Arthur Conan Doyle: a Life.

Hesketh Pearson. 2001. Read by Tim Pigott-Smith. Abridged. 2 tapes, 2.75 hrs. Naxos Audiobooks. 9-6263-4743-2. $13.98. Cardboard, plastic; author, reader notes. SA

This abridgment leaves out none of the important derails of the physician/author's life. Irish by descent. Scottish by birth, and British by adoption, Doyle was born in 1859. As a lad he loved to read and to box. He began to write at the age of six. He attended medical school and eventually set up practice with a college chum, but the partnership was not a successful one. He finally established his own practice and married, but continued to write. His most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, appears first in "A Study in Scarlet" in 1886.

Doyle always thought more highly of his historical novels than of his detective stories, but the sad fact is that Holmes paid the rent. His last Holmes story was published in 1927. When he was 60, he abandoned fiction and devoted the rest of his life to spiritualism. He died in 1930 on one of his many lecture tours. Ironically, his memory rests on a character he came to loathe. Pigott-Smith reads Doyle's story with style and verve. He uses his considerable talents as an actor to bring to life one of England's most famous authors. Janet Julian, English Teacher, Grafton H.S., Grafton, MA