I’ve been enjoying the current season of Mystery!, especially the Bell and Doyle series, Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes.
Now I know it is fiction, but it does raise the question in my mind: How did Dr. Joseph Bell really feel about Arthur Conan Doyle? Was Doyle a good student, etc.? I believe Doyle was a clerk or assistant to Bell at university, so one would think Bell thought well of him, but I recall reading that Bell grew tired of being referred to as the model for Holmes, and seems that he once referred to the stories as (iirc, something like): “That silly nonsense that Doyle writes.”
Also, as I tried to Google for some info on Bell, I discovered that PBS is claiming that the stories on “Murder Rooms” were “inspired” by the fact that long-secret documents have come to light showing that Bell actually did some detective work for “the Crown.” Anybody familiar with this? Maybe Doyle based more than the character on Bell? Maybe some of the Holmes stories have a basis in fact… Nah, probably not, but it is interesting to speculate, eh?
Sir Rhosis