# Conan Doyle Fans: What's your favorite NON Sherlock story? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462 "2014-01-22T18:48:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/1 "2014-01-22T18:48:53Z")
Conan Doyle wrote lots of stuff, and was allegedly annoyed that the public only wanted more and more Sherlock Holmes. What of his other stuff do you like best? Myself, I suppose I’d pick the Lost World, followed by the White Company. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/2 "2014-01-22T19:13:26Z")
I’ve only read _The Lost World_ and its first sequel, _The Poison Belt_, so I guess I’ll have to pick those two (in that order). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/3 "2014-01-22T19:33:31Z")
Good question. I’ve read the Professor Challenger stories (_The Lost World_ et al) and a few of the stand-alone short stories (of which he wrote quite a few); and I once tried to read _The White Company_ but didn’t get very far with it. So I’m not really familiar enough with his work to have a favorite, though I’m certainly open to suggestions. From my limited experience, I’d say he really was at his best in the better Holmes stories. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/4 "2014-01-22T20:04:00Z")
“Lot 241,” a horror story “The Horror from the Heights,” a science-fiction story about the early days of aviation “John Barrington Cowles” It has a lousy title, but it is really a pretty good horror story. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/5 "2014-01-22T20:45:10Z")
The Brigadier Gerard stories! This is a series of short stories about a French Cavalry officer in the Napoleonic era, who is remarkably stupid and foolish. (Not quite as stupid as Groo the Wanderer, but getting on in that direction.) He is, of course, jolly and good-natured and courageous. The tales are light-hearted and whimsical and hilarious. Available for free from Project Gutenberg! ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/6 "2014-01-22T21:15:46Z")
**The Lost World** , of course; Englishmen and dinosaurs! Progenitor of a thousand imitators! …followed by the Brigadier Gerard stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/7 "2014-01-22T21:20:35Z")
Heh I’d forgotten about Brigadier Gerard. To the library! 😃 I did remember his tales of mystery and horror. Some great stuff in there … Conan Doyle anticipates H.P. Lovecraft in “The Horror of the Heights”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/8 "2014-01-22T21:46:06Z")
I’d go for \*\* Brigadier Gerard \*\* followed by \*\* The Lost World \*\* and the rest of the Professor Challenger stories. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/9 "2014-01-23T15:46:05Z")
Anybody else dream of a _Lost World_ TV series with Stephen Fry as Professor Challenger and Hugh Laurie as Lord John Roxton? (Still need to fantasy-cast Prof. Summerlee and Malone.) ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/10 "2014-01-23T16:07:27Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > **The Lost World** , of course; Englishmen and dinosaurs! Not to mention the first (and last) place I’ve ever seen the word “beslobbered.” ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/11 "2014-01-23T16:10:31Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Anybody else dream of a _Lost World_ TV series with Stephen Fry as Professor Challenger and Hugh Laurie as Lord John Roxton? (Still need to fantasy-cast Prof. Summerlee and Malone.) I would love to see a faithful adaptation in any media … but there are aspects of that story unlikely to be acceptable to modern audiences, like the heroes participating in the genocide of the ape-men. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/12 "2014-01-23T16:35:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Anybody else dream of a _Lost World_ TV series with Stephen Fry as Professor Challenger and Hugh Laurie as Lord John Roxton? (Still need to fantasy-cast Prof. Summerlee and Malone.) Brendan Frasier as Malone, of course; he can play athletic and smart. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/13 "2014-01-23T16:43:30Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Conan Doyle wrote lots of stuff, and was allegedly annoyed that the public only wanted more and more Sherlock Holmes. > > What of his other stuff do you like best? > > Myself, I suppose I’d pick the Lost World, followed by the White Company. Haven’t read much of his non-Holmes stuff - “The Great Keinplatz Experiment” is the only one that I can recall having read in fact ([The Great Keinplatz Experiment and Other Tales of Twilight and the Unseen | Project Gutenberg](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32777/32777-h/32777-h.htm#Page_72)) - it’s a very early “Freaky Friday” type story. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/14 "2014-01-23T18:11:35Z")
**The Lost World.** ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/15 "2014-01-23T18:12:56Z")
I like the “Captain Sharkey” series. In fact, I’ve got a copy of “The Dealings Of Captain Sharkey And Other Tales Of Pirates” sitting on my desk right now. Alas, it is the 1919 edition, not the 1905 first edition. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/16 "2014-01-23T19:20:57Z")
**The Lost World** for me. I loved this as a kid and liked it better than Sherlock back then. I prefer Sherlock now but **The Lost World** was one of my early favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/17 "2014-01-23T19:35:56Z")
I’m surprised no-one has picked _The Comming of the Fairies._ 😃 > **[The Coming of the Fairies, by Arthur Conan Doyle Index](https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/cof/)** > > The Coming of the Fairies, by Arthur Conan Doyle, at sacred-texts.com ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/18 "2014-01-23T19:45:38Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The Brigadier Gerard stories! This is a series of short stories about a French Cavalry officer in the Napoleonic era, who is remarkably stupid and foolish. (Not quite as stupid as Groo the Wanderer, but getting on in that direction.) He is, of course, jolly and good-natured and courageous. The tales are light-hearted and whimsical and hilarious. Ah, yes, Gerard – my non-Holmes favourite, too. A definitely lovable character, whose exploits are fine fun. IIRC, Napoleon himself is referred to, describing Gerard (quoting from memory) as having the thickest head, but the stoutest heart, in the entire French army. (The idea of a fanfic cross-over irresistibly suggests itself, featuring Doyle’s Gerard, and Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe…) SCAdian writes: “I’ve only read _The Lost World_ and its first sequel _The Poison Belt_, so I guess I’ll have to pick those two (in that order).” I enjoyed those two Professor Challengers novels. Subsequently Doyle took Challenger with him, into the spiritualist realm – the result was, again IIRC, heavily propagandist and pretty dire. I wasn’t impressed with Doyle’s actual historical novels – though I believe that those were the part of Doyle’s work which he valued most and took most seriously – as per OP, he just dashed off the Holmes stories, reluctantly and without pleasure, to keep the money coming in. The historical novels struck me as rather lame and insipid, bordering on childish; the nadir of those which I’ve read (or started on) being for me, _The Refugees_ (“Louis XIV’s Paris meets North America”) – which I found embarrassingly kids’-comic-like awful. Am aware that many people think highly of the historical novels. S.M. Stirling, for one, is so enthusiastically into _The White Company_ and _Sir Nigel_, that he has “borrowed” several of the characters in them, to use in modern guise in an alternative-history novel series about hideous disaster befalling Earth in the year 1998, and what happens subsequently. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/19 "2014-01-23T20:01:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I like the “Captain Sharkey” series. In fact, I’ve got a copy of “The Dealings Of Captain Sharkey And Other Tales Of Pirates” sitting on my desk right now. Alas, it is the 1919 edition, not the 1905 first edition. I’d never heard of 'em! Just downloaded 'em from Gutenberg. (If I don’t like them, I’ll hold you personally responsible! 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462/20 "2014-01-23T20:04:40Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > (The idea of a fanfic cross-over irresistibly suggests itself, featuring Doyle’s Gerard, and Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe…) That would, indeed, be awesome. 😃 Corwall himself includes a crossover character from “Death to the French”: > **[Death to the French](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_the_French)** > > Death to the French is a 1932 novel of the Peninsular War during the Napoleonic Wars, written by C. S. Forester, the author of the Horatio Hornblower novels. It was also published in the United States under the title Rifleman Dodd. > The novel relates the adventures of a British rifleman of the 95th Regiment of Foot who is cut off from his regiment when the Allied army retreats behind the Lines of Torres Vedras. He is forced to survive for several months in territory that has been devastated by... > [@](#): > > I enjoyed those two Professor Challengers novels. Subsequently Doyle took Challenger with him, into the spiritualist realm – the result was, again IIRC, heavily propagandist and pretty dire. Only one of 'em - _The Land of Mist_, which is, as you say, quite dire - in fact, unreadable. He wrote a couple of other Challenger stories which had nothing to do with spiritualism - _When the World Screamed_ and _The Disintegration Machine_. Both slight, but not dire._The Disintegration Machine_ is actually pretty funny … > [@](#): > > I wasn’t impressed with Doyle’s actual historical novels – though I believe that those were the part of Doyle’s work which he valued most and took most seriously – as per OP, he just dashed off the Holmes stories, reluctantly and without pleasure, to keep the money coming in. The historical novels struck me as rather lame and insipid, bordering on childish; the nadir of those which I’ve read (or started on) being for me, _The Refugees_ (“Louis XIV’s Paris meets North America”) – which I found embarrassingly kids’-comic-like awful. > > Am aware that many people think highly of the historical novels. S.M. Stirling, for one, is so enthusiastically into _The White Company_ and _Sir Nigel_, that he has “borrowed” several of the characters in them, to use in modern guise in an alternative-history novel series about hideous disaster befalling Earth in the year 1998, and what happens subsequently. I haven’t read _The Refugees_, but I do love both _The White Company_ and _Sir Nigel_, and both have been very influential on other writers of historical fiction, down to the present day. I recently attended a lecture given by Christian Cameron, who wrote this book: > **[The Ill-Made Knight : Cameron, Christian: Amazon.ca: Books](https://www.amazon.ca/Ill-Made-Knight-Christian-Cameron/dp/1409142418)** > > The Ill-Made Knight : Cameron, Christian: Amazon.ca: Books Which I read and liked very much. I asked him about whether he was influenced by _The White Company_, and he said, very much so; in fact, some of the characters were deliberate references! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-whats-your-favorite-non-sherlock-story/679462.md?page=2)