Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Tuesday, May 22nd by carlaSir Arthur Conan Doyle was born May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
His medical practice was not demanding, and he filled his extra time by writing. He published the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887.
Readers were delighted with the arrogant, brilliant detective who notices small details and uses deductive logic to arrive at conclusions. Conan Doyle acknowledged two influences in the creation of the character: a medical professor, Dr. Joseph Bell; and Edgar Allan Poe’s protagonist in “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” C. Auguste Dupin.
Conan Doyle also created Dr. John Watson, Holmes’ friend who always either misses the clue or misinterprets it. “221B Baker Street” in London became famous as the location of Holmes’s apartment. Other minor characters, such as Inspector Lestrade and the Baker Street Irregulars, appear in multiple stories. A Sherlock Holmes action figure–if they’d had them back then–would have carried both a pipe and a magnifying glass. (Violin sold separately.) Holmes never wore a deerstalker hat, the hat he is famous for, in any of the stories.
In 1893 Conan Doyle wrote “The Final Problem.” He intended it to be the last Sherlock Holmes story, and it concludes as Holmes and his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, tumble over the edge into Reichenbach Falls. Readers objected mightily, however, and Conan Doyle figured out a way to bring him back in “The Adventure of the Empty House.” The Hound of the Baskervilles is widely considered the best of Holmes tales. It was first published in monthly installments in The Strand magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, then published as a book in 1902.
Conan Doyle wrote 4 novels and 56 stories starring his popular detective, including “The Red-Headed League,” “The Second Stain,” “The Copper Beeches,” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” He wrote other fiction and nonfiction works, too, but history will record his contribution to literature as the stories of Sherlock Holmes.
