A new edition of a lesser-known novel by the author of The Lost World and the Sherlock Holmes stories
As a group of Western tourists travel down the Nile on the steamer Korosko towards the historical sites near Egypt's southern border, they are kidnapped by a marauding band of dervishes who demand their conversion to Islam. Cut off from the world, deprived of the comforts of civilized society, and shaken in their beliefs, they will have to overcome the most arduous obstacles to regain their freedom and safety. Written toward the end of the Victorian era and permeated with a sense of fear and uncertainty, this story calls into question the moral authority of Europe's presence in the Arab peninsula and the cultural supremacy of British colonialism, all the while demonstrating Conan Doyle's unparalleled ability as a storyteller.
Synopsis
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the most renowned British novelists of all time, known popularly as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. He began writing in order to supplement his income while studying medicine at Edinburgh University, but attained instant popularity with his incredible detective fiction. After completing his medical degree in 1881, he set out on a whaling cruise to Africa, where he found inspiration and material for his 1898 novel, "The Tragedy of the Korosko." This story recounts the trip of group of European tourists to Egypt in 1895, when they are suddenly abducted by a band of Dervish warriors. The westerners must choose between conversion to Islam or death, a scenario which Doyle uses to illustrate British Imperialism and the Imperial Project in North Africa at the time. The story is violent, realistic, and so popular that it was later adapted into a play by Doyle, and eventually adapted twice to film.
About the Author, Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) is the celebrated author of many adventure novels, including The Lost World and The Poison Belt, and the creator of the hugely popular detective stories of Sherlock Holmes.
Biography
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. After nine years in Jesuit schools, he went to Edinburgh University, receiving a degree in medicine in 1881. He then became an eye specialist in Southsea, with a distressing lack of success. Hoping to augment his income, he wrote his first story, A Study in Scarlet. His detective, Sherlock Holmes, was modeled in part after Dr. Joseph Bell of the Edinburgh Infirmary, a man with spectacular powers of observation, analysis, and inference. Conan Doyle may have been influenced also by his admiration for the neat plots of Gaboriau and for Poe's detective, M. Dupin. After several rejections, the story was sold to a British publisher for £25, and thus was born the world's best-known and most-loved fictional detective. Fifty-nine more Sherlock Holmes adventures followed.
Once, wearying of Holmes, his creator killed him off, but was forced by popular demand to resurrect him. Sir Arthur -- he had been knighted for this defense of the British cause in his The Great Boer War -- became an ardent Spiritualist after the death of his son Kingsley, who had been wounded at the Somme in World War I. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in Sussex in 1930.
