by HalfManHalfTitanium » Fri Jan 29, 2021 8:32 pm
D is Doyle - his Christian names were Arthur Ignatius Conan.
RC is Roger Casement “hanged on a comma”. As well as arguing for clemency for Casement, Doyle was also a supporter of human rights in the Congo, after reading Casement’s report which had exposed the atrocities there. One of the pictures shows Casement in Peru, where he also wrote a report on abuses.
Doyle’s cricket team “The Authors” also included fellow Scot J M Barrie as well as A A Milne and P G Wodehouse. All four created fictional characters who have become arguably more famous than the authors themselves.
Four of the pictures show original illustrations from their books. Top left is the frontispiece to The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The letter in the photos is Doyle writing to Bram Stoker to say how much he had enjoyed reading Dracula. The male skier is also Doyle. The CFs are, as Sgurr says, the Cottingley Fairies.
The two ships are the Eira (Doyle standing in the centre) and the Mary Celeste. Doyle’s newspaper article on the latter misspelt it as Marie Celeste, a mistake which has persisted in the UK into the present day.
Over to you Sgurr!
Tim