Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde
In 1889, shortly after the publication of Micah Clarke, Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde were both invited for a dinner party in London with John Marshall Stoddard of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in the United States. As a result of the dinner, both authors agreed to write novels to be published by Lippincott's. Conan Doyle's novel was his second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of the Four. Wilde's was The Picture of Dorian Gray. During the dinner party the two authors chatted. Wilde disclosed that he had read Micah Clarke and liked it.
Conan Doyle mentioned the incident in his 1924 autobiography, Memories and Adventures. He explained that he and Wilde became friendly, but that the friendship remained a distant one at best, and that it grew more distant as Wilde's reputation became questionable. The actual friendly relationship appears to be true, but that Wilde liked Micah Clarke remains at issue. In the recent biography of Conan Doyle, Teller of Tales. author Daniel Stashower suspects Wilde would never have liked such a novel. But Conan Doyle pointed out in his autobiography that what Wilde liked was the characterization of Judge George Jeffreys in the novel. Jeffreys, the notorious bully of the law courts of his day, was shown as a handsome, brilliant man with a flaw in his character - a fallen angel type. That would have been of interest to Wilde.
Read more about this topic: Micah Clarke
Famous quotes containing the words oscar wilde, conan doyle, conan, doyle, oscar and/or wilde:
“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
““Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,” answered Holmes thoughtfully. “It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“You will, I am sure, agree with me that ... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil’s pet baits. In larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed....”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)