The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales
An Arctic whaler is still searching for a catch when the ice begins to close around her. The crew want to turn for home; Captain Craigie insists there is a fortune just beyond the frozen barrier. In the journal of the ship’s young medical student, practical worries about food and weather sit beside observations of a commander whose moods are increasingly difficult to understand. The title story opens this collection of ten tales with the discomfort of depending on a man you cannot quite read.
Conan Doyle carries that curiosity about people into very different surroundings. In “The Great Keinplatz Experiment”, a professor investigates whether the spirit can leave the body, assisted by a student whose devotion to science owes much to the professor’s daughter. In “Cyprian Overbeck Wells”, an aspiring writer remains convinced of his calling despite the steady return of his manuscripts. Earnest explanations become entertaining company: these people have reasons for believing what they believe, even when their confidence runs ahead of their evidence.
The collection moves between sea adventures, supernatural unease and comedy, with room for a mystery among the Egyptian antiquities of the Louvre. Journals and personal statements bring you close to witnesses trying to make sense of something extraordinary. Each story offers a fresh voice and a predicament that can be followed in a single sitting. Together they show how readily Doyle can make a careful observer worth listening to, then leave you wondering whether careful observation will be enough.
- The Captain of the “Pole-Star” About 40 min
- J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement About 53 min
- The Great Keinplatz Experiment About 25 min
- The Man from Archangel About 38 min
- That Little Square Box About 30 min
- John Huxford’s Hiatus About 36 min
- Cyprian Overbeck Wells—A Literary Mosaic About 29 min
- John Barrington Cowles About 19 min
- Part 2 About 19 min
- Elias B. Hopkins, the Parson of Jackman’s Gulch About 23 min
- The Ring of Thoth About 29 min
Meet the characters, without giving the story away.
The Captain of the “Pole-Star”
John M’Alister Ray
A medical student aboard the Arctic whaler Pole-Star, recording the voyage and his observations of its captain in a journal.
Captain Nicholas Craigie
The Pole-Star’s capable but volatile commander, determined to pursue a catch despite the advancing ice and his crew’s wish to return home.
J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement
Joseph Habakuk Jephson
A Brooklyn physician and abolitionist who takes a sea voyage for his health. He presents his account of the Marie Celeste as a personal statement.
Captain J. W. Tibbs
The Marie Celeste’s hearty, experienced captain, sailing from Boston towards Lisbon.
Mrs Tibbs and her child
The captain’s wife and their five-year-old child, who accompany him on the voyage.
John Harton
A fellow passenger travelling on business for the firm that owns the Marie Celeste.
Septimius Goring
An educated passenger from New Orleans who enquires closely about the ship and its company before booking his passage.
The Great Keinplatz Experiment
Professor Alexis von Baumgarten
A physiologist at Keinplatz whose research centres on mesmerism and the relationship between mind and body.
Fritz von Hartmann
A lively, unruly student who eagerly assists the professor’s experiments, partly because they bring him closer to the professor’s daughter.
Elise
The professor’s daughter, who returns Fritz’s affection despite her mother’s objections to his reputation.
Madame von Baumgarten
The professor’s wife, concerned about Fritz’s attentions to Elise and less absorbed than her husband in his scientific investigations.
The Man from Archangel
John M’Vittie
A former attorney who uses an inheritance to withdraw to the Caithness coast and pursue scientific and philosophical studies. He fiercely guards his solitude.
Madge
M’Vittie’s housekeeper, who alerts him when a ship is driven onto the reef near his home.
The young woman
A passenger aboard the wrecked ship, whose language M’Vittie cannot understand.
The stranger
A tall, composed man aboard the stricken vessel, standing apart from the frightened crew and attending to the young woman.
That Little Square Box
The narrator
A nervous literary man making an Atlantic crossing aboard the Spartan. His uneasiness grows when he overhears two fellow passengers talking privately.
Flannigan and Müller
Two passengers who board just before the ship departs, bringing a small box which they handle with particular care.
John Huxford’s Hiatus
John Huxford
A young foreman whose employer’s closure threatens his plans to marry. An offer of work in Montreal gives him a possible way forward.
Mary
John’s fiancée, an orphan living with her grandmother in Brisport. She shares his hopes of making a home together.
Mary’s grandmother
Mary’s remaining relative and companion, willing to travel with her if John establishes himself in Canada.
Charles Fairbairn
John’s employer, forced to close the family cork factory and anxious to help a trusted worker find another position.
Cyprian Overbeck Wells—A Literary Mosaic
Smith
An aspiring writer whose confidence in his talent survives repeated rejection. A modest inheritance lets him leave office work and devote himself to literature.
The assembled novelists
A gathering of writers from different periods, including Defoe, Swift and Scott, whose distinctive voices shape a shared story.
Cyprian Overbeck Wells
The young traveller at the centre of that story, sent overseas to look after his father’s trading interests.
John Barrington Cowles
John Barrington Cowles
A gifted medical student in Edinburgh, reserved in company but deeply responsive to art and music.
Robert Armitage
Cowles’s fellow medical student, close friend and narrator, who shares rooms with him and receives his confidences.
Miss Northcott
A striking young woman whom Cowles and Armitage first notice at an art exhibition, living with her aunt in Abercrombie Place.
Archibald Reeves
A fashionable law student known to Armitage, seen accompanying Miss Northcott at the exhibition.
Elias B. Hopkins, the Parson of Jackman’s Gulch
Elias B. Hopkins
A persuasive newcomer called “the Parson”, though he claims no formal qualification for the ministry. He encourages better habits in the rough mining settlement.
Nat and Ben Adams
Brothers who run the settlement’s drinking saloon and the gambling room behind it.
Woburn
The trusted keeper of the miners’ gold store, where their earnings are held until they can be carried to Ballarat.
The Ring of Thoth
John Vansittart Smith
A versatile English scholar now absorbed in Egyptology, visiting the Louvre to consult its collection of papyri.
The Louvre attendant
A reserved museum worker whose appearance catches Smith’s attention among the Egyptian antiquities. He responds curtly to the scholar’s questions.
by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Mystery of Cloomber
Follow Doyle’s supernatural suspense into a longer story, where a retired general’s elaborate precautions puzzle his neighbours on the Scottish coast.
by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey
For a lighter companion to these anxious observers and literary jokes, try Austen’s novel about a young reader whose Gothic expectations colour her encounters with ordinary society.
Original work and source edition
Author
- Arthur Conan Doyle
Original Publisher
- Longmans, Green, and Co.
Contributors
- Proprietors of Cornhill
- Proprietors of Temple Bar
- Proprietors of Belgravia
- Proprietors of London Society
- Proprietors of Cassell’s
- Proprietors of The Boys’ Own Paper
Project Gutenberg contributors
We thank the following Project Gutenberg contributors for their work transcribing and preparing the source text used in this edition.
Contributors
- Mike Lough
- David Widger
Source
Project Gutenberg, eBook #294