The Narrative of John Smith

Written between 1883 and 1884, The Narrative of John Smith, was suppose to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first full-length novel. Up to this point in his life, at the age of 23, his literary aspirations were confined to short stories that he wrote as a student in university as a way to supplement his earnings. Having started his own medical practice in Southsea after graduation, he was hard-pressed to find eager patients as he was new to the city and knew hardly of its residents. In addition to everyday living expenses and those of his practice, his father was failing in health due to age and a long battle with alcoholism and was admitted to a health resort as a possible way to alleviate his illnesses. The family’s finances were strained despite the earnings sent home by his sisters who were governesses in Portugal. Doyle continued his writings as a means to supplement his earnings and as extra money for his mother to help with their finances.

Having finished his manuscript on John Smith, it was sent off to London to his publishers only to be lost in the mail. Doyle decided to rewrite the story from memory afterwards, but left it unfinished and unpublished until now by the British Library with support from the Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I received my copy of The Narrative of John Smith yesterday in the mail and spent the afternoon reading it. I found Doyle’s story while incomplete to be a delightful treat. A 50 year old bachelor named John Smith is given orders by his doctor to stay at home for a week in order to cooperate from an inflammation of gout. His doctor suggests that he read or perhaps take up writing as a means to pass the time while indoors.

The book contains only a small amount of actual dialogue between John Smith and his fellow neighbors and doctor with the majority of the text being the thoughts of Mr. Smith on a variety of subjects ranging from books, science, politics, war, religion, and predictions for the future of the world.

Despite the multitude of his own personal opinions, you still have an insight into the people that make up a small part of Mr. Smith’s world. Those that make up his surrounding life as a lodger are the kind-hearted Mrs. Rundle, a widow with three young children who is his landlady, Herr Johann Lehmann, a professor of music who is constantly playing on his piano or violin at all hours of the day, and an old Army officer who is always ready for any sign of war with a packed trunk of clothes and supplies.

What we know of Mr. Smith is that he is a 50 year old bachelor who has been around the world on various ventures in Australia, the Artic, and elsewhere. “A wandering life is apt to take the finer edge off a man’s soul. – As a boy in college, as a student in Edinburgh, as a literary man in London, as a solider in America, as a traveler in many lands, as a diamond digger at the Cape.”

Some of my favorite parts of the novel are those concerning literature of the day. Mr. Smith felt that the best type of literature was an author’s short stories as they were the ‘real flavor’ of an author. He also felt that the flowery language in most novels was ridiculous and that if he put the authors of those novels in a room and had people act out the scenes, they would be embarrassed by inventing such dialogues.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the novel regarding books and literature:

“There should be a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Books. I hate to see the poor patient things knocked about and disfigured.” – Mr. Smith goes on to write that if such a bill should pass than people could be arrested for disfiguring books, be it pencil marks, dog ears, or fingerprints.

“If the secret history of literature could be written, the blighted hopes, the heart-sickening disappointments, the weary waiting, the wasted labour, it would be the saddest record ever written.”

“You have but to light your reading lamp and beckon to any one of the world’s great storytellers, and the dead man will come forth and prattle to you by the hour. That reading lamp is the real Aladdin’s wonder for summoning the genii with. Indeed, the dead are such good company that one is apt to think too little of the living.”

“It is as impertinent as it is inartistic of a novelist to wander away from his story in order to give us his own opinions on this or that subject. George Eliot, Victor Hugo, Thackeray, and Ouida are all somewhat addicted to it.”

“Morals in a novel are as much out of place as physic in a champagne bottle.”

While the novel is fictional in part, it shows a lot of the opinions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the age of 23 as a medical man, a writer, and as a subject of the British Empire and also shows some interesting foresights into the future.

Mr. Smith speaks of the Education Act of 1870 that granted universal education to any subject of the Empire from the ages 5 to 12 if fees were paid. His opinions of universal education are an interesting insight into the relationship between education and the job market in the 19th century and especially now in the 21st century. Here are Mr. Smith’s thoughts on the Education Act:

“Competition is keen enough now heaven knows in every art and profession.” Once educated, people “are not going to devote their lives to clipping hedges and digging drains. Ambition will lead them to crowd into what is already overcrowded with, I fear, disastrous results. The educated workman is excellent in theory but too often the workman ceases when the education begins.”

That last sentence is particularly telling for our society today. We have grown up being told that a college education is paramount to a greater future and a decent wage and living. Now we are at the point where they aren’t enough white collar jobs to go around and graduates have a mountain of debt to contend with while those jobs in the blue collar sector are being snubbed and thought of as menial work.

Another interesting insight into the future of the world is Mr. Smith’s opinions on which nations will be at the forefront by the 24th century. In order by importance and power: China, United States, England, and Russia.

In addition to all the opinions and insights, there is evidence of foreshadowing for future novels’ character personalities such as those of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. John Smith shows the kindness of Dr. Watson in his interactions with his fellow tenants and friends and the detective skills of Sherlock Holmes with his observations of a neighbor of his that lives across the way. The humor of The Lost World can be found in his amusing thoughts of an imaginary professor of archaeology named Dr. Dryasdust who theorizes on the use of gas pipes in the future while the science fiction of that novel can be found in his thoughts on what can be achieved in the future by technology.

I think scholars and fans of Doyle’s writings will find this book to be a great insight into Doyle as a man and author. Wouldn't it be amazing if someone had the original copy of the manuscript that had been lost in the mail all those years ago? (sigh) A Doyle fan can only dream!

Until next time ^____^