Unsigned pencil notes on a 4.5 x 7 off-white sheet. Doyle apparently is making notes for an essay or speech on Irish literature. He lists 21 names including Yeats, Sheridan, John Whitcomb Riley, Swift, The Brontes, Jane Barlow, Shan Bullock, Justin McCarthy, and Standish O’Grady, and adds several comments, including “When we say an Irish book we should mean not a book about Ireland but a book by an Irishman. The other is, I think, a narrow & provincial view,” and “No permanent literature can ever be built upon politics.” In very good condition, with central horizontal and vertical fold, scattered toning and foxing, and an uneven left edge.
These notations offer a glimpse into the author’s working mind as he outlines his thoughts on Irish literature. When referring to an Irish book, he here expresses his intent for the phrase to mean “not a book about Ireland but a book by an Irishman.” Though born in Scotland, Doyle’s heritage was Irish Catholic—a fact that presented identity problems for him both in youth and adulthood. With his cultural background, Doyle never developed a sense of a Scottish identity—and as an adult saw himself as a quintessential ‘English gentleman,’ going so far as to consistently side with the British in the struggle between Ireland and England.
Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes bore an underlying tide of the extreme political movements undertaken by the Irish, with the character of Professor Moriarty bearing a common surname from County Kerry. Many literary experts have noted that Holmes’ mortal enemy bearing a Celtic-Irish name clearly is not by chance. His concern over the political situation, and beliefs such as the one expressed here—“No permanent literature can ever be built upon politics”—would ultimately lead to his retreat into the world of spiritualism, where British imperialism and Irish nationalism had no place. Interesting handwritten notes on a topic that often caused internal conflict within the author. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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