Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure (hardback)

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As featured in the Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 2012 and The Times best nonfiction of 2012.
Arthur Conan Doyle's exciting diary of a whaling expedition. Conan Doyle was the ship's surgeon on the Hope, aged just 20 years old. His diary reveals the dangerous and bloody work he undertook, in this adventure that would influence his later work, including 'The Captain of the Pole Star' and the Sherlock Holmes story 'The Adventure of Black Peter'.

This volume includes a complete facsimile of the previously unpublished diary along with a transcript, as well as 'The Adventure of Black Peter', and photographs relating to the voyage.

Reviews
`[A] rip-roaring account of [Conan Doyle’s] adventures as ship’s doctor on the Arctic whaler Hope.` The Guardian

`His personal narrative is a precursor to Sherlock Holmes that packs in just as much drama`
Time

'Revealed in a gripping diary the blood-soaked voyage to the Arctic that inspired one of Sherlock Holmes' most chilling mysteries`
Daily Mail

`...Conan Doyle’s Arctic Adventure wasn’t simply an excuse for him to shoot a few seals and sea birds (although he did for plenty of both). It also gave him the opportunity to leave the stifling rote-learning of his medical studies behind for six months and indulge his passion for literature.`
Roger Cox, The Scotsman

`... there is something thrilling about reading Doyle’s observations almost straight from his own pen.`
Jan Gardner, Boston Globe