Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light, 1887-1920 (Hardback Edition) (Conan Doyle and the Paranormal)

"Why did the man who created Sherlock Holmes believe in ghosts?” From early in his medical career, Arthur Conan Doyle was fascinated by the paranormal. As a young doctor in Southsea, he investigated séances, telepathy and hypnosis and in 1887, the year of his first Sherlock Holmes novel, he became convinced of spirit communication. Even as Holmes’s fame grew, Conan Doyle investigated poltergeists, automatic writing and spirit photography. Then, in 1916, as the Great War’s death toll mounted, he announced to an astonished his belief in Spiritualism, all the while, continuing to  produce stories starring his ultra-rational consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. In Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light: Trace Conan Doyle’s thinking as he grapples with paranormal phenomena and reaches the extraordinary conclusion that they are real. Read his own account of speaking with his dead son, Kingsley, and making physical contact with his manifested spirit. Discover why Conan Doyle was accused of “necromancy” by Press and Church. Find out how H G Wells, George Bernard Shaw and others were drawn into the debate. Follow Conan Doyle’s journey to becoming an international missionary and leader of a world movement. The first in a three-part series tracing his belief in Spiritualism, Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light is a detailed, entertaining true history. Includes newspaper reports, biographies of key figures, glossary, index, bibliography - and every article and letter he wrote for the Spiritualist magazine Light between 1887 and 1920, many of which have never been published in book form.