DR. and MRS. C. FREDERICK KITTLE
Kittle Collection of Doyleana
The Kittle Collection of Doyleana is a tribute to the varied talents of the Doyle family, as well as to Fred Kittle, the Chicagoan who for more than 40 years has amassed one of the world's finest collections of Doyle family materials.
Kittle was first attracted to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work during his residency in surgery in Kansas City, when he purchased The Romance of Medicine, a 19-page, handwritten medical lecture that Doyle gave at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London. Kittle found a kindred spirit in Doyle, who was educated as a physician and practiced medicine for 10 years before abandoning medicine and devoting himself solely to his literary efforts.
For the next 30 years, Kittle—who was to become professor of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at Rush Medical College—amassed an extensive collection of travel books written by physicians. After he sold his medical travel collection in 1990, Kittle found that he missed the spirit of collecting books of a single theme and the intellectual pleasure of compiling a body of work for the enjoyment of and study by himself and others. So he again delved into the joy of collecting and set out to build a peerless collection of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his family.
The focal point of Kittle's Doyle collection is the extraordinary array of manuscripts and first editions from Doyle and members of his family. All told, there are hundreds of first editions, representing 90 to 95 percent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's life's work. His most prized manuscript is The White Company, and he treasures Beeton's Christmas Annual 1888 for its significance as the magazine that published the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. In addition, more than 150 letters by Doyle and 50 by other members of his family help weave the story of this brilliant man's career.
Kittle says that one of his greatest joys as a collector is the thrill that he receives when he acquires a new item. "Although the collection is extensive, I am still in search of the finest and best copies available, and am still upgrading the collection for future readers. A finer copy or one with an autograph, another manuscript, a significant letter—that's the thrill of the chase. Book collections should not be static—they should grow and flourish with each generation."
Because of Dr. Kittle's philosophy and his wonderful gifts of this collection to the Newberry Library, Doyle scholars and readers from around the world will have access to almost all of Arthur Conan Doyle's work and thereby further appreciate the life and literary accomplishments of this extraordinary man and his family.
This biography is excerpted from the article "Collecting Doyle," by Jean Johnson, which was first published in The Newberry Library Newsletter (Summer 1999).
Numerous items from the Kittle Collection of Doyleana were featured in the Newberry's 2003 exhibit, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Sherlock Holmes.