Arthur and George

by Julian Barnes

Paperback, 445 pages

English language

Published Jan. 9, 2007 by Vintage.

ISBN:: 978-1-4000-9703-6

(6 reviews)

Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

George Edjali's father is Indian, his mother Scottish. When the family begins to receive vicious anonymous letters, many about their son, they put it down to racial prejudice. They appeal to the police, to no less than the Chief Constable, but to their dismay he appears to suspect George of being the letters' author. Then someone starts slashing horses and livestock. Again the police seem to …

Arthur Conan Doyle, famous as the creator of the world's greatest detective, is mourning his first wife (having been chastely in love for ten years with the woman who was to become his second) when he hears about the Edjali case. Incensed at this obvious miscarriage of justice, he is galvanised into trying to clear George's name.

With a mixture of detailed research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case, but the inner lives of these two very different men. The reader sees them both with stunning clarity, and almost inhabits them as they face the vicissitudes of their lives, whether in the dock hearing a verdict of guilty, or trying to live an honourable life while desperately in love with another woman.

This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes, a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race; about what we think, what we believe, and what we know.

7 editions

AliCorbin reviewed Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

Review of 'Arthur and George' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

An odd sort of book, setting up its two main characters and spending half the book letting the reader wonder what in the world these two might have in common. It was so throughly researched that it read like non-fiction. Both characters were trapped by the codes that they lived by - George by a miscarriage of justice, and Arthur by the code of chivalry that prevented him from forsaking his dying wife. But Arthur's quest to defend George proved him worthy to be Jean's husband. Maybe.

Sharyl reviewed Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

Review of 'Arthur and George' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes, is a historical novel about two real men, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and George Edalji. Barnes's narrative covers both lives, switching back and forth between the families, childhoods, professions, and personal affairs of each man. There is much to contrast and little to compare. One man becomes rich and famous, while the other lives a modest life in obscurity.

However, there is something about George Edalji's life that keeps it from being an ordinary one: George is accused, tried, and convicted of a heinous crime that he did not commit. In fact, the charges are so ridiculous that they are literary hard to fathom. Racial prejudice most certainly was at the root of George's extreme misfortune, but George was too naive and too logical to be able to imagine this. After all, he was a native Englishman and a solictor--an educated man. His father, Shapurji Edalji, was the Vicar of Wyrley, and his mother was from a nice English family. The greater world outside the vicarage, where his father was sometimes referred to as "the Hindoo," despite the fact that Shapurji came from a family of Zoroastrians (Parsis) and grew up to be a clergyman in the Anglican Church, does not infiltrate George's mind at all.

In 1903, George Edalji was sent to prison and served three years of a seven-year sentence before being released to a shell of a life--he could not practice law, had to let the police know where he was all the time, and was considered an ex-convict. Many people knew he was innocent, and wrote letters to the papers and started petitions, all to no avail until George wrote to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in the hope that a famous writer could help him get a free pardon and a normal life.

And so they met, and two very different worlds and minds collided. Both characters are drawn in lavish detail in this fascinating, true story. What I found most interesting was George's astute perceptions about Arthur, his interest in spiritualism, and the contradictions it posed. I realize that George's character could be entirely made up, since his life and opinions were not so documented. It seems that Julian Barnes has taken some clues from Edalji's book on railway law, and bestowed all the same logic and calmness to his personality. In any case, Barnes has painted George Edalji as a very appealing character, one that I enjoyed meeting.