The Floating Press, $3.99, ISBN 978-1-77541-974-7
Mixed Genre, 2011 (Reissue)
Most people know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the ultimate whodunnit machine, a man so logical he could probably deduce your childhood traumas from the way you butter your toast.
Some may also recall that Sir Doyle dabbled in horror and the occult—an irony, considering his friendship with Harry Houdini, who spent much of his free time debunking the very things Sir Doyle fervently believed in. Yet fewer people realize that he was actually a trained physician, a man of science who, fortunately for all of us, had so few patients that he had plenty of time to write.
For all his ties to science and reason, Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life offers a revelation: Sir Artur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a romantic at heart. A gentle humorist. A master of irony with impeccable timing. His understanding of human nature extends far beyond the clinical and into the profoundly emotional.
This collection, ostensibly about the medical profession (sometimes tenuously—some stories are “medical” because, well, there’s a doctor in them), reveals a writer deeply attuned to both the visceral and cerebral aspects of the human experience.
Sure, Lot No. 249, the most famous tale here, delivers a spine-chilling mummy thriller that’s been adapted—and butchered—by subpar films, but the lesser-known stories are where Sir Doyle’s range truly shines.
Take Sweethearts, for instance. If you expected cold, clinical detachment, brace yourself: this one is painfully sweet, a testament to how love makes us see only the best in those we cherish, no matter what society thinks. Then there’s A Physiologist’s Wife, a tale of a man so devoted to rationality that he denies his own emotions, proving that science is great for curing diseases but useless when it comes to unrequited love.
Meanwhile, His First Operation delivers comedy with a scalpel’s precision, slyly reminding us how medical professionals sometimes dehumanize their patients—though never in quite as disastrous a fashion as in My Friend the Murderer, which takes medical ethics on a high-speed, action-packed detour.
Sir Doyle even ventures into science fiction with The Los Amigos Fiasco, which suggests that electrocution might just be the secret to eternal life. (For legal reasons, we must insist: do not try this at home.)
Despite spanning multiple genres, the stories in Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life are united by Doyle’s deep admiration for the medical profession—his willingness to celebrate it while gently poking fun at its quirks. His storytelling is as elegant as it is amusing, wielding both drama and comedy with surgical precision. He proves, time and again, that human foolishness is a timeless source of both tragedy and laughter.
So, if you think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was just about Holmes and cold deductions, think again. Read Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life and discover a writer who understood not just logic, but love, irony, and the very quirks that make us human. Who knows? You might just learn something about yourself along the way.
