Round the Red Lamp
Round the Red Lamp , Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle My overall rating: 5 out of 5 stars Round the Red Lamp is not a novel, but a collection of short stories. Each is somehow connected with doctors and their work, of the late Victorian era; but beyond that, they hold few similarities. Nostalgia, romance, horror, comedy, science-fiction, realism--the genres vary drastically from story to story, with plots ranging from the heartwarming to the nerve-wracking. And oftentimes, the reader can only guess at what is Fact and what is Fancy. The subject of Victorian doctors may sound, at a glance, boring; but I found this book to be a real page-turner and excellent reading (with a couple of exceptions). I especially loved the "day in the life" stories that seemed firmly based on reality (i.e. "His First Operation", "A Medical Document"), and the hilarious "A False Start", about a young doctor desperate fo...