Sir –Your review of The Magnificent Spilsbury (Weekend, July 8) contained an error, whether by the reviewer or from the book is not clear.
It was stated that Spilsbury is reputed by some to be the model for Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. This cannot be the case.
It is well established that Dr Joseph Bell was the inspiration for the Holmes character. Bell was a lecturer at Edinburgh Medical School and Doyle, who took up medicine before becoming an author, had worked with him. Doyle first met Bell in 1877, the very year in which Spilsbury was born. Spilsbury was only ten years of age when the first Holmes story was published in 1887. Spilsbury gained his first public attention through the Crippen case in 1910, just four years prior to the last Holmes story being published. Case solved — elementary!
David Day, Kidlington
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