The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection Lancelyn Green Bequest

Conan Doyle

What's new?

5 September 2008: Tickets for the forthcoming talk, 'The Conan Doyle Collection, What's all the Fuss About?' are now available. This talk will be free and take place on the 17 September, 2.30 p.m., at the Alderman Lacey Library in Copnor, Portsmouth. Entrance will be by ticket only which can be reserved by telephone on 023 9282 3991 or by email: alderman.library@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

A presentation about Arthur Conan Doyle and Portsmouth will be given during the Searchroom Open Day on the 18 October at the Portsmouth City Museum and Records Office, Museum Road, Portsmouth. To find out more information, to book, click here.

29 August 2008: Preparations are entering their final stage for the exhibition, The Case of the Portsmouth Doctor, which is being sent to Maizuru, Japan to open on the 18 October 2008. It will run until the 30 November 2008. There will be display panels accompanied by seven cases of original items especially selected from the collection as well as numerous posters. Many will be on public display for the first time. To find out more, click here.

The Treasure of the Collection for September is an early theatre programme for a performance of The Speckled Band which was performed in 1912 at the Richmond Hippodrome, England. Arthur Conan Doyle was personally involved in this production and the lead actor, A.V. Bramble, was born in Portsmouth in 1880.

31 July 2008: The Treasure of the Collection for August is now available. Arthur Conan Doyle took a keen interest in the dramatisations of his work and this photograph shows him in deep discussion with Eille Norwood, the iconic Sherlock Holmes actor of the 1920s.

A link has also been added to an on-line census of Sidney Paget's original drawings and artwork world wide.

24 July 2008: Some dates and times for the talk 'The Conan Doyle Collection Lancelyn Green Bequest: What's all the fuss about?' have been revised. This talk will still be visiting four Portsmouth libraries, but if you plan to attend then please check the revised details now listed on the Talks page.

The Newsletter page now includes PDF versions of all five newsletters produced by the Collection since 2005.

3 July 2008: The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection's first exhibition, The Case of the Portsmouth Doctor, introduced Richard Lancelyn Green's remarkable collection to audiences at the Portsmouth City Museum in 2006 and in Caen, Normandy the following year. A specially adapted version of this popular exhibition is now set to appear in Maizuru, Japan, from 18 October to 30 November 2008. This will feature a new and larger selection of Doyle and Holmes memorabilia, with accompanying information in Japanese. A poster in Japanese is available for download. The Meanwhile elsewhere page provides information about this and other events outside the Portsmouth area.

27 June 2008: The latest entry in our selected Treasures of the Collection is an early example of the numerous real-life letters that have been posted to Sherlock Holmes: an envelope sent to the Great Detective in 1908, and forwarded to his creator Arthur Conan Doyle.

17 June 2008: Congratulations are due to the eleven authors of shortlisted entries to the Arthur Conan Doyle Prize for New Fiction. The overall winning story, as announced by the crime writer Michelle Spring on 20 May, was Susannah Rickards's "The Partners of the Periphery". First place in specific categories went to R. Rama Varma (Contemporary Detective Fiction), Gary Corby (Historical Detective Fiction) and John Millard (Adventure Fiction). All the shortlisted stories are available for download from the ACD Prize page on this site.

Developments over the last year are surveyed in the Collection's newsletter for Spring/Summer 2008, which is now available for download in PDF format. Also now online is a video message from the Collection's patron Stephen Fry. This video provides a personal view of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as introducing Richard Lancelyn Green and his remarkable collection.