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Great Lives

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Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Matthew Parris

Gyles Brandreth

Andrew Lycett

Jolyon Jenkins

Great Lives: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Gyles Brandreth praises the life of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Gyles Brandreth chooses Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.  With Matthew Parris and Andrew Lycett.  From 2013.

Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth nominates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as his "Great Life". Matthew Parris chairs, assisted by biographer Andrew Lycett.

Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. This always irritated him, and he tried to kill off the great detective, only to bring him back by popular demand. But there was more to Conan Doyle than Holmes. A footballer, cricketer, skier,, a campaigner against the Belgian atrocities in the Congo, and most startlingly, a convinced spiritualist who believed in fairies.

The paradox of Conan Doyle's life was that, having invented the most rational, cerebral fictional character of all time, he himself embraced superstition and behaved in ways that caused even his allies to despair of his credulity.

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