Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Rodney Stone Annotated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Rodney Stone is a Gothic mystery and boxing novel by Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first published in 1896. The eponymous narrator is a Sussex country boy who is the son of a sailor and wishes to go to sea himself. He is taken to London by his uncle Sir Charles Tregellis, a highly respected gentleman and arbiter of fashion who is on familiar terms with the most important people of Great Britain. The novel interweaves Rodney's coming-of-age story with that of his friend Boy Jim's boxing endeavours. Jim has been brought up thinking he is a blacksmith's son - the blacksmith Harrison was a famous former boxer and the 'son' wishes to fight too. So a large portion of it deals with the famous bare-knuckle boxers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as Jem Belcher, John Jackson, Daniel Mendoza, Dutch Sam, and others. The book includes vignettes of a number of historical personages, notably the Prince Regent, Lord Nelson, Sir John Lade, Lord Cochrane and Beau Brummell.