Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British writer and doctor, famous as the creator of the most celebrated detective in the history of fiction, Sherlock Holmes.

Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh and educated at Stonyhurst College and the University of Edinburgh. During his studies he took various minor assistantships, and served as ship's doctor on a Greenland whaling boat. From 1882 to 1890 he practised medicine in Southsea, England, where he met and married his first wife, Louise Hawkins. In 1885 he was awarded a doctorate from Edinburgh for his dissertation on syphilis. While at Southsea, he began to send short stories to magazine editors, and his first published story, “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley” (1879), was accepted by Chambers's Journal. In 1887 his novel A Study in Scarlet appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual, and introduced readers to Sherlock Holmes, a detective who, with his ingenious skill of deductive reasoning, was based on Dr Joseph Bell, one of Conan Doyle's university professors. Narrated by Holmes's companion, Dr John Watson, it is a tale of a transatlantic revenge-killing. A sequel, The Sign of the Four, was published in 1890. The following year, Conan Doyle began a cycle of Holmes tales in the Strand magazine, the first time that any writer had used a pair of recurring characters to link a series of stories. He moved to London, intending to practise as an eye specialist, but soon opted to pursue his literary career full time.

Despite the success of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Conan Doyle was never comfortable with the popularity of his hero. While he wanted to devote his time to writing historical romances such as Micah Clarke (1889), The White Company (1891), and his play, The Story of Waterloo (1894), the public clamoured for more detective fiction. In 1893 he attempted to resolve this problem by sending Holmes plunging to his death at the Reichenbach Falls, locked in the arms of his arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty. Conan Doyle was persuaded to revive Holmes for a novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles which was first published in serial form in the Strand magazine in 1901-1902, and then, in a further series of short stories, revealed that the encounter at Reichenbach had been fatal only for Moriarty. Between 1908 and 1927 he continued to produce occasional Holmes adventures, and another novel, The Valley of Fear (1915). The final collection of stories was prefaced by his remark: “I fear that Mr Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors, who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences.” Conan Doyle was proud that Holmes's methods had influenced contemporary police practice and, in 1907, turned detective himself to clear the name of George Edalji, who in 1903 had been wrongly convicted of cattle-maiming.

Conan Doyle's prolific output of magazine fiction produced some other memorable characters. A cycle of stories involving a Napoleonic adventurer, Brigadier Gerard, appeared in the Strand from 1895. The Lost World (1912) introduced the irascible Professor Edward Challenger, and told of his encounter with dinosaurs and primitive humans on a South American plateau. Four more Challenger stories followed.

Conan Doyle served in the South African War (Boer War) as a doctor, and on his return to England wrote The Great Boer War (1900) and The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Conduct (1902), justifying England's participation. For these works he was knighted in 1902. In 1906 he was defeated as the parliamentary candidate for Hawick District, standing as a Unionist (Conservative). During World War I he wrote the History of the British Campaign in France and Flanders (6 vols., 1916-1920) as a tribute to British bravery. Conan Doyle had long been an advocate of spiritualism, but the death of his eldest son in the war intensified his interest in such matters. He lectured and published extensively on the subject, became a leading member of the Psychical Research Society, and in The Land of Mist (1926), converted Professor Challenger to its doctrines. He was a victim of a famous hoax involving photographs of fairies, produced in 1921 by two young girls from Cottingley, England. His autobiography, Memories and Adventures (1924), relates his military exploits, his psychic beliefs, and his meetings with literary figures of the period, including Oscar Wilde and George Meredith.