British Author Challenge January 2024: Joan Aiken & Arthur Conan Doyle

Joan Aiken was born on 4 September 1924 in Rye, Sussex to Jessie MacDonald and Conrad Aiken, an American writer. She started writing at an early age, publishing her first short story at seventeen. She worked for the United Nations Information Centre from 1943 to 1949 and later for the magazine Argosy, where she served in various editorial roles and had some of her short stories published.

Following the publication of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase in 1962, Aiken was able to write full-time; she authored scores of books for children and adults, in addition to numerous short stories and articles. She died on 4 January 2004.

Selected works
Wolves Chronicles
Arabel and Mortimer series
Jane Austen by Joan Aiken series
A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories
Felix Brooke series
The Cockatrice Boys
Castle Barebane
The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories
Night Fall
The Silence of Herondale

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on 22 May 1859. He was educated in England and spent a year in Austria before going on to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1876; he started writing at medical school, producing academic works and his first short stories.

Doyle graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery in 1881, completed his MD in 1885, and then began to study ophthalmology. He was unable to establish a successful medical practice, but he was on the road to becoming one of Britain's most famous writers when A Study in Scarlet was published in 1879.

A prolific writer, Doyle would write over 200 stories and articles, as well as several novels, plays, poetry collections, and non-fiction books. He died on 7 July 1930.

Selected works
Sherlock Holmes series
Professor Challenger series
The Doings of Raffles Haw
Brigadier Gerard series
The White Company
Sir Nigel
The Narrative of John Smith
The Great Boer War
The Crime of the Congo
The Coming of the Fairies

Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69

Besides Sherlock Holmes, I have The Lost World (1912) and The White Company (1891) on my shelves. The latter book is an edition illustrated by N. C. Wyeth, and that's the one I'm thinking about now. But plans could change.

I have read so much of Doyle already but I will try one of the few I haven't got to which is The Lost World.

I have several books by Joan Aiken and will read at least two.

I have some audio editions of Sherlock to listen to, and several things by Aiken to choose from. I'm leaning towards the next book in the Wolves series, or maybe one of her historical romances.

I am currently listening to all the Sherlock books read by Stephen Fry. It's actually a relisten since I also listened to a version of the books read by Simon Vance. You can't have too much Sherlock. I've also read The Lost World.

I am going to try and read The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken in January as I am not nearly as familiar with her work as I am Arthur Conan Doyle's.

>2 amanda4242: Gutenberg offers Doyle's short novel, The Hound of The Baskervilles,

written after he reluctantly rescued Holmes from Reichenbach Falls.

Looks I’m gong to read The White Company by Doyle and the short children’s book The Erl King’s Daughter by Aiken.

Although it makes me pretty sad, I’m not purchasing any books this year to suit challenges. I’ll just have to limp along, using my limited shelves.

I've read quite a few of Aiken's books for children so will try one of her adult books. I picked up The Girl from Paris from the library today and have Five Minute Marriage & The Smile of the Stranger on e-loan. One of these should work for me.

I picked up a copy of Night Fall by Joan Aiken back at a library book sale in November. That is where I plan to start. I may move on to re-read one of her children's books that are still on my shelves.

My plans

Aiken The Haunting of Lamb House and for
Doyle Four Short Stories (from AudioFile Sync Summer reading program).

For Doyle I plan on reading The Hound of the Baskervilles. Audio if I can find it.

I highly enjoyed The Five Minute Marriage by Joan Aiken. I started reading after midnight and again this New Year's Day. I've read lots of her children's books and fairytale anthologies so was lovely to read one of her adult books.
Thanks to this challenge I've been made aware of her romance books, so will be dipping in to them when I have need of a lighter read from time to time.

I've just started listening to The Hound of the Baskervilles read by Stephen Fry.

I finished reading The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. I believe it is a good book for both parents and children to enjoy together and discuss what is happening and the consequences in the end.

I'm reading The Whispering Mountain by Joan Aiken. It was one of my favourite childhood reads, and I'm enjoying revisiting it.

I've read Aiken's Arabel's Raven, a collection of three stories about a girl and her troublesome pet raven. It was not quite to my taste, but was entertaining and would probably be greatly enjoyed by its target audience.

I have finished reading Night Fall by Joan Aiken. I have enjoyed this author in the past but I have to say I do not think this was one of her best. It's very short- only 108 pages and it feels more like a prospective outline for a mystery than anything else. The writing itself is interesting but the plot is galloped through so fast that there is no possibility of development.
Moving on to The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

I finished The Hound of the Baskervilles and really enjoyed it. A creepy and atmospheric story, and then all is revealed and brought to order by Holmes. Fun.

I've finished my third Joan Aiken, The Weeping Ash. This was a much bigger story than the first in the Paget Family trilogy, The Smile of the Stranger. I have the final book out from the library, The Girl from Paris

I’ve finished The Erl King’s Daughter, a children’s short story by Joan Aiken. This type of scary, horrible-creature-waiting-for-you story is a favorite trope of mine.

I thought Aiken did a fine job with descriptions, suspense, dialogue, and humor. But the ending was very abrupt, which was disappointing.

I read this on kindle, and the illustrations were superb, not something I usually say about a kindle book.

I’d definitely try Aiken again.

I finished Black Hearts in Battersea last night. I'm not sure how I missed the Wolves Chronicles as a child. I'm thoroughly enjoying discovering them now!

>23 cbl_tn: The next book, Nightbirds on Nantucket, is my favorite in the series.

>24 amanda4242: Good to know! I'll see if I can squeeze it in soon!

I also read The Five-Minute Marriage by Joan Aiken. I did not know, until Kerry mentioned it above, that she had written regency romances. I knew her for the first few books in the Nightbirds on Nantucket series.

>23 cbl_tn: I also plan to read "Wolves Chronicles" this year.

Finished The Haunting of Lamb House by Aiken. It is 3 interconnected novellas and the setting is a real house once owned by the Lamb family and also the house where Henry James wrote and E. F. Benson.

>28 Kristelh: That sounds really interesting. I never heard of it before. Is it a historical novel or a ghost story? and did you think it was a worthwhile read?

>29 catseyegreen: Sara, I would say it is both. It is historical in that some of the things like King George sleeping at Lamb house really happened and it is a ghost story and it is a house where authors wrote ghost stories and it is a tale of horror as well.

I finished the Paget Family trilogy by Joan Aiken last week. The last book, The Girl from Paris, annoyed me a little with its ironic ending.

I've read The Whispering Mountain by Joan Aiken. Here is my review:



The Whispering Mountain was one of my favourite books as a child. I must have read it quite a few times when I was young, but not since, and when I came to read it again I found I had completely forgotten the plot, other than it was an adventure story set in Wales and there was a mountain in it! But rereading it has reminded me why I loved the book so much in the first place.

Set in the same alternative nineteenth century world as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Whispering Mountain follows the adventures of Owen Hughes, wrongly accused of stealing the fabled Harp of Teirtu, (including by his own grandfather). But as Owen tries to clear his name by recapturing the harp, he discovers that there are other people apart from the original thieves who are interested in finding it, from the Marquess of Malyn in his castle on the coast to the Seljuk of the far-off land of Rum who is showing a surprising interest in a remote corner of Wales. But once the harp is found who is its legal owner? The marquess is convinced that it should be him, as the harp was found in the ruins of the old monastery of St. Ennodawg, on land owned by the Marquess, but Owen's grandfather, curator of the local museum, has different ideas:

''I am sure your legal knowledge is of the highest excellence,’ said the Marquess with a disdainful smile. ‘But in this instance it will not be needed. The deed says, in the plainest manner, that the grant of the island is made, not in perpetuity, but merely “so long as the Order of Ennodawg shall continue”. But where is the Order now, Mr Hughes? I think you will not dispute that the monastery is in ruins and has been so for the last fifty years? What has become of its gardens, its cattle, its furnishings? Gone, burned, stolen, decayed. Where are its monks, pray?’
‘In China,’ said Mr Hughes unexpectedly.
‘What?’ The Marquess, for once, was quite taken aback. ‘In China?’ he repeated. ‘What do you mean?’'

This was the only Joan Aiken that I read as a child (although I've read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase since) and it's one that deserves to be much better known. It's really got everything that a children's adventure story needs: adventure, close shaves with danger, an evil marquess and some real sadness too. Highly recommended.

>32 SandDune: I loved that book when I was a kid. I do need to re-read it.

I don't currently have any Aiken books on my shelves to read, but I do recall enjoying Midnight Is a Place, which I read back in 2019.

>9 Matke: Changing my Arthur Conan Doyle read to The Poison Belt, the second in the Professor Chalenger trilogy. I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for medieval tales of knights this month.

Oh dear. I never dreamed that I’d give a book by Arthur Conan Doyle a one-star review, but The Poison Belt is just awful. It’s the second in the Professor Challenger trilogy. The first (The Lost World was pretty good. But this is just…dreadful. Casual bigotry, a horrible main character (he was unpleasant but tolerable in the first book), a plot windup that’s just juvenile and sort of ruins the whole thing.

This doesn’t mean I don’t still love Doyle; anyone cane have a failure. But wow, what a disappointment.

>36 Matke: I completely agree! I just finished the LibriVox audio on my way home from work. I rated it a little higher than you did because the LibriVox reader did a good job with the narration. They're volunteers, so the quality of the narration is hit or miss.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and will be reading more of the series.

I don't think I'm going to get to Arthur Conan Doyle this month but I have several of his books from Project Gutenberg on the Kindle just waiting for the right moment.

>37 cbl_tn: I’ve had some excellent experiences with LibriVox, and a couple that just didn’t work for me. And that’s fine—they’re free!

I’m glad that the narrator of this one made it at least a little better.

I have just finished listening to The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. Wow!, What a collection of classic memes packed into one novella. It was fun going through and listening to the story with al it's weirdness though I still find Sherlock's cocaine habit disturbing.

The February thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/357893#

I finished The White Company, an early novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1891). This is historical fiction set in 1366-67 during the Hundred Years' War. Alleyne Edricson is an orphan and has been raised in a Hampshire abbey. Under his father's will, the abbey received money and land as long as Alleyne was kept at the abbey until his 20th year. At that time his father's will specified that Alleyne must spend at least one year "in the world" and then may decide if he wishes to remain in the world or return to the protected life of the abbey.

Alleyne ventures out and is eventually drawn into the ranks of The White Company, led by Sir Nigel Loring, to help Prince Edward ("The Black Prince") re-capture the throne of Spain for King Pedro I at the Battle of Najera. These last are all real events and The White Company, Pedro I and Sir Loring are real characters in the war whose history fascinated Doyle. In the story young Alleyne (a fictional character) shows his bravery and by the end of the book joins the ranks of the knights.

This started out well, but I must admit all the adventures, fights and capers on the long journey from Hampshire to Spain got repetitive. We don't get the decisive battle until the last 30 pages of the book. I did enjoy the writing and the characterizations, but it was just over-long for me. My edition from 1965 has some wonderful water-color illustrations by N. C. Wyeth, though:

>2 amanda4242: Actually just finished my first Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlett and though I knew I would enjoy it, I did not expect to enjoy it so thoroughly, as the mini-epic(which if not already coined, I will do so here :) ) I found within the story was beautiful. Doyle has really got to me with his writing in that he was able to tell such a fully detailed, heartbreaking tale in the middle of a murder mystery. I am starting The Lost World again so I can pace myself with Sherlock.