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Article: Elementary, my dear Sir Arthur
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- July 24, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1995 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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One of the least known of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works is a
book called Through the Magic Door, which is not a work of fiction
at all but a controlled, reminiscent ramble along his bookshelf,
chatting about his favourite books as if he were on Desert Island
Discs. At one point, in fact, he actually invents the idea of
Desert Island Discs: "Were I condemned to spend a year upon a
desert island," he says, "and allowed only one book for my
companion, it is certainly that which I should choose."
(It is Gibbon's Decline and Fall he is talking about, and he
goes on to say, rather splendidly: "With our more elastic methods
we may consider his manner pompous, but he lived in an age when Dr ...