Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and The White Company (1891)

Abstract

The first thirty years of Arthur Conan Doyle’s life (1859–1930) do not seem to have been blessed by a benevolent deity. At the time, as well as in the autumn years of his career, it seemed rather ordinary, and even dispiriting, to the man who was destined to create the most universal and enduring character of Victorian fiction. Born into an artistically talented Catholic family, Conan Doyle could take pride in John Doyle, his grandfather, well known for his caricatures and portraits, and three of his uncles, who also achieved fame as artists (one of them, Richard, designed the figure of ‘Punch’, and was closely associated with that periodical for several decades, while another became Director of the National Gallery, Dublin). He could also experience intermittent feelings of family pride at the accomplishments of his father, who kept a genteel but increasingly shabby home as his fortunes deteriorated. Charles Altamont Doyle, like John Doyle, drew illustrations for magazines and children’s books, but derived his primary income from the Board of Works in Edinburgh; there he worked as a civil servant until, in failing health, he entered (and never left) the institutional life of a number of asylums. His great-uncle and godfather, Michael Conan, was a well-known journalist who lived in Paris. His mother, Mary Doyle, loved French culture and the ideals of medieval chivalry; she taught her son the fine points of heraldry, which he would put to use in his later historical romances.