University Of Chicago Press
October 2012
On Sale: October 18, 2012
250 pages ISBN: 022600905X EAN: 9780226009056 Kindle: B009SQ33UG Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
In 1880 a young medical student named Arthur Conan Doyle
embarked upon the “first real outstanding adventure” of his
life, taking a berth as ship’s surgeon on an Arctic whaler,
the Hope. The voyage took him to unknown regions, showered
him with dramatic and unexpected experiences, and plunged
him into dangerous work on the ice floes of the Arctic seas.
He tested himself, overcame the hardships, and, as he wrote
later, “came of age at 80 degrees north latitude.”
Conan Doyle’s time in the Arctic provided powerful fuel for
his growing ambitions as a writer. With a ghost story set in
the Arctic wastes that he wrote shortly after his return, he
established himself as a promising young writer. A
subsequent magazine article laying out possible routes to
the North Pole won him the respect of Arctic explorers. And
he would call upon his shipboard experiences many times in
the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, who was introduced in
1887’s A Study in Scarlet.
Out of sight for more than a century was a diary that Conan
Doyle kept while aboard the whaler. Dangerous Work: Diary of
an Arctic Adventure makes this account available for the
first time in a beautiful facsimile edition that reproduces
Conan Doyle’s notebook pages in his own elegant hand,
accompanied by his copious illustrations. With humor and
grace, Conan Doyle provides a vivid account of a
long-vanished way of life at sea. His careful detailing of
the experience of arctic whaling is equal parts fascinating
and alarming, revealing the dark workings of the later days
of the British whaling industry. In addition to the
facsimile and annotated transcript of the diary, the volume
contains photographs of the Hope, its captain, and a young
Conan Doyle on deck with its officers; two nonfiction pieces
by Doyle about his experiences; and two of his tales
inspired by the journey.
To the end of his life, Conan Doyle would look back on this
experience with awe: “You stand on the very brink of the
unknown,” he declared, “and every duck that you shoot bears
pebbles in its gizzard which come from a land which the maps
know not. It was a strange and fascinating chapter of my
life.” Only now can the legion of Conan Doyle fans read and
enjoy that chapter.
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