This correspondence shows the large extent to which Conan Doyle was personally involved in obtaining the release of convicted murderer Oscar Slater in 1927. He turned the analytical and investigative skills normally associated with his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes to this important legal case, championing the cause of the wrongly accused.
Slater, a German Jew, was accused of the murder of Marion Gilchrist in 1909. Three witnesses identified him as the man seen leaving her home on the night of the murder, two of whom later admitted to accepting bribes from the police. One of these was Helen Lambie, the 'chief witness' described by Conan Doyle. Condemned to death, a 20,000-name petition prevented a hanging and Conan Doyle took up the case, writing several articles and a pamphlet in his defence (Green and Gibson B11). Years later, Conan Doyle did not give up the fight. He enlisted the help of William Park, a Glasgow journalist, who published The Truth about Oscar Slater in 1927 under the imprint of Conan Doyle's Psychic Press. He wrote of Park, 'he had within him that slow burning but quenchless, fire of determination which marks the best type of Scotsman'. These letters now reveal that Conan Doyle not only wrote the preface but that the writing of the book was largely his idea, even suggesting a suitable title. In the book Park attacks the police handling of the investigation, criticised the judge and openly accuses the victim's nephew of the murder, all points discussed in this correspondence. Further to the publication of the book, Slater was liberated in November 1927, with his conviction quashed after an appeal in 1928 and received £6,000 in compensation.
Although Conan Doyle himself lost financially as a result of his campaigning, it was not the first time he had done so. In 1903 he was involved in the criminal case of the Parsee Birmingham lawyer, Edaljee.