Sherlock Holmes Club of the Upper Valley: The Kipling-Doyle-Holmes Connection

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) and Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) were contemporaries who admired each other’s writing and shared many beliefs and associations. Their stories were widely read throughout the English-speaking world and were translated into many languages. Kipling and Doyle had the same literary agent, A.P. Watt, and had many acquaintances in common in English literary circles. Doyle visited Kipling at his Vermont home, Naulakha, in November 1894, bringing with him golf clubs and introducing his host to the game. (He later sent Kipling a pair of skis.) They corresponded intermittently in the following decades. Kipling’s novel Kim tells the story of a teenage boy in British India who gets caught up in a web of intrigue. In the course of his training as a secret agent he is sent to Simla, the summer capital of India, and placed in the custody of one Lurgan Sahib, a “healer of sick pearls”. Lurgan’s mastery of disguise and his mental discipline are eerily similar to Sherlock Holmes’s unusual gifts, leading to the hypothesis that Lurgan and Holmes were in reality the same person. The talk will be presented by Fred Lerner, D.L.S. Email Jared Jenisch at jared.jenisch@thehowe.org for the Zoom invitation. No registration required in person.