Thank you so, so much for taking the time to leave such a thorough comment. (I know very little about Victorian times, as is probably apparent.) Your explanation has helped me a lot.
I suppose I don't like to think of ACD being anti-Semitic - I've got some Jewish ancestry myself. (Though I don't think of myself as Jewish, it's doubtful Jewish people would think of me as Jewish, and there isn't a rabbi in the world who would accept me as a Jew ^^) I'm reading Arthur Conan Doyle: a life in letters, and I have to admit I was rather shocked by his attitude to a black man and especially to a black woman. But then he meets Henry Highland Garnett, and does acknowledge his intelligence, wisdom and learning.
no subject
I suppose I don't like to think of ACD being anti-Semitic - I've got some Jewish ancestry myself. (Though I don't think of myself as Jewish, it's doubtful Jewish people would think of me as Jewish, and there isn't a rabbi in the world who would accept me as a Jew ^^) I'm reading Arthur Conan Doyle: a life in letters, and I have to admit I was rather shocked by his attitude to a black man and especially to a black woman. But then he meets Henry Highland Garnett, and does acknowledge his intelligence, wisdom and learning.