Lucy Worsley on 'Holmes vs. Doyle's' Secret Agenda & What's Wrong with 'Lucy Worsley Investigates'

From antiquity to the Blitz, monarchs to suffragists, presenter Lucy Worsley’s British history expertise knows no bounds. Though she began her career as a curator and inspector of historic buildings, her passion for making history accessible to the public landed her first documentary appearance in 2009’s Inside the Body of Henry VIII. Since then, she has brought history out of the archive and into millions of living rooms through programs on royal weddings, historical crimes, and so much more, garnering acclaim, especially for her 2018 documentary Suffragettes, about working-class women who demanded the right to vote.

In recent years, she has focused on some of England’s most beloved writers in series like Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen and Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors. (Worsley herself is a writer and the author of numerous history books and historical fiction for children.) The latest writer under Worsley’s keen historical gaze is Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle, one half the focus of Worsley’s new series, Holmes vs. Doyle.

Over three episodes, the series investigates the fraught relationship between the celebrated author and his beloved (though not by him) character. It traverses Doyle’s life from the height of his literary success to the depths of his grief for his son’s death and his morbid fascination with war.