The Sign of the Four
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Book Description
In 1880 Dr. Doyle left the university to make a seven-months' trip to the Arctic seas as unqualified surgeon on board a whaler. There was very little demand for surgery aboard the Hope, and he has described his chief occupation during the voyage as being employed in keeping the captain in cut tobacco, working in the boats after fish, and teaching the crew to box. He utilized his experiences later ...
MoreIn 1880 Dr. Doyle left the university to make a seven-months' trip to the Arctic seas as unqualified surgeon on board a whaler. There was very little demand for surgery aboard the Hope, and he has described his chief occupation during the voyage as being employed in keeping the captain in cut tobacco, working in the boats after fish, and teaching the crew to box. He utilized his experiences later in his story, "The Captain of the Polestar," which was written for Temple Bar, and was subsequently published in a volume of short stories.
Two years later, in 1882, after a four months' voyage to the west coast of Africa, he settled down as a medical practitioner at South Sea, in England, where he remained until 1890. Those were arduous and trying years, in which he came to regard the calls of the profession he had adopted as interruptions in the real work of his life, and found that the writing of stories was a very slender prop upon which to lean for a livelihood. "Fifty little cylinders of manuscript," he says, "did I send out during eight years, which described a regular orbit among publishers, and usually came back, like paper boomerangs, to the place that they had started from." All this time he was writing anonymously, and during the ten years of his literary apprenticeship, he states that, in spite of unceasing and untiring literary effort, he never in any one year earned fifty pounds by his pen. Another grievous disappointment which added to his harassing experience at this period was the disappearance of a long story entitled The Narrative of John Smith, upon which he had spent a great deal of pains and time. It was lost in the mails and never heard of again.
Then, in 1887, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual a story from his pen called A Study in Scarlet (this story). It is a significant point in the author's career, for in this story Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance. It was published later in book form, and went forth as his first novel, and immediately began to attract attention. Under these favoring circumstances he undertook the writing of Micah Clarke. It was completed after a year's reading and five months' writing, and represented the most ambitious and hopeful work the author had yet accomplished. But it came back to him from one publishing house after another, until he began to despair of its acceptance. "I remember," he says, "smoking over my dog-eared manuscript when it returned for a whiff of country air, and wondering what I should do if some sporting kind of publisher were suddenly to stride in and make me a bid of forty shillings or so for the lot." When the book at last fell into the hands of Mr. Andrew Lang, then acting for Messrs. Longmans, Green & Company, the success of Micah Clarke was assured, and its author's literary career placed on a firmer footing. The Sign of the Four followed in 1889, in which story Sherlock Holmes, who had made his bow to the public in A Study in Scarlet, reappeared and increased Dr. Doyle's rising reputation. His heart, however, was in the historical novel, and in 1890 he followed up the success of Micah Clarke with The White Company, in the preparation of which he read one hundred and fifteen volumes, French and English, dealing with the fourteenth century in England. His delight in the work is expressed in his own words: "To write such books," he once said, speaking of Micah Clarke and The White Company, "one must have an enthusiasm for the age about which he is writing. He must think it a great one, and then he must go deliberately to work and reconstruct it. Then is his a splendid joy."
| Publisher | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |
| Binding | Paperback (283 editions) |
| Reading Level | Uncategorized
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| # of Pages | 144 |
| ISBN-10 | 1491244976 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1491244975 |
| Publication Date | 07/31/2013 |
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