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Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, best known today as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition to his stories about the world’s most famous detective, Conan Doyle was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and writings on spiritualism. |
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He originally set out to be a doctor. From 1876 to 1881, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In 1882, Doyle established his own medical practice in the community of Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth, England.
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However, his early medical practice was not very successful, so he wrote fiction to supplement his income.
His first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887. |
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Conan Doyle modeled the character of Holmes in part on one of his former medical school professors, Dr. Joseph Bell.
Dr. Bell had the ability to identify a patient’s occupation, background, and many other details just by looking at him or her. |
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The second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, followed in 1890. But Holmes really took off when Conan Doyle hit upon the idea of a series of stories about the same character to run each month in a magazine. This had never been done before.
Conan Doyle pitched the idea to a new publication, The Strand Magazine, shortly after it began in 1891. The Strand initially published the first twelve Sherlock Holmes, which later appeared in book form as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). They were an immediate hit with the public. The Strand ordered more stories – and then wanted still more. |
At the end of the second set of stories, published as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893), Holmes’s friend, Dr. John H. Watson, related in “The Final Problem” how the detective appeared to have died at the hands of a criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarty.
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Holmes came back, however, in perhaps his most famous adventure of all – The Hound of the Baskervilles that ran in The Strand from 1901-1902. Three more books followed. In all, Conan Doyle wrote fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Sherlock Holmes over a forty-year period ending in 1927.
Conan Doyle wrote nearly 200 novels, short stories, poems, historical books and pamphlets, including The Lost World (1912) and The White Company (1891). He was knighted by Queen Victoria of England in 1902. |
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died of a heart attack in 1930, at age of 71. He is buried in the churchyard at Minstead in the New Forest, Hampshire, England, beneath a tombstone that reads in part:
STEEL TRUE BLADE STRAIGHT ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE KNIGHT PATRIOT, PHYSICIAN, & MAN OF LETTERS |
A detailed biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be found on The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Society’s website:
https://www.arthurconandoyle.com/biography.html
and The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia's website:
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Biography
https://www.arthurconandoyle.com/biography.html
and The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia's website:
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Biography
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Sherlock Holmes
by Philip K. Wilson, the Encyclopedia Britannica Sherlock Holmes, fictional character was created by the Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The prototype for the modern mastermind detective, Holmes first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887. |
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As the world’s first and only “consulting detective,” he pursued criminals throughout Victorian and Edwardian London, the south of England, and continental Europe. Although the fictional detective had been anticipated by Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin and Émile Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq, Holmes made a singular impact upon the popular imagination and has been the most enduring character of the detective story.
Conan Doyle modeled Holmes’s methods and mannerisms on those of Dr. Joseph Bell, who had been his professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In particular, Holmes’s uncanny ability to gather evidence based upon his honed skills of observation and deductive reasoning paralleled Bell’s method of diagnosing a patient’s disease.
Conan Doyle modeled Holmes’s methods and mannerisms on those of Dr. Joseph Bell, who had been his professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In particular, Holmes’s uncanny ability to gather evidence based upon his honed skills of observation and deductive reasoning paralleled Bell’s method of diagnosing a patient’s disease.
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Holmes offered some insight into his method, claiming that “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” His detecting abilities become clear, though no less amazing, when explained by his companion, Dr. John H. Watson, who recounts the criminal cases they jointly pursue.
Although Holmes rebuffs praise, declaring his abilities to be “elementary,” the oft-quoted phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson,” never actually appears in Conan Doyle’s writings. |
Watson’s narrations describe Holmes as a very complex and moody character who, although of strict habit, is considerably untidy. His London abode at 221B, Baker Street, is tended by his housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson.
Holmes appears to undergo bouts of mania and depression, the latter of which are accompanied by pipe smoking, violin playing, and cocaine use.
Throughout the four novels and 56 short stories featuring Holmes, a number of characters recur, including the bumbling Scotland Yard inspector Lestrade; the group of “street Arabs” known as the Baker Street Irregulars, who are routinely employed by Holmes as informers; his even wiser but less ambitious brother, Mycroft; and, most notably, his formidable opponent, Professor James Moriarty, whom Holmes considers the “Napoleon of crime.”
Holmes appears to undergo bouts of mania and depression, the latter of which are accompanied by pipe smoking, violin playing, and cocaine use.
Throughout the four novels and 56 short stories featuring Holmes, a number of characters recur, including the bumbling Scotland Yard inspector Lestrade; the group of “street Arabs” known as the Baker Street Irregulars, who are routinely employed by Holmes as informers; his even wiser but less ambitious brother, Mycroft; and, most notably, his formidable opponent, Professor James Moriarty, whom Holmes considers the “Napoleon of crime.”
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Claiming that Holmes distracted him “from better things,” Conan Doyle famously in 1893 (“The Final Problem”) attempted to kill him off; during a violent struggle on Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls, both Holmes and his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, are plunged over the edge of the precipice.
Popular outcry against the demise of Holmes was great; men allegedly wore black mourning bands, the British royal family was distraught, and more than 20,000 readers cancelled their subscriptions to the popular Strand Magazine, in which Holmes regularly appeared. By popular demand, Conan Doyle resurrected his detective in the story “The Adventure of the Empty House” (1903). |
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Holmes remained a popular figure into the 21st century. Among the most popular stories in which he is featured are “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (1892), “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (1892), “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” (1904), and the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902).
Holmes’s character has been translated to other media as well, and he is widely known on both stage and screen. The earliest actor to have essayed the role is William Gillette (a founding member of the New York Holmes society still known as the Baker Street Irregulars), who gave several popular theatrical portrayals at the turn of the 20th century. |
Those who appeared as Holmes on-screen include Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey, Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller.
Ironically, two of the emblems of Holmes, his meerschaum pipe and deerstalker hat, are not original to Conan Doyle’s writings.
Ironically, two of the emblems of Holmes, his meerschaum pipe and deerstalker hat, are not original to Conan Doyle’s writings.
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Gillette introduced the curved meerschaum pipe (it is thought to have been easier on the actor’s jaw during a long performance), and Sidney Paget the deerstalker (or “fore-and-aft”) cap—it was de rigueur for country living—in more than one illustration for The Strand of Holmes at work on his investigations in the country.
In addition to myriad translations of the Holmes adventures throughout the world, a genre of parodies and pastiches has developed based upon the Sherlock Holmes character. An entire collection of more scholarly “higher criticism” of Conan Doyle’s writings was initiated by Ronald Knox’s “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” (1912). |
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Subsequent higher criticism is epitomized by the work appearing in The Baker Street Journal (begun 1946), published by the Baker Street Irregulars.
Holmes devotees, known as Sherlockians or Holmesians, frequently gather in societies around the world to pay tribute to the master detective with a cultist fervour. The most established of these societies are the invitation-only Baker Street Irregulars, founded in 1934, and the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, founded in 1951 and open to anyone. |
The latter, which publishes The Sherlock Holmes Journal, traces its origins to the Sherlock Holmes Society that was formed in London in 1934 and counted among its members the scholar and writer Dorothy L. Sayers; it had ceased its activities by the 1940s.
You can discover more about Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia at:
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Sir_Arthur_Conan_Doyle:Sherlock_Holmes
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Sir_Arthur_Conan_Doyle:Sherlock_Holmes