Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859, the third of nine children of an Irish Catholic family. Doyle’s father, Charles, was the son of a famous political cartoonist, but Charles never rose beyond the distinction of being a part-time illustrator with a full-time job in the public works office. Charles was also plagued by alcoholism and general instability, and by the time Arthur was twenty-one, his father was institutionalized.
Somehow the financially-pressed family managed to keep Arthur in boarding schools from 1868 onward and to send him to medical school at the prestigious University of Edinburgh. Here, Doyle was particularly impressed by one of his teachers, Joseph Bell, a physician whose observational and diagnostic skills were legendary. Bell’s deductive skills would lend themselves to the detective arena in Doyle’s 1887 novella, A Study in Scarlet, the first Watson and Holmes story.
Between1887 and 1927, Doyle wrote fifty-six short stories and four novellas featuring Sherlock Holmes, most of them serialized in The Strand magazine. These works catapulted Doyle to fame, and have never since gone out of print.
Toward Sherlock, however, Doyle became increasingly ambivalent, feeling the detective kept him from more serious literature. In 1893, Doyle famously “killed” Sherlock by having him fall into a chasm, only to capitulate to popular demand and resurrect his creation in 1903.
Doyle’s ambivalence about the detective genre didn’t stop him, however, from investigating at least two real-life criminal cases himself, arguing in one instance that the alleged perpetrator could not have performed the crime due to his poor eyesight. (One of Doyle’s specialties was ophthalmology.) Doyle also gave Holmes artistic ancestors, like himself.
Doyle was a prolific writer, initially launching his literary career to supplement his meager physician’s income. Doyle’s opus includes adventure stories, horror tales, science fiction, nonfiction, autobiography and historical novels, including the highly successful medieval adventure, The White Company. Another celebrated work was Doyle’s 1912 dinosaur adventure, The Lost World, which—more than eighty years ahead of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park—was made into a silent movie costing over a million dollars, an unprecedented budget for its day.
Arthur Conan Doyle was a man of energy, physical strength, and many enthusiasms. He was an avid sportsman, quick to learn—a “natural” in games ranging from boxing to cricket. He craved adventure, serving as a medical officer on an Arctic whaling ship and afterward on an African steamer. He was passionate about social reform and politics, twice running for Parliament, albeit unsuccessfully. He organized a military hospital during the Boer War, advised his country during World War I, predicted the importance of submarine warfare, and conceived a plan for a tunnel connecting Britain and Europe, anticipating the “Chunnel” by almost nine decades.
Doyle’s home life included two marriages. His first wife died of tuberculosis in 1906. He had five children, one of whom died of influenza after World War I.
In his later years, Doyle became increasingly interested in spiritualism, sacrificing much of his public stature and fortune in his championship of mediums, fairies, and the supernatural—an ironic final chapter for the creator of the supremely rational Holmes.
Following a heart attack, Doyle died in Sussex on July 7, 1930. Doyle’s tombstone reads, “Knight…Patriot, Physician, & Man of Letters.” No mention of Sherlock Holmes!
For more information about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate
The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Society
Rare Interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
