Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL was a Scottish writer and physician, most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.He was much more than the originator of modern detective literature. He was a man of many talents and pursuits: a medical doctor, multi-talented sportsman, prolific and excellent storyteller, keen patriot and a staunch imperialist, as well as a campaigner against miscarriages of justice.

     Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland in 1859. he Doyle family was a large one—Arthur was one of ten children, seven of whom survived to maturity—and life was difficult for his mother, who struggled to bring up the children on the income of some £240 a year provided by her husband Charles, who pursued an unambitious life as a civil servant. Charles Altamont Doyle was the youngest son of John Doyle, the caricaturist 'H.B.'. His brothers had all made something of a name for themselves: James wrote The Chronicles of England; Henry became manager of the National Gallery in Dublin; and Richard became famous as an artist, most well-known, perhaps, for his cover design for Punch.

             Conan Doyle's education took place at home and in a local Edinburgh school until, at the age of nine, he was sent to the Jesuit preparatory school of Hodder in Lancashire. Hodder was attached to the Jesuit secondary school of Stonyhurst, and it was to the latter that Conan Doyle moved two years later. The time spent at Stonyhurst was not a particularly happy one, although the records show that the young Doyle was a better than average performer. The spartan surroundings and the Jesuit discipline did not appeal to the young ACD, and it appears that he experienced his fair share of corporal punishment. Fortunately, Conan Doyle's mother struggled to meet the expense of his education at Stonyhurst, rather than dedicate the boy's life to the Jesuits in return for a free education.

Arthur's parents, Mary Foley Doyle and Charles Altamont Doyle, had moved to Scotland from London, hoping that Charles could advance his career in architecture. Having inherited some measure of his family's artistic talent, Charles began with every hope of success, but never realized his dreams. Plagued by depression and alcoholism, Charles was a distant father and husband, becoming so detached from reality that he ended life in an asylum. With considerable charity, his son Arthur later said of him, "My father's life was full of the tragedy of unfulfilled powers and of underdeveloped gifts."

As the only active parent, Mary Doyle had a strong influence on Arthur, the eldest surviving son of seven children, instilling in him a love of chivalric romances and a firm belief in the English code of honor. She made the boy memorize and recite his family's genealogy, ancestor by ancestor. When left to himself, Arthur loved to read American "wild west" adventure stories, especially those of Bret Harte and Thomas Mayne Reid, an Irish immigrant to the U.S. who wrote The Scalp Hunters (1851), young Arthur's favorite book. As an adult, Conan Doyle felt that the highest vocation he could pursue as a writer was to create well-researched historical romances idealizing British history. 

Among other works published early in Doyle's career were Beyond the City (1892), a short novel of modern city life; The Great Shadow (1892), a historical novel of the Napoleonic period; The Refugees (1893), a historical novel about French Huguenots; and The Stark Munro Letters(1894), an autobiographical (having to do with one's life) novel. In 1896 he issued one of his best-known historical novels, Rodney Stone, which was followed by another historical novel, Uncle Bernac (1897); a collection of poems, Songs of Action (1898); and two less popular novels,The Tragedy of Korosko (1898) and A Duet (1899).

 Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in 'A Study of Scarlet', published in 'Beeton's Christmas Annual' in 1887. Its success encouraged Conan Doyle to write more stories involving Holmes but, in 1893, Conan Doyle killed off Holmes, hoping to concentrate on more serious writing. A public outcry later made him resurrect Holmes. In addition, Conan Doyle wrote a number of other novels, including 'The Lost World' and various non-fictional works. These included a pamphlet justifying Britain's involvement in the Boer War, for which he was knighted and histories of the Boer War and World War One, in which his son, brother and two of his nephews were killed. Conan Doyle also twice ran unsuccessfully for parliament. In later life he became very interested in spiritualism.


Conan Doyle died of a heart attack on 7 July 1930.