When I was still TBM I read the book. I assumed that the frighteningly cult-like depiction of mormons was what as meant by anti-Mormon literature (I didn't yet know that it is mostly quotes from the journal of discourses etc.)

Do any of you know if he based the rituals and behaviours on any factual reports of the mormons? Or was he just writing an interesting story and using a name that people already associated with religious wackos?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 02:34AM by jdawg333.

The facts were that just months before and after there were mass conversions going on in England (There was also a huge depression). Yet, many English had heard from American cousins that Mormons were practicing polygamy. In fact Pratt had printed out pamphlets just days before news was to reach him about Joseph Smith's declarations. Even then, many of the Mormon missionaries were flat out lying about Mormons not practicing polygamy well after Brigham had brought more than a couple of handcart groups into Salt Lake Valley.

So yes; in a way, there was a fear of "white" slavery going around. Sort of what we portray with Arabs wanting white women, we sort of wonder if they're just going to be some sort of abused concubine.

1. Doyle was later feted in SLC.
2. Doyle used information he had read about the Mormons and it was correct. Interestingly enough, the names and other clues from A Study in Scarlet were used by a serial killer many years later. You can clean much from the book by John D. Lee about the Mormons about the period relating to the book by Doyle.
3. A Study in Scarlet was the very first of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
4. Contrary to the discussion of white slavery, it concerns polygamy and revenge.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 10:24AM by rhgc.

Interesting. I will have to look into that book.

I'm writing it. Should be out soon. In the meantime, do read "A Study in Scarlet".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 10:45AM by rhgc.

As I recall from reading it many centuries ago, didn't someone escape from the clutches of the morms by jumping out of the window of the Salt Lake Temple directly into the waters of the Great Salt Lake?

Hint....the lake is many miles from the temple.

Your memory is wrong. The only ones jumping out of a window were in a farmhouse way away from the temple which was not yet completed and they did not land in a lake or anywhere near it. The book is short, read it again. I have four copies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 12:00PM by rhgc.

You can download an article on Conan Doyle and some of the background that led to his first detective novel in Dialogue, vol 23 No 4.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp.../sbi/.../Dialogue_V23N04_99.pdf

Also, read "The Case of the Repentant Writer" at Utah History to Go

http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/041094.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 12:27PM by Phantom Shadow.

I have long been quite aware of such articles. However, I would submit that what Doyle wrote is an accurate fictional account of the Utah during the reign of BY. Read, for example, Lee's book. By the time of Doyle's visit, TSCC had dumped polygamy and even had some non-Mormon office-holders. TSCC was also willing to hear a "Spritualist", which Doyle had become.