ABSTRACT
This book is not a biography of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), but it is impossible to engage in any discussion of Doyle’s career without acknowledging the biographical frames within which his writing was situated. He planned for himself a life of public meaning, and biogra phy is his literary element. His favourite reading consisted of work in this genre - the inumerable biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and diaries whose literary accents he could replicate and parody with such ease and humour. His own diverse writings constitute a body of work in search of its own autobiographer.
