Grove Koger

Travel encompasses a number of directions and dimensions. Although I’m accustomed to thinking “over there” when I write about the subject, travel can also include “up there” and “back then” as well as “what might have been” and “what might be.” In fact, I probably should have called my blog Worlds Enough.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (shown below in a 1914 portrait by Arnold Genthe) made use of a wide range of geographical settings, along with the past and the near future. Besides writing about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for much longer than he cared to, he also published historical novels and a small number of supernatural and science fiction works. And “The Horror of the Heights (Which Includes the Manuscript Known as the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment)” ranks near the top of this latter category.

The story purports to reproduce what remains of a damaged notebook found in a field in East Sussex. The pages record the theories and apparently final flying experiences of a daring amateur pilot, one Joyce-Armstrong. Noted among fellow flyers for his bravery and mastery of the sport, Joyce-Armstrong also has his quirks. He believes that there are “jungles of the upper air,” and he’s intent on penetrating them, carrying a shotgun with him.

Doyle integrates the purely fantastic elements of the work within an unnervingly vivid framework: “I had hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes, but with every thousand feet of ascent the gale grew stronger. My machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivet as she faced it, and swept away like a sheet of paper when I banked her on the turn, skimming down wind at a greater pace, perhaps, than ever mortal man has moved.…

“When I reached the nineteen-thousand foot level, which was about midday, the wind was so severe that I looked with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken. I even cast loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hook into the ring of my leathern belt, so as to be ready for the worst.… But she held together bravely. Every cord and strut was humping and vibrating like so many harp strings.”

But will the pilot and his reassuringly solid machine (and his shotgun) be a match for what might lurk in the jungle overhead?

“The Horror of the Heights” was published in The Strand Magazine for November 1913, and over the following years was reprinted in several other periodicals. Book publication came in Doyle’s Tales of Terror and Mystery (John Murray, 1922), and over the past few decades, it’s become a staple of anthologies.  

The most attractive version of the story I’ve seen is an oversized Calabash Press edition, which was published “in conjunction with the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries, the Arthur Conan Doyle Society, [and] the Norwegian Explorers on the occasion of their co-sponsored conference, 11-13 June 2004.” The book reproduces Doyle’s original holograph manuscript and comes with notes, a preface by one of my favorite critics, Michael Dirda, and an essay by Thomas R. Tietze on “rationalism and imagination” in the story.

Best of all, to my way of thinking, are reproductions of several black-and-white and color illustrations from the story’s periodical appearances, although oddly enough for a publication of this quality, not all the artists responsible are identified. Referring to the entry in the online Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia, I’ve determined that the first and fourth images in today’s post are by Henry Reuterdahl. The third, which is the opening page of the Strand printing, is obviously the work of W.R.S Stott, while below is the cover of the Calabash edition.