conan-doyles-carnations:

materialofonebeing:

conan-doyles-carnations:

Honestly, the impact of the Wilde trials on British society, art, and literature can hardly be overstated; so Conan Doyle was actually incredibly brave to carry on making Holmes act the camp aesthete post-1895, and the fact that he stuck to it shows he had a reason for doing so…  

In the article “A Wilde desire took me”: The homoerotic history of Dracula, T. Schaffer explored the potential impact of the trials on Stoker’s 1895 Dracula with the thesis Stoker was working through stuff about his own sexuality.  Could we speculate along the same lines, maybe less heavy-handedly, about Conan Doyle?  In 1895, his work included two books with the premise of a man admiring a man; he revised The Stark Munro Letters for publication (ACD on the autobiographical Munro in that year:  “a man, complete, unemasculated”) and wrote Rodney Stone (ACD: “strikes a healthy manly patriotic note”).  Did Conan Doyle see these and later masculine works as a contrast to Wilde’s degenerate ones, was ACD making a statement that men admiring men was wholesome after all, or was he going about his business without any self-conscious effect from the news about his acquaintance?  

Sorry for the long response, and how long it took to reply – I’ve been away with no access to my books.  See below the cut 🙂

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