9 h 28 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What sends the creator of Sherlock Holmes across the world to argue that death is not the end?
In The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, Arthur Conan Doyle travels through Australia and New Zealand with his wife Jean and their children. His purpose reaches beyond sightseeing. Shaped by years of study and the grief of the First World War, he takes his belief in contact with the dead before crowds, newspapers, and hostile critics.
The journey moves between long sea passages, cities, landscapes, public lectures, and sittings with mediums. Doyle describes what he sees and hears as support for his convictions. This is a committed believer's account, not a detached inquiry: its appeal lies in meeting the storyteller behind Holmes as he defends an unpopular cause.
What you’ll discover
- The man behind Holmes Meet the doctor and detective writer whose spiritual convictions send him on a public mission.
- A family far from home Follow Doyle, Jean, and their children through a long voyage to Australia and New Zealand.
- Belief before a crowd Enter the lectures where literary fame draws audiences and spiritualist claims meet public resistance.
- Inside the medium's sitting Read the encounters Doyle presents as evidence, with his own interpretations firmly in view.
- Grief and the afterlife Explore how wartime sorrow shapes Doyle's conviction that the dead can still be reached.
Who will love it
For readers who love Doyle and want to meet the man behind Holmes, and anyone curious about the history of spiritualism or travel between the wars.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- The author of Holmes becomes a preacher
- Grief and war shape his conviction
- A family voyage to the far side of the world
- Crowds, newspapers and hostile critics
- Mediums and the tests he describes
- What he argues and how the book has lasted
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Die Wanderungen eines Spiritisten
by Arthur Conan Doyle · 1921
Arthur Conan Doyle tours Australia and New Zealand to defend his belief that the dead can be reached.
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In short
The Wanderings of a Spiritualist is a travel book by Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. It was published in 1921 and tells of a long lecture tour he made through Australia and New Zealand with his wife and children.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
The author of Holmes becomes a preacher
Arthur Conan Doyle was trained as a doctor and made his name as a writer of detective stories. Readers who know only Sherlock Holmes may be surprised to find him in this book. Holmes trusts cold reasoning and sneers at fancies. His creator, however, spent the later part of his life defending spiritualism, the belief that the spirits of the dead survive and can speak to the living.
Doyle did not see a conflict between the two. He had been interested in psychic matters for many years and joined investigations into them. He thought of himself as a careful observer who weighed evidence, as a doctor would. In his view the proofs of survival after death were as real as any fact of science, and it was the public that had not looked at them.
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What is The Wanderings of a Spiritualist about?
It tells of Arthur Conan Doyle's lecture tour through Australia and New Zealand, where he spoke about spiritualism. It mixes travel description, accounts of audiences and critics, and his reports of mediums and what he thought they proved.
When was The Wanderings of a Spiritualist written?
Doyle made the tour in the years just after the First World War and published the book in 1921. It is a true account by the author, written from his own experience and beliefs.
Why did Conan Doyle believe in spiritualism?
He had studied psychic matters for years, and the losses of the war, including the deaths of his son and his brother, deepened his interest. He came to think the evidence for survival after death was strong.
The author
Arthur Conan Doyle
1859–1930 · British detective novelist
Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician born in Edinburgh in 1859. He practised medicine in England and wrote novels, short stories and histories. His Sherlock Holmes stories began with A Study in Scarlet in 1887. He also wrote The Lost World in 1912. He died in Crowborough, England, in 1930.
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