Photo credit: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DOYLE-DIARY-last-great-conan-doyle-mystery-1978-/260797189874#ht_1717wt_907
I was in my local British Heart Foundation bookshop today and I picked this up for the grand sum of £2.50. I had never heard of it or seen it before. But it is just beautiful and a real treasure trove.
What is it?
Cut and pasted from http://www.grosvenorprints.com/stock_detail.php?ref=22090:
The Doyle Diary: The Last Great Conan Doyle Mystery.
With a Holmesian Investigation into the Strange and Curious Case of Charles Altamont Doyle
By Michael Baker
Paddington Press Ltd. New York & London. Copyright 1978 Paddington Press (U.K.) Ltd.
Charles Altamont Doyle, father of Arthur Conan Doyle, spent the last days of his life in asylums, but the question remains: was he actually mad? This book provides the evidence for readers to judge for themselves. Here reproduced in its enterity is Doyle's diary, a wondrous blending of words and watercolour, a collage of fact and fancy featuring exquisitely detailed fairies and birds, Punch-like cartoons and a never-ending stream of quips and puns.
You can get a flavour of the book and what it contains here:
http://diamonds-wood.blogspot.com/2011/05/doyle-diary.html
You can purchase your own copy here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Doyle-Diary-Mystery-Altamont/dp/0448220687/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330816493&sr=8-2
or here:
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780448220680/Doyle-Diary-Last-Great-Conan-0448220687/plp
The BBC will repeat it (they already have done so once!) and I will catch it next time round.
First off I want to see Hawking!