Through the Magic Door

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Through the Magic Door (1907) is an essay by Arthur Conan Doyle: his subject is the charisma and charm of books. Doyle invites readers to enjoy the greatest minds of all times through what they have left behind and argues that, when we read, the selfishness and hopelessness of the world can be left behind.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Books About Books, Mystery, Memoir, Essays, History

98 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.

Doyle was a prolific writer. In addition to the Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger, and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the brigantine Mary Celeste, found drifting at sea with no crew member aboard.

Reviews

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something about listening to a writer gush (this was an audiobook) about the books he owns that absolutely gives me my yayas. I suspect that many Goodreads readers might enjoy this book simply because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was clearly one of us (an avid reader) as he communicates the circumstances under which he acquired specific books, what the books have meant to him, and the authors which have served to inform / entertain him. Which of us cannot do that? I have anecdotes about every one of my books. Some of them are the same (an eBay lot of 100 thrillers comes to mind), but I can show you which they are because they have been catalogued and meticulously placed on my bookshelves in Puerto Rico, my sister's garage in Connecticut, and my boys' home with their mother (most of those books, probably all, that I will never see because the boys won't relinquish and I'm OK with that.) The magic door in the title is every book that once opened, transports the reader to a magical place sometimes vastly distant from our reality, sometimes as near as a gentle zephyr. Have you ever been transported? I know you have, and just wait until he writes about an author that you are fond of, and explains why he loves Sir Walter Scott, or Jonathan Swift, or the American short story writer Edgar Allan Poe. I was very excited to open that magic door for myself when I was five, and every single time I open a book I expect to tap into that magic. Most of the time, I do find magic. This one is pretty powerful stuff for me, but it's for people that want to see how the sausage is made. It's not for everybody.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

No importa lo humilde que sea tu estantería, ni lo modesta que sea la habitación que adorna. Cierra la puerta, acalla todas las cuestiones del mundo exterior, sumérgete de nuevo en la tranquilizadora compañía de los muertos insignes, y entonces atravesarás el portal mágico de aquellos dominios donde la preocupación y aflicción no podrán seguirte nunca más. Has dejado a tus espaldas todo lo que es vulgar y sórdido. Allí esperan alineados tus compañeros silenciosos y nobles.

Tras una interesante introducción a modo de entrevista de Bram Stoker a Arthur Conan Doyle, este nos invita a traspasar la Puerta Mágica de su biblioteca. Conan Doyle repasa algunas de sus estanterías y algunos de sus libros y autores favoritos. Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Boswell, Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, son sólo algunos de los escritores admirados por el creador de Sherlock Holmes. Doyle nos habla de las guerras napoleónicas, boxeo, libros de viajes, ciencia, poesía, ensayo, pero sobre todo de historia, su gran pasión. Personalmente, el capítulo que más me ha gustado ha sido el sexto, en el que el autor habla sobre los mejores relatos, y lo difícil que es crear un buen cuento. Poe, Stevenson, Maupassant, Kipling, Bulwer-Lytton, Bierce son algunos de los escritores mencionados.

‘Cruzando la puerta mágica’ (Through the Magic Door, 1907), de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle es un estupendo libro en el que se nota el amor de su autor por la literatura. Hay partes que, según el lector, gustan más que otras, pero Conan Doyle sin duda sabe transmitir pasión por lo que cuenta, y además lo narra muy bien.

[Libros Prohibidos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como apuntan los propios editores en la contraportada del libro, "Cruzando la puerta mágica" es una pequeña joya olvidada -en un ameno estilo conversacional- que nos adentra en el mundo imaginativo del creador de Sherlock Holmes. Una maravilla, que por fin, más de un siglo después, podemos disfrutar en español gracias a GasMask. Reseña completa: http://www.libros-prohibidos.com/arth...

[Sara Q · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friendly, conversational tour of Conan Doyle's favorite books, written as though he were literally and physically showing you his favorite bookcase. He described his favorite books so well and so beautifully that it had the drawback of adding many titles to my to-read list. Fortunately, I could find most of them as free e-books on services like Gutenberg, FeedBooks and Google Books. The tone and style is extremely engaging, much more so than his Sherlock Holmes stories even. One of my favorites among the "writers recommending other writers" genre.

[Lora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I scanned half the book and read half. If you've read the books Doyle addresses in here, then you can wade through his adoration and pick up snippets of fine writing in its own right. I had read several books he talked about, so i really enjoyed reading his thoughts and feelings on those. I enjoyed bits throughout, as well, beyond the familar ground.
This serves as a book of book reviews, sort of. But Doyle does go beyond the facts and forms. He really enjoys reading and he enjoys the books he has long-lived relationships with. So I got to enjoy his enthusiasm for books, because I enjoy books about books. There were parts that dragged and parts I just ate up. I bet the parts would differ depending on the individual.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was swept up immediately. As I continued, I realized how far I have to go to be considered well read. Intrigued, inspired, and feeling as if I found my kindred spirit in a man long dead I made a resolution to escape through the magic door at every chance.

[Rose-Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Through the Magic Door” was serialized in 1906-07 when he was 48. His famous Sherlock Holmes stories appeared in The Strand Magazine 1891-93 (with the supposed death of the great detective at Reichenbach Falls) and 1901-27. The book was very revealing – not only to see what books and authors Doyle read and enjoyed, but to be privy to his thoughts on the literature he had collected up to that point. The books are neatly lined up in categories on the shelves of his oak bookcase.

Many of the authors and books he cites are not easily findable – either in Wikipedia or by an internet search – and some are recognizable but spelled differently than we know them, such as Tolstoi’s “Peace and War”. But anyway, what he has to say about them is priceless.

I’ll mention some that Doyle seemed to favor the most, in each of the 12 chapters, along with a few things I found of particular interest.
1-Macaulay’s Essays.
2-Sir Walter Scott. NOTE: Doyle considers “Ivanhoe” Scott’s greatest novel, and the second greatest historical novel in our language. NOTE: Rather than “Anglo-Saxon”, he uses the term “Anglo-Celtic”. It has been argued (1869) that this is a more accurate term to denote Scots/Irish/Welsh/British.
3-Samuel Johnson and Boswell’s “Life of Johnson”
4-Samuel Pepys, and Edward Gibbon’s Histories. NOTE: Doyle comments that if he was to be stranded on a desert island for a year with only one book he would choose Gibbon’s “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”.
5-George Borrow’s travelogues – “The Bible in Spain” (1843) and “Lavengro” (1851). He mentioned a character “The Flaming Tinman”, which I discovered is a character in “Lavengro” – doesn’t that make you want to pick it up? Then he segues into fighting – specifically bare-knuckle boxers in England. He mentions a 3-volume “Pugilistica” and discusses several anecdotes about various boxers. Then his muses bring him to note the early demise of many of the boxers, and then he notes the unexpected second professions some of them went into. NOTE: He mentions a pugilistic novel “Rodney Stone” – without acknowledging that it was Doyle himself who wrote it.
6-Charles Reade, Edgar Allan Poe, and Guy de Maupassant. Doyle considers Bulwer Lytton’s "Haunted and the Haunters" to be the best ghost story.
7-What Doyle considers the Essential Novels of the 18th Century are those by Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett.
8-He has a VAST collection of Napoleonic Memoirs: Wellington (the British commander who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815) and Marbot’s memoirs (he was one of Napoleon’s generals, and was wounded at the Battle of Waterloo).
9-More specifically about Napoleon, and then about Louis XIV, the Sun King – these are primarily written by people in their courts. Also Francis Parkman’s histories.
10-William Ernest Henley – he was a poet of the late Victorian era – his famous poem which was later called “Invictis” was penned when his leg was amputated, from complications from TB. Also given big mention are Doyle’s three favorite French historians: Froissart, Monstrelet, and Philippe de Commines (or Comines). He read English translations of Froissart: Lord Berners (medieval) and Johnes (modern).
11-Doyle’s collection of explorations and voyages. Sir Robert Scott’s “Account of the Voyage of the Discovery in the Antarctic”, Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s “Two Years Before the Mast”, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Wrecker” and Ebb Tide” (which were both co-written with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne), Melville’s “Typee” and “Omoo”, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London and Joseph Conrad. He is impressed with Charles Darwin’s “Voyage of the Beagle” and “Origin of Species”, and Alfred Russel Wallace’s “The Malay Archipelago”. NOTE: Wallace was by trade a Land Surveyor, yet he co-published a paper with Darwin which prompted Darwin to publish “On the Origin of Species”.
12-Doyle’s books of Science. Samuel Laing (a Railway administrator and science writer during the Victorian era) – “Human Origins”. Frederic William Henry Myers (a founder of the Society for Psychical Research) – “Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death”. Oliver Wendell Holmes – “Table-Talk Books”. Robert Louis Stevenson – His novels “Kidnapped”, “Treasure Island”, and Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde”, and a short story collection “New Arabian Nights” which contains “The Pavilion on the Links”. NOTE: Arthur Conan Doyle had a friendship and correspondence with Stevenson; a planned visit with him in Somalia was abandoned because of Stevenson’s death. NOTE: Evident in some of these titles is Doyle’s interest in Psychic Research or Spiritualism. His wife died in 1906, then his son, two brothers-in-law, and two nephews. Like Houdini, he attended séances.

Arthur Conan Doyle could give advice to readers:
1-Keep your favorites nearby, so you can re-read them.
2-Concerning non-English books: Life is too short to read originals, so long as there are good translations.
3-Doyle says “Reading is made too easy nowadays, with cheap paper editions and free libraries. A man does not appreciate at its full worth the thing that comes to him without effort.” – What would he have said about eReaders!
4-For a Beginner Reader: ”It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. . .”
5-In choosing an edition of a book: “You don't want to be handicapped in any way. You want fair type, clear paper, and a light volume.”

There is so much more in “Through the Magic Door” – you should read it with a pencil and paper, because it will make you want to read some of the books and authors in Arthur Conan Doyle’s library.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this are sheer poetry. Others, well, I don't understand why in all the discussion of Scott The Heart of Midlothian wasn't mentioned.

[Iza Brekilien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conan Doyle is taking us on a book shelf tour. "The magic door" is the one we go through when we open a book and dive into the story. The beginning of this short non-fiction and the ending are the best, they speak to the heart of each and every book lover, how books take us on a journey through time and space.
The books themselves ? Well, depending on your tastes, some will be more interesting than others. Literature, poetry, as far as I'm concerned, are my things. War history ? Not so much.
Let's not forget to mention that Doyle was a man of his era, and that he likes a "manly man" as opposed to "effeminate" texts. It is to be expected yet still grates the nerves of the modern female reader. I was surprised to read (a little) about Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen, the authors he usually mentions being men.
So all in all, I'm glad I read this little opus, but I can't say it rocked my world.

"Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland."
It's not so different nowadays, eh ?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

(1907) Lovely book. Not sure what to call it. Essay? Memoir? Fireside causerie? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes as if you’re in his study and he’s going over his bookshelves with you, one bibliophile to another. It’s pure bliss.

Perhaps the best are his thumbnail portraits. They are often very moving, and worth rereading. Scott, quietly suffering massive debt. Johnson, the outcast savant who’d endured terrible privations. Fielding, who’d turned London from the most lawless city into the most lawful, and the dignity with which he faced death, as revealed in his Lisbon diary.

The eeriest passage is when thoughts of Melville cause Doyle to wonder about all the overlooked masterpieces out there—two decades before the rediscovery of Moby Dick:

“I have said that Omoo and Typee, the books in which the sailor Melville describes his life among the Otaheitans, have sunk too rapidly into obscurity. What a charming and interesting task there is for some critic of catholic tastes and sympathetic judgment to undertake rescue work among the lost books which would repay salvage!”

He had that right under his nose!

Ok, see below for his recommendations. I tried to list them as best I could. Though his tastes and mine don’t perfectly overlap, it’s still wreaked havoc on my reading list. Some of his favorites are:

____
Macaulay’s essays and lays.

Ivanhoe (second best historical novel in English).

Quentin Durward (Scott’s next best perhaps). Also mentions “Wandering Willie's Tale.” Short story written in Scottish.

Devotes several pages to an author named George Borrow.

Liked Boswell better than Johnson.

For the greatest short story writers he names Poe, Stevenson, Bret Harte, Kipling (particularly “The Drums of the Fore and Aft," "The Man who Would be King," "The Man who Was," and "The Brushwood Boy”). Prefers, deprecatingly, Hawthorne’s son Julian to the father. Mentions Grant Allen’s “John Creedy.” Wells. Quiller-Couch’s sketch "Old Oeson" from Noughts and Crosses. Maupassant second only to Poe (see the great anecdote about “The Inn”). Metempsychosis by Macnish (see my review). “Talking of weird American stories,” Doyle gives a nod to Ambrose Bierce’s collection In the Midst of Life.

Of Poe he quotes from the fables “Silence” and “Shadow.” Favorites are Gold Bug and, of course, Rue Morgue. Can’t trace his style. Says it’s as if Hazlitt and De Quincy wrote fiction. Poe’s is “not altogether a healthy influence, perhaps. It turns the thoughts too forcibly to the morbid and the strange.” Like me, Doyle seems dumbstruck by how many genres Poe invented, or as he puts it, “His brain was like a seed-pod full of seeds which flew carelessly around, and from which have sprung nearly all our modern types of story.”

Says “…all pseudo-scientific Verne-and-Wells stories have their prototypes in the Voyage to the Moon, and the Case of Monsieur Valdemar.” The first is an 1827 novel by George Tucker.

Of Americans, and the hazards of being a writer: “They will end by being scheduled with the white-lead workers and other dangerous trades. Look at the really shocking case of the young Americans, for example. What a band of promising young writers have in a few years been swept away! There was the author of that admirable book, "David Harum"; there was Frank Norris, a man who had in him, I think, the seeds of greatness more than almost any living writer. His "Pit" seemed to me one of the finest American novels. He also died a premature death. Then there was Stephen Crane—a man who had also done most brilliant work, and there was Harold Frederic, another master-craftsman.”

“Esmond” (presumably Thackeray’s Henry Esmond) he describes as more perfect than Ivanhoe but boring in parts.

The Cloister and the Hearth: greatest novel ever, besides Tolstoy’s “Peace and War.”

Acknowledges Tristram Shandy but doesn’t care too much for it. Aside from that, and Vicar of Wakefield and Evelina, from the 18th c., “…there are only three authors who count, and they in turn wrote only three books each, of first-rate importance, so that by the mastery of nine books one might claim to have a fairly broad view of this most important and distinctive branch of English literature. The three men are, of course, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett. The books are: Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, Pamela, and Sir Charles Grandison; Fielding's Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, and Amelia; Smollett's Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, and Roderick Random.”

I was surprised there was hardly any mention of Defoe or Swift. But then he dates the novel to Richardson: “It is Richardson and not Fielding who is the father of the English novel, the man who first saw that without romantic gallantry, and without bizarre imaginings, enthralling stories may be made from everyday life, told in everyday language. This was his great new departure.”

“The Deserted Village." Poem by Goldsmith.

Meredith he basically calls a writer’s writer. Singles out Richard Feverel (third best Victorian novel after Reade’s and Vanity Fair).

For history: Gibbons, Marbot, Mercer, Napier, Wellington’s Men, Maxwell’s History of Wellington, and Siborne's Letters. Concerning Froissart, Monstrelet, and de Comines: “When you have read the three you have the best contemporary account first hand of considerably more than a century.” Hénault. Gives a long list of reading recommendations for the period of Louis XIV. Sad prediction: “So Froude was attacked. So also Macaulay in his day. But both will be read when the pedants are forgotten.” M'Carthy's History of Our Own Times. Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century.

Parkman the greatest historian.

Loved Irving, especially Conquest of Granada. “No man wrote fresher English with a purer style.”

Henley’s Song of the Sword and Book of Verses. Quotes “Invictus,” but he really urges us to read Hospital Verses. “What! you have not read the ‘Hospital Verses!’” Henley, by the way, sounds like a larger-than-life figure, a Pan, a force of nature.

Meinhold’s Sidonia the Sorceress, and The Amber Witch, “in an excellent translation by Lady Wilde… I don't know where one may turn for a stranger view of the Middle Ages.”

Merejkowski’s The Forerunner, and The Death of the Gods. Historical fiction: Renaissance Italy and Ancient Rome, respectively. Masterpieces, though Doyle only read those two.

Trollope’s autobiography the best English autobiography—

Next to Pepys’ diary, that is. (None of this, however, is saying very much, according to Doyle, who belittled the English’s contribution to the form). But this diary sounds like a very enigmatic literary production. Doyle attributes its composition to a morbid tidiness of mind.

Knight’s Cruise of the Falcon. Travel writing. The old adventurous spirit “still lives, disguise it as you will with top hats, frock coats, and all prosaic settings. Perhaps even they also will seem romantic when centuries have blurred them.”

More sea adventures: Voyage of the Discovery in the Antarctic, by Captain Scott. Greely's Arctic Service. Bullen's Cruise of the Cachelot, and his Sea Idylls. Tom Cringle's Log. Two Years before the Mast. Stevenson's Wrecker, and Ebb Tide. “Clark Russell deserves a whole shelf for himself, but anyhow you could not miss out The Wreck of the Grosvenor.” Marryat’s Midshipman Easy, and Peter Simple. Typee. Omoo. Captains Courageous. London’s Sea Wolf. Nigger of the Narcissus.

Include all these in your library and “then you will have enough to turn your study into a cabin and bring the wash and surge to your ears, if written words can do it.”

Doyle’s candidates for undiscovered classics: Snaith's Broke of Covenden. Eight Days, by Forrest. Powell's Animal Episodes.

Science: Darwin’s Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle. Wallace’s Malay Archipelago. Samuel Laing. Myers' Human Personality (psychic research which poor Doyle believed would by now have formed a whole new branch of science).

Holmes' The Autocrat, The Poet, and The Professor at the Breakfast Table. “Never have I so known and loved a man whom I had never seen.” Even better than Lamb.

More Stevenson favorites: New Arabian Nights, Treasure Island, Kidnapped. Doyle read his stories when they were first published, uncredited, but knew they came from the same author by their prose alone. Ticonderoga “the best narrative ballad of the last century,” (so long as Coleridge’s Rime came from the 18th). And his immortal epitaph.

____
Notes:

*Happy to see Doyle loved one of my favorite tunes, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

*Lists the ingredients that would make the Crusades the ideal topic for a novel.

*Cool story of the Vandals who vanished into North Africa.

*Lost settlement in Greenland story reminded me of Country of the Blind. Perhaps inspiration?

*Was friends with Robert Barr!

*Choir music dead in England. Blames reformation. “And yet it is consoling to know that the germ of the old powers is always there ready to sprout forth if they be nourished and cultivated.”

*There’s an actually good audiobook of this work on YouTube.

____
More quotes:

“Let us suppose that we were suddenly to learn that Shakespeare had returned to earth… How eagerly we would seek him out! And yet we have him—the very best of him—at our elbows from week to week, and hardly trouble ourselves…”

“…life is too short to read originals, so long as there are good translations.”

On baggy English novels: “Digression and want of method and order are traditional national sins… Our sense of form is lamentably lacking.”

On the American Civil War: “…the most bloody war which the Anglo-Celtic race has ever waged.”

“A curious glimpse into the psychology of the writer of fiction is shown by the fact that [Scott] wrote two of his books—good ones, too—at a time when his health was such that he could not afterwards remember one word of them, and listened to them when they were read to him as if he were hearing the work of another man. Apparently the simplest processes of the brain, such as ordinary memory, were in complete abeyance, and yet the very highest and most complex faculty—imagination in its supreme form—was absolutely unimpaired. It is an extraordinary fact, and one to be pondered over. It gives some support to the feeling which every writer of imaginative work must have, that his supreme work comes to him in some strange way from without…”

Doyle uses his medical expertise to diagnose Shakespeare: “He died, I should judge, of some nervous disease; that is shown by the progressive degeneration of his signature. Probably it was locomotor ataxy, which is the special scourge of the imaginative man.”

Interesting to see how Doyle viewed the propriety—not to say the prudery and sanctimony—of his age: “And then there is the vexed question of morals. Surely in talking of this also there is a good deal of inverted cant among a certain class of critics. The inference appears to be that there is some subtle connection between immorality and art, as if the handling of the lewd, or the depicting of it, were in some sort the hallmark of the true artist. It is not difficult to handle or depict. On the contrary, it is so easy, and so essentially dramatic in many of its forms, that the temptation to employ it is ever present. It is the easiest and cheapest of all methods of creating a spurious effect. The difficulty does not lie in doing it. The difficulty lies in avoiding it. But one tries to avoid it because on the face of it there is no reason why a writer should cease to be a gentleman, or that he should write for a woman's eyes that which he would be justly knocked down for having said in a woman's ears. But ‘you must draw the world as it is.’ Why must you? Surely it is just in selection and restraint that the artist is shown. It is true that in a coarser age great writers heeded no restrictions, but life itself had fewer restrictions then. We are of our own age, and must live up to it.”

“The fact is that Borrow had one dangerous virus in him—a poison which distorts the whole vision—for he was a bigoted sectarian in religion, seeing no virtue outside his own interpretation of the great riddle. Downright heathendom, the blood-stained Berserk or the chaunting Druid, appealed to his mind through his imagination, but the man of his own creed and time who differed from him in minutiae of ritual, or in the interpretation of mystic passages, was at once evil to the bone…” [Replace religion with politics and this sounds like many people I know].

“…to be charitable to the uncharitable is surely the crown of virtue.”

“And what a latent power there must be in this French nation which could go on pouring out the blood of its sons for twenty-three years with hardly a pause!”

“There are some authors from whom I shrink because they are so voluminous that I feel that, do what I may, I can never hope to be well read in their works. Therefore, and very weakly, I avoid them altogether. There is Balzac, for example, with his hundred odd volumes. I am told that some of them are masterpieces and the rest pot-boilers, but that no one is agreed which is which. Such an author makes an undue claim upon the little span of mortal years. Because he asks too much one is inclined to give him nothing at all.”

“Neither our numbers, nor our wealth, nor the waters which guard us can hold us safe if once the old iron passes from our spirit. Barbarous, perhaps—but there are possibilities for barbarism, and none in this wide world for effeminacy.”

On trying to be a specialist: “These dreary details are the prickly bushes in that enchanted garden, and you are foolish indeed if you begin your walks by butting your head into one. Keep very clear of them until you have explored the open beds and wandered down every easy path. For this reason avoid the text-books, which repel, and cultivate that popular science which attracts.”

“Show me a picture without an artist, show me a bust without a sculptor, show me music without a musician, and then you may begin to talk to me of a universe without a Universe-maker…”

[Jeslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful read, lots of books added to my list. Conan Doyle's favorites cover a wide range of interests and authors, many of whom are nearly forgotten today.

[Ebookwormy1]

The first chapter of this book is whimsical and enticing, capturing the essence of escape in a well written book. You can read the text of that chapter here...
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Throug...

You can read this entire book online through Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5317

[Nasar · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Each [book] is a mummified soul embalmed in cere-cloth and natron of leather and printer's ink. Each cover of a true book enfolds the concentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have faded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable dust, yet here are their very spirits at your command.'

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating work by the author of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle invites the reader into his library where he reflects on many of the books most important to him. He tells of the need to buy books while a poor medical student, so poor that the choice was sometimes between lunch or a book. The story was.published in 1907 so Doyle's favorites are mostly from the previous hundred years. He begins with praise of McCauley's essays, then praises the historical novels of Walter Scott. In Doyle's opinion Scott with Ivanhoe wrote the "second greatest" historical novel. The greatest? The Cloister and the Hearth, a novel I had never heard of but which is now. through the magic of Project Gutenberg, added to my library. Such is the peculiar charm of the book. Doyle reflects on Samuel Johnson's often abrasive personality, of the symbiotic relationship between Fielding, Richardson and Smollet, or the wonderfully descriptive powers of Robert Louis Stevenson. A wonderful discovery rife with the love of reading, an activity that is improved through difficulty. As Doyle notes:

Reading is made too easy nowadays, with cheap paper editions and free libraries. A man does not appreciate at its full worth the thing that comes to him without effort. Who now ever gets the thrill which Carlyle felt when he hurried home with the six volumes of Gibbon's "History" under his arm, his mind just starving for want of food, to devour them at the rate of one a day? A book should be your very own before you can really get the taste of it, and unless you have worked for it, you will never have the true inward pride of possession.

Some sage advice is offered to the lifelong reader as well:

“ . . . one of the greatest mental dangers which comes upon a man as he grows older is that he should become so attached to old favourites that he has no room for the new-comer, and persuades himself that the days of great things are at an end because his own poor brain is getting ossified.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes and many other tales, takes the reader on a tour of his favorite books. He makes a slightly old-fashioned but very engaging guide as he shares his thoughts on his favorite authors and their books, with choices ranging from literature to prize-fighting to Napoleonic memoirs to science and Artic exploration. Imaginative and down-to-earth, Mr. Doyle is a persuasive advocate with many favorite books to recommend. He’s convinced me to finally try Charles Reade, who he calls the best nineteenth century novelist, and to add George Meredith’s Richard Feverel to my TBR list. This short, charming book will especially appeal to those who like books about books and reading and are interested in classics.

“You see the line of old, brown volumes at the bottom? Every one of those represents a lunch. They were bought in my student days, when times were not too affluent. Threepence was my modest allowance for my midday sandwich and glass of beer; but as luck would have it, my way to the classes led past the most fascinating bookshop in the world.”

“In that great style of his I loved even the faults—indeed, now that I come to think of it, it was the faults I loved best…” [writing of Macaulay]

“What are the great short stories of the English language?... What are the points by which you judge them? You want strength, novelty, compactness, intensity of interest, a single vivid impression left upon the mind. Poe is the master of all…His brain was like a seed-pod full of seeds which flew carelessly around, and from which have sprung nearly all our modern types of story.”

“A really good stylist is like Beau Brummell’s description of a well-dressed man—so dressed that no one would ever observe him. The moment you begin to remark a man’s style the odds are that there is something the matter with it.”

[Bryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland. Surely there would be something eerie about a line of books were it not that familiarity has deadened our sense of it. Each is a mummified soul embalmed in cere-cloth and natron of leather and printer's ink.Each cover of a true book enfolds the concentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have faded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable dust, yet here are their very spirits at your command."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Ben Kruskal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just rereading this charming book in which the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories walks the reader through his favorite books and authors. I first read this book over 25 years ago, and on the basis of its recommendations have read a number of interesting books I almost surely would not have come across otherwise. Even if you don't end up reading the books, his quotes and descriptions are wonderful. After reading this book, I feel like I know Samuel Johnson, even though I have not yet gotten around to Boswell's Life of Johnson.

It's available as a free e-book through Project Gutenberg.

[Zleapy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is dense! But if you love books do not miss this tour of Doyle's bookshelf.
Charming and interesting and tons of books to read. I laughed, I cried, I hugged my ereader :-) lovely!

[Marine Captain Kimberly Landen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must be a dull one as they say
To be amused by this array
To read of old and dusty collections of Doyles' Books
Through The Magic Door is Doyles' Library
So now one must go now and read a book

[Cym · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea of Arthur Conan Doyle, an author, talking about his bookshelf and about other authors and their books.

Most of the time, I wish I knew what he was talking about, the books that he read. Of war, that made it hard for me to digest some parts.

But what interested me were the descriptions of the people in the book and excerpts of what he deems to be good illustrations in various books.

[HJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A die hard ACD fan....It was fun to know the kind of books that he read and the genres that he liked. No wonder he created one of the best and most popular character in all of fiction. I now have a very long list of 'To Read'

[Dayle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful look into the beloved books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that inspired me to add to my "books to be read" list, although I will not be able to read the French or German as he did. How lacking is the education of today that most of these books are not familiar to students.

[Julia Lavallee]

Sort of difficult to give this a star rating bc of the nature of the material. I love learning about my favorite artists’ favorite things, and this was just exactly that: a great author describing his thoughts on other great authors and literary works

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this over 2 days and felt like I had been having a very pleasant conversation with Arthur Conan Doyle. I loved it! I don't even have an interest in many of the books that he had on his shelf, but that did not detract from the enjoyment of listening to how much he enjoyed them.

[Deity World · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read on his favourite authors and books

[Kathy Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this little book for lovers of books like himself. He takes you inside his library and introduces you to his best loved volumes. His writing is long winded in parts and brilliant in others. For a brilliant example:

“I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, or how lonely the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland”

And…

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. You may not appreciate them at first. You may pine for your novel of crude and unadulterated adventure. You may, and will, give it the preference when you can. But the dull days come, and the rainy days come, and always you are driven to fill up the chinks of your reading with the worthy books which wait so patiently for your notice. And then suddenly, on a day which marks an epoch in your life, you understand the difference. You see, like a flash, how the one stands for nothing, and the other for literature.

I will keep this little book in my library and cherish it.

[Juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit, although Through the Magic Door is a mere 92 pages in this version, I gave up.

It started with great promise and sank page by page into plodding sameness. It's a 92 page book review. It conveys the joy and the benefit of reading, yes, but it delves into the lives of the authors whose books adorn his shelves and I found it became a chore to read.

It's a great concept. The Magic Door is a book, any book. Books can transport you anywhere and teach you anything. That's why we're on goodreads, is it not. I wanted more of the mystic approach from the beginning and less of the mutiple mini biographies.

Not my cup of tea and I'm gutted about that. I really wanted to enjoy the whole thing and not just the first few pages. Oh well.

[Steph Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I had a bit of a shock, when I discovered that this was an essay on reading and particular books that Arthur Conan Doyle enjoyed but I'm glad I read it. I am sure I would be able to go back through it and find some fascinating reads. It was a bit hard going at times, but when you consider the amount of books he mentioned I had never heard of then it is no surprise. It wouldn't be on the top of my recommended reads for people unless this format was what they were looking for.

[Joseph Lal · Rating 3 out of 5]

TTMD is a non-fiction commentary by an author of so many beloved novels, reveling in the beauty of the writers that inspired him. While this book can be viewed simply as a compilation of positive book reviews of many books that might bore me--it's still Doyle writing the reviews, and the deft energy of his writing style shines through to inspire.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining listening 🎧
Due to eye issues and damage from shingles Alexa reads to me.
A will written novella about the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle library. It is different but information of the times. Give it a try Enjoy the adventure of reading 2021 ✨🎉