This is a scholarly edition of Arthur Conan Doyle’s controversial collection of medical tales, first published in 1894 in the first flush of his fame. Conan Doyle had trained in medicine at Edinburgh Universityin the 1870s, and then spent eight years as a General Practitioner in Southsea, before deciding to become a professional author in 1890. The stories he collected in
Round the Red Lamp
are gathered from his medical training and incidents in his life as a provincial GP. Some of the stories are daring – dealing explicitly with child birth, sexually transmitted diseases and malpractice. Some are sentimental or comic vignettes. Some are Gothic horrors. On publication the shades of dark and light bewildered some of his readers and the medical realism outraged others.
is a vital collection in understanding Conan Doyle’s shift of profession from medic to author.