Rodney Stone

Rodney Stone is a Gothic mystery and boxing novel by Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first published in 1896.

[1] The eponymous narrator is a Sussex country boy who is the son of a sailor and wishes to go to sea himself.

He is taken to London by his uncle Sir Charles Tregellis, a highly respected gentleman and arbiter of fashion who is on familiar terms with the most important people of Great Britain.

The novel interweaves Rodney's coming-of-age story with that of his friend Boy Jim's boxing endeavours.

A large portion of it deals with the famous bare-knuckle boxers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as Jem Belcher, John Jackson, Daniel Mendoza, Dutch Sam, and others.