Langham Hotel plaque to mark meeting of Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Published: 5 March 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM

A CHANCE encounter that led Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde to write two of their greatest works is to be commemorated at the place it happened more than a century ago.

Westminster Council has approved plans to erect a green plaque outside the Langham Hotel in Marylebone where the two literary giants met with a US talent scout in 1889, when they were both unknown authors.

The meeting with Joseph Marshall Stoddart resulted in him commissioning them to write articles for his American Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine.

Conan Doyle wrote the short story The Sign of Four, which would go on to lay the foundations for his Sherlock Holmes series, and establish himself as the founding father of the detective novel. 

And Wilde? He penned his masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Grey.

Michael Seeney from the Oscar Wilde Society, who backed the plaque bid, said: “It will commemorate a really important moment in British fiction and it commemorates a friendship between two of our greatest authors.”

The Langham Hotel, which has recently just had a facelift, opened shortly before the fateful dinner and has cropped up in a number of Sherlock Holmes stories.

Wilde is said to have a arrived at the hotel like a “languorous dandy” while Conan Doyle, despite wearing his best suit was described as looking like a “walrus in Sunday clothes”. 

Referring to his homosexuality, Oscar Wilde said the Picture of Dorian Gray was a vehicle for exploring the “evil” inside him. 

When it was published  the book was slated for its perceived immorality.

The success of Conan Doyle’s book allowed him to quit medicine and pursue his writing career full time.

A report published by Westminster Council recommending the plaque says: “The dinner appointment at the Langham Hotel was a unique event in British literary history.

“The commissioning of articles for Lippincott’s Magazine brought the authors international acclaim, providing an enormous boost to the careers of two of Britain’s most loved and respected literary personalities.”

The plaque will be unveiled outside the hotel on April 19.