Tag: “Alex”

Michael Dirda

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On Conan Doyle by Michael Dirda, JHWS “Alex”

8655875.jpgOn Conan Doyle

by Michael Dirda, JHWS “Alex”

Published by Princeton University Press

Available from Amazon $12.50

A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars. Combining  memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is a highly engaging personal introduction to Holmes’s creator, as well as a rare insider’s account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars.

Because Arthur Conan Doyle wrote far more than the mysteries involving Holmes, this book  also introduces readers to the author’s lesser-known but fascinating writings in an astounding range of other genres. A prolific professional writer, Conan Doyle was among the most important Victorian masters of the supernatural short story, an early practitioner of science fiction, a major exponent of historical fiction, a charming essayist and memoirist, and an outspoken public figure who attacked racial injustice in the Congo, campaigned for more liberal divorce laws, and defended wrongly convicted prisoners. He also wrote novels about both domestic life and contemporary events (including one set in the Middle East during an Islamic uprising), as well as a history of World War I, and, in his final years, controversial tracts in defense of spiritualism.

On Conan Doyle describes all of these achievements and activities, uniquely combining skillful criticism with the story of Dirda’s deep and enduring affection for Conan Doyle and his work. This is a book for everyone who already loves Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the world of 221B Baker Street, or for anyone who would like to know more about them, but it is also a much-needed celebration of Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius for every kind of storytelling.

Reviews

Michael Dirda is a bookman in the tradition of Christopher Morley and Vincent Starrett: highly intelligent, well educated, widely read, and entirely unpretentious. All this is gratifyingly evident in his latest book “On Conan Doyle, or, The Whole Art of Storytelling”, which concentrates largely on Sherlock Holmes but finds space in its 220-odd pages for perceptive discussion of Brigadier Gerard, Professor Challenger, Nigel Loring and pretty much all of Conan Doyle’s important fiction – which is to say, most of it. As the subtitle indicates, Mr Dirda doesn’t disagree with Greenhough Smith’s claim in “The Strand Magazine” that Arthur Conan Doyle was `the greatest natural storyteller of his age’, but he knows that there was far more to it than natural talent. He knows too, that the telling of tales is not to be despised, and that Conan Doyle was actually one of the most important observers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Mr Dirda is, enviably, able to tell you just why he loves Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, so that you realise, yes, that’s why you love them too.
-Roger Johnson, JHWS “Count” and Editor the Sherlock Holmes Journal

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Welcome to Michael Dirda, PhD, JHWS “Alex,” BSI “Langdale Pike”

The Society wishes to extend its warm welcome to Michael Dirda, PhD., JHWS, BSI “Langdale Pike.”

Mr. Dirda’s impressive biography reads:

I am an invested member–as Langdale Pike–of The Baker Street Irregulars and write or lecture frequently about literary subjects, including the works of John H. Watson. My most recent book,  On Conan Doyle, received the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award–for the best biographical/critical work of the year–from the Mystery Writers of America.

For a quarter century I was a staffer at The Washington Post Book World and for the last decade have been a weekly book columnist for The Washington Post. My earlier books include the memoir An Open Book and  four collections of essays: Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book and Classics for Pleasure.  As I live by my pen, I’m a regular contributor  to The New York Review of Books, an occasional reviewer and essayist for the Times Literary Supplement, a columnist for the online Barnes and Noble Review, and a frequent reviewer for several other  literary periodicals, as well as an occasional lecturer and college teacher (most recently at the Bread Loaf School of English and the University of Maryland).  Years ago, I earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature (focusing on medieval studies and European romanticism) from Cornell University and before that graduated with Highest Honors in English from my beloved alma mater, Oberlin College. I grew up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio and have lived in the Washington DC area since 1975.

My work has been  lucky enough to be short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Award (in current affairs for Bound to Please) and for this year’s Marfield Prize for Arts Writing and to have won the Ohioana Book Award for nonfiction (An Open Book), the Boydston Essay Prize (from the Association of Documentary Editing for an article  in the New York Review of Books comparing two editions of The Wind in the Willows),  and the Pulitzer Prize in criticism for my reviews and essays.  Besides the BSI, I’m a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the Mystery Writers of America, the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, The Friends of Arthur Machen, The Ghost Story Society, and the North American Jules Verne Society.

I live in Silver Spring, Maryland with my wife Marian Peck Dirda, a prints and drawings conservator for the National Gallery of Art. We have three sons, now in their twenties: Christopher, Michael and Nathaniel.

My current research focuses on popular fiction between, roughly, 1865 and 1930, and some day I hope to write a book about this “Great Age of Storytelling.”

Please join in welcoming Dr. Dirda to the Society with our collegial greeting to members:

“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”