Arthur Conan Doyle
Who was Arthur Conan Doyle?
British physician and author who created the detective Sherlock Holmes, one of the most famous fictional characters in literature. He wrote 56 short stories and four novels featuring Holmes and also advocated for justice in several real criminal cases.
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Arthur Conan Doyle (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British doctor and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who appeared in four novels and fifty-six short stories and became one of the most well-known characters in literature. Besides Holmes, Doyle wrote more than 200 stories and articles, four poetry books, plays, and notable science fiction, including The Lost World (1912) with the cranky Professor Challenger. He was knighted by King Edward VII in the 1902 Coronation Honours and received many other awards throughout his life.
Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, where he published some of his earliest fiction as a student. Before starting a medical practice in Portsmouth, he was a ship's doctor on two sea voyages, which improved his observational skills and directly inspired works such as the short story 'J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement' (1884), which highlighted the mystery of the Mary Celeste. His Portsmouth practice struggled financially, and during idle times, he wrote the first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. The later short story 'A Scandal in Bohemia' (1891) began a popular series of Holmes tales in The Strand Magazine, making Doyle one of the most famous and well-paid authors of his time.
Doyle had mixed feelings about his most famous character. Believing that Holmes overshadowed his more serious literary work, he killed the detective in 'The Final Problem' (1893) by sending him over the Reichenbach Falls with his enemy, Professor Moriarty. The public reacted strongly, reportedly mourning in the streets of London. Doyle eventually gave in and resumed writing Holmes stories with The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901), continuing until 1927. He also found success with his humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard.
Beyond fiction, Doyle was actively involved in public and political life. He ran for Parliament twice without success and strongly supported compulsory vaccination, British involvement in the Second Boer War, and reform of the Congo Free State. He served as a doctor during the Boer War, earning the Queen's South Africa Medal (1901). He was a passionate advocate for justice and personally investigated two wrongful conviction cases, helping exonerate George Edalji and Oscar Slater. Later in life, Doyle became a highly public advocate for Spiritualism, lecturing and writing extensively on the subject until his death at Windlesham Manor on 7 July 1930. He was married twice, first to Louisa Hawkins and later to Jean Elizabeth Leckie.
Before Fame
Arthur Conan Doyle was born into a Catholic Irish family in Edinburgh in 1859, and he went to school at Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall and Stonyhurst College in England, and the Stella Matutina school in Austria. Even though his family included talented illustrators and painters, Doyle chose a more practical career and studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. Here, he met Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon known for his keen ability to deduce details from small clues, who became the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.
To support his studies and later add to his income from his struggling medical practice in Portsmouth, Doyle began writing short stories. His first pieces were published in magazines in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and two trips as a ship's surgeon provided him with experiences and uninterrupted time to write. These years of financial struggle, medical training, and extensive reading laid the groundwork for his writing career, which took off with the 1887 publication of A Study in Scarlet, quickly leading to his rise to literary fame in the early 1890s.
Key Achievements
- Created the Sherlock Holmes canon of 56 short stories and 4 novels, fundamentally shaping the detective fiction genre
- Authored The Lost World (1912), which established conventions for the lost world subgenre of speculative fiction
- Personally investigated and helped overturn the wrongful convictions of George Edalji and Oscar Slater
- Knighted by King Edward VII in the 1902 Coronation Honours and awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal (1901) for service during the Boer War
- Wrote a comprehensive history of the Second Boer War and later a multi-volume history of the British campaign in World War One
Did You Know?
- 01.Doyle based the deductive methods of Sherlock Holmes directly on his Edinburgh professor Dr. Joseph Bell, who could reportedly diagnose a patient's occupation and history from a brief observation.
- 02.When Doyle killed Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls in 1893, he received so many angry letters from readers that he later claimed his mother scolded him for it; some readers wore black armbands in public mourning.
- 03.Doyle's 1884 short story 'J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement' about the Mary Celeste was so convincing that the American consul in Gibraltar initially believed it was a factual account and launched an inquiry.
- 04.Despite creating one of fiction's most celebrated rationalists, Doyle spent the last decade of his life as an earnest believer in Spiritualism and was famously deceived by the Cottingley Fairies photographs in 1917.
- 05.Doyle served as an army physician during the Second Boer War in a field hospital in Bloemfontein and wrote a history of the campaign, which he believed contributed more to his knighthood than his literary work.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Knight of Grace of the Order of Saint John | 1903 | — |
| Queen's South Africa Medal | 1901 | — |
| Order of the Medjidie | 1907 | — |
| Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy | 1895 | — |
| Knight Bachelor | 1902 | — |