Many years ago I began reading Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life In Letters. I picked that up at Barnes and Noble, off the bargain table, and immediately began reading it. But, as way so often leads on to way, I got a couple of hundred pages in then set it aside. This months I finally finished it. From 2010 to 2019 is a long time to read a book.

I’ll be doing a report on that book, but not today. In it Doyle mentioned in a letter that he wrote a book of literary essays. That sounded interesting to me. Coming from 1907 it would be in the public domain, so I looked for it and found it. Through the Magic Door was published in 1908. it consists of a discussion, not strictly about authors, but about books on Conan Doyle’s bookshelf. This was a favorite bookshelf, I assume, one that had his favorite books on it. In this it differs from other books of literary essays, which at that time tended to concentrate on the authors, not on their books.

I obtained this at no cost on Google Play and put all else aside and began the book. The opening lines drew me right in.

I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks.

This is a wonderful opening. The book at hand almost lived up to it. Doyle starts out with his Macaulay book, his English history. This was his largest work and his last, actually not being completed. I’ve tried to read it but was put off by it, most probably the dated language and style. Doyle was writing only five or so decades after it was published, so it was much fresher to that era.

Macaulay’s essays also find space in Doyle’s book. These I’ve had more success with. I’m far from finishing them, but the ones I’ve read have held my interest and informed me. That’s good enough praise for things written in the 1820s and 1830s.

After this, the further you get into Magic Door, Doyle seems to degenerate. From entire chapters on one author he changes over to entire chapters covering entire shelves. He rushed through descriptions of books by author’s I’ve never heard of. It was good to hear about them, but Doyle didn’t give me enough to make me want to go out and find and read them. Pity. I’m sure they would be good to read, but I just don’t have enough to draw me to them.

Through the Magic Door was good. Had I this book in hard copy, I believe I would keep it and note it as one to be read again in the future. Doyle is a good writer. This volume is a good companion to Sherlock Holmes and, perhaps, other of Doyle’s writings I hope someday to pick up.