Through the Magic Door

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 261K words
Chapters: 27

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Through the Magic Door by Arthur Conan DoyleAuthor: Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930,Language: English, Class: Z: Bibliography, Library science, Release Date: Mar 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is a collection of reading essays in which Conan Doyle uses his bookroom as a thread, leading readers through one book-door after another in the genial voice of a guide, discussing the writers and works he loves. Its value lies not in systematic literary history but in how a master storyteller talks about reading: candid, full of temperament, and occasionally carrying the tastes and prejudices of a Victorian reader. The book preserves a large sample of late nineteenth-century British literary reading tastes and is useful for studying Conan Doyle himself and the reading habits of his era. In style it is essays rather than fiction, leisurely in pace, suited to reading one piece at a time before bed or on the commute. The English original comes from Project Gutenberg; the language feels dated but is generally clear, making it suitable as extensive reading material for English essays. Readers expecting Holmes-style suspense will be disappointed, but those willing to follow an experienced author through his spiritual library will find much to recognize.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who like Conan Doyle and want to know his reading tastes
Readers interested in English literary essays and book talk
Intermediate and advanced learners who want extensive reading practice in English
Literature enthusiasts studying late nineteenth-century British reading fashions

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting Holmes-style suspense plots
Readers needing systematic literary history or bibliographic guides
Beginners in English reading who are daunted by long sentences

Reading tips

Read chapter by chapter, noting the writers and works the author mentions after each chapter, then extend selectively.
Keep pen and paper to mark unfamiliar names and titles, and look them up once after each chapter.
Start with chapters on familiar figures such as Dickens and Scott, then move to unfamiliar writers.
If you only want the gist, read the first sentence of each paragraph to grasp the author's attitude before returning to details.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or reading essays?

It is a collection of reading essays. Conan Doyle uses his bookroom as a starting point to discuss the writers and works he loves; it is not narrative fiction and has no Holmes-style plot.

How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for beginners?

The original is late nineteenth-century English with long sentences and dated wording, so it is not an entry-level text. It suits intermediate and advanced learners with some vocabulary who can do long-form extensive reading.

Do I need to have read the works mentioned first?

No. The author mostly discusses common figures in English literature, and you can understand his attitudes and tastes without having read the originals; reading them first will make it more resonant.

What are the features of this edition?

This is the English public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg, with the English original text, freely available and searchable, without modern translation notes or an introduction.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930 Author

Arthur Conan Doyle (Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930) was a British writer best known for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes. The library records list his birth and death years and nationality as unknown, and public information is limited, so his biography is not speculated upon here. The collection contains 95 of his works, including The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Sign of the Four, along with different editions and multilingual translations. His writing is distinguished by rigorous logical deduction, vivid detective characters, and tight narrative pacing; he shaped and deeply influenced the modern detective fiction tradition, and Sherlock Holmes has become a classic figure in popular culture, still widely adapted and read today.