sketch Jan 1902
This interesting 2010 article by U of Hull's Catherine Wynne from English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920 discusses how Arthur Conan Doyle dealt with war in his writings (such as "The Case of the Blanched Soldier," 1926), which seems to have been influenced by his experiences in the Boer War. It includes illustrations of Conan Doyle in South Africa. As Conan Doyle writes about a visit to the front during World War I, "[a] shattered man, drenched crimson from head to foot, with two great eyes looking upward through a mask of blood . . . might well haunt one in one's dreams" (The British Campaign in France and Flanders, 1920, p. 312).

No comments: