More popularly remembered as the creator of the legendary detective, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle led a life as varied and interesting as the literary canvas that he painted.
Born in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859 to Mary and Charles Altamont Doyle, he was one of 10 children. It was a large family and bringing up the children on £240 a year, that her husband Charles earned, was a difficult task for Mary. Charles Doyle was a civil servant and the youngest son of John Doyle, a famous caricaturist. All his brothers were in some way, famous. Among his brothers, James wrote The Chronicles of England. Henry was the manager of the National Gallery in Dublin and Richard was a famous artist, best known for his cover design of Punch magazine. Charles, who also had artistic talents, never really put them to use and lost his post at the office of works in Edinburgh. He was epileptic and his attacks grew worse as he lapsed into alcoholism and was institutionalized till his death, in 1893.
His father’s alcoholism affected Arthur deeply and even in his fiction, alcoholism was always dealt with severely. Conan Doyle was educated first at home and then at a local school in Edinburgh. As a child, his Irish mother told him tales steeped in history. When Arthur turned nine, his wealthy uncles sent him to the Jesuit Preparatory School of Hodder in Lancashire. Two years thereafter, he moved to a sister institution, Stonyhurst, a Jesuit secondary school. He used to write long letters to his mother who he called ‘the ma’am’, from school. He was a good student but did not enjoy the time spent at Stonyhurst. He later wrote, "Corporal punishment was severe and I can speak with feeling as I think few, if any, boys of my time endured more of it."
As a lonely student at Stonyhurst, he came to realize that he had a ‘literary streak’. It was here that this teller of tales first started telling stories. "On a wet half-holiday", he once told an interviewer, "I have been elevated on to a desk, and with an audience of little boys all squatting on the floor, with their chins upon their hands, I have talked myself husky over the misfortunes of my heroes. Week in and week out, those unhappy men have battled and striven and groaned for the amusement of that little circle." He was too young to enter a course of professional training when he finished schooling at 16. So, he was sent to a Jesuit school in Feldkirch, Austria for another year of schooling. The time spent there was much happier. He enjoyed the beauty of the place, learned to play the Tuba, participated actively in sports and also did a lot of reading. One of the books that he came across at this time – Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe influenced him greatly. On his return from Austria, he found that the family affairs were as strained as ever. His father’s condition had deteriorated and Charles Doyle was put into a lunatic asylum. He also found that his mother had started taking-in lodgers to support the family. The time had come for young Arthur to choose the career of his choice.
Dr Bryan Charles Waller came to Argyle Park Terrace where the Doyle family lived, as a lodger. He was six years older to Arthur and practised medicine.
He also published poetry. It was probably Waller who influenced Conan Doyle’s choice of medicine as a career. With Waller’s help Conan did well in his entrance examination and won a £40 bursary. But when he went to collect his prize, he was told that it had been given to another student, for the prize was for the study of the arts and not sciences. It was impossible at that late date to institute a corresponding science prize. Studies at Edinburgh began for him on this not so cheerful note. The medical faculty was constituted of eminent people like Dr James Young Simpson, a pioneer in the use of chloroform and Baron Joseph Lister, who with his radical (though not universally accepted) theory of antiseptics, held the chair of Clinical Surgery. But the one who made the deepest impression on Arthur was Dr Joseph Bell. Dr Bell chose him as an assistant in his ward, giving Arthur a chance to observe his unconventional methods of work. It was the amazing deductive skills of Dr Bell, correlating to his patient’s histories that went into the making of Sherlock Holmes.
Whilst in the Edinburgh Medical School, he took jobs as a medical assistant to help his mother run the house. He compressed the study of a year into six months, leaving half the year free to work as a medical assistant. The first of the positions that he took up was with Dr Richardson of Sheffield with whom he parted ‘by mutual consent’ in just three weeks. He then worked for Dr Elliot of Shropshire and fared much better. He did not have much in the way of duties and spent most of his time reading. His position with Dr Reginald Hoare of Birmingham brought him £2 a month and his position in the Hoare household was ‘soon rather that of a son than of an assistant’. The three clerkships that he spent with Dr Hoare not only cultivated his medical skills but also fueled his passion for literature. It was during his second clerkship with Dr Hoare that Conan tried his hand at fiction, learning that it could fetch him money.
A prominent magazine in Edinburgh called Chamber’s Journal accepted his first story, The Mystery of Sasassa Valley. Knowing that he had once 'struck gold' by the publishing of his manuscript, he was encouraged to write more. A number of stories followed and so did rejection notices. Writing, for the hard-up Conan Doyle seemed more to be a business than a calling but he felt a sense of satisfaction when his second story The American’s Tale was published in London Society by James Hogg.
Hogg advised him to give up medicine to pursue a literary career. After having written the first of his literary output in styles borrowed from his favorite authors, he gained confidence and started drawing onto his own experiences as a medical student. It was when he began to turn inward for inspiration that the influence of Joseph Bell and his science of deduction asserted itself. He said of Dr Bell, "I had the advantage of studying under a professor at Edinburgh, who was a master of the art, and used to electrify both his patients and his clinical classes by long shots, sometimes at most unlikely of pursuits, and never very far from the mark." The famous detective though, did not appear till a few years later. The other stories he wrote did not sell. Writing however, did not give him as much money as he desired and when he returned to Edinburgh for his third year of study, his financial prospects were no better than before.
A fellow student at the University named Currie, informed him that he knew of a position available that he might like. Arthur Conan Doyle had just completed his third year of medical studies when he signed on as ship's surgeon of the Greenland whaler Hope. It was a position offered by the African Steam Navigation Company. He sailed for the Arctic on board the Hope as the ship’s doctor in the afternoon on February 28, 1880. The plan was to spend two months hunting seals off the coast of Greenland and then head north to look for whales. Whale oil was used to make soap and lubricants. The baleen, long and bony plates in the whale's mouth, were used to make many things including kitchen utensils and corset stays. One of the items that Conan Doyle brought along on the voyage was a set of boxing gloves. He had taken up the sport in Edinburgh as an exercise. Jack Lamb, the ship's steward, noticed the gloves as Conan Doyle was stowing his gear. Lamb immediately challenged Conan Doyle to a boxing bout. After the match was finished Lamb was quoted as saying, "So help me, he's the best surgeon we've had! He's blackened my eye!"
During the voyage, Conan Doyle was rarely called upon to use his medical skills. Instead his primary functions proved to be breaking up fights between the other crew members and keeping John Gray, the captain of the ship, company.
Just three weeks into the voyage, he fell seriously ill with malaria, the symptoms of which he had been treating in some of his charges. They sailed to West Africa on the Mayumba. The ship stopped at many ports where Conan Doyle met various colonials. His health had got better by the time the ship reached Liberia, where he spent some time with Henry Highland Garnet, the American Consul there who Conan Doyle called ‘the most intelligent and well-read man’ that he had met on the coast. He influenced Conan Doyle greatly and expanded his horizons.
Conan Doyle's life was in danger several times during the voyage. Once when he was taking part in a seal hunt on the ice flows he accidentally stepped off of the ice and fell into the freezing water. No one had seen him fall and he was initially unable to pull himself out. Luckily he remembered the seal carcass that he'd been working on before he fell. He reached out of the water and managed to grab the seal's flipper. By using the seal's body as leverage Conan Doyle pulled himself out of the water. In another instance Conan Doyle was on the lancing boat, the boat charged with killing the whale once it had been harpooned, when the wounded animal brought its side fin out of the water and poised it over the boat. The six men on the boat, including Conan Doyle, realized that should the huge fin be brought down on top of them their boat would be sunk. Luckily they managed to maneuver the boat out of harm's way before they were injured.
On the journey back, one of the coal bunkers caught fire and the ship was kept from blowing up into flames only by the bravery of the crew who fought the fire for four days, bringing it safely into the harbor at Liverpool in September of 1880. Of that time Conan Doyle would later say, "I came of age in 80 degrees north latitude." He had had enough of Africa and quit the African Steam Navigation Company.
When he returned to his studies in the autumn of 1881, he was no longer the gawky teenager that he had been when he left. "I went on board the whaler a big, straggling youth", he later said, "I came off a powerful, well-grown man." His experiences at sea had brought in him a change, which was not so apparent then. In the words of Daniel Stashower - ‘Edinburgh was no longer big enough to hold him.’
In August 1881, he received his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery qualifications. He did not achieve any great distinction but was elated. He drew a sketch of himself waving his diploma and the caption read - licensed to kill.
Before he could claim the title of Doctor, he had to gain experience from actual practice. Having no money, he could neither set up his own practice nor could he buy into another established one. He served another brief apprenticeship with Dr Hoare and applied for several hospital posts. While he was considering his future prospects, a letter arrived from his Aunt Annette, the sister of his successful uncles: Henry, James, Richard and his not so successful father. The letter said that his uncles wanted to discuss his future with him.
They had never thought much of his drunken father but they saw promise in their nephew Arthur. His uncles had money and the influence that went with it, and he realized that this could very well be the chance that he needed and deserved.
He traveled to London and after the pleasantries, which for him were quite uncomfortable, the conversation was turned to the offer that his rich relatives had to make him. The offer was that, when he had set himself up in the place, where he wanted to practice, the family would use its influence and put him in touch with their social peers. They would not offer any financial assistance but the prestige that they offered would be of greater value to him in a longer run and he would be able to build up a profitable practice.
The young doctor thanked his uncles for their generosity but there was a hitch. The family was devoutly Catholic and their introductions would also be to other well-to-do Catholic families and the members of the clergy. He felt that accepting their patronage would be hypocrisy because he considered himself an agnostic. He felt that he had to take a stand against his uncles. There was no way he could carry out such a deception. His mother could have persuaded him to return to the fold but she respected his convictions and the way he expressed them. His favorite uncle Richard tried to make him change his mind but he would not budge and when he left London his relatives were left despairing of him.
The next year his Uncle Richard made a gesture of reconciliation. Before he died, he sent his nephew Arthur letters of introduction, which he destroyed in spite of the fact that he needed them badly.
A number of things were responsible for his loss of faith. His unhappy religious schooling and his scientific training added to this change, which led to his spiritual unfolding. The void created by this, was something that he tried filling for the rest of his life and probably led to the spiritual crusade to which he devoted the last years of his life.
In 1882, Dr George Turnavine Budd, whom he had first met when they were students in Edinburgh, invited him to become a partner in his medical practice at Plymouth. It was an unsuccessful venture and the turbulent relationship ended with Conan Doyle’s moving to Southsea. It was at Southsea, that he expanded his literary activities and created Sherlock Holmes, who first appeared in A Study in Scarlet, which was published in Becton’s Christmas Annual in 1887.
When he first arrived at Southsea, he did not have much money and had to struggle very hard. He occupied a three-storey brick house in Em Grove, called Bush Villas. He was able to rent it for £ 40 a year. After solving the problem of housing, he went to town and came back to the unfurnished eight room house with three pounds worth furniture for the consulting room, a bed, a tin of corned beef and two enormous brass plates with his name on it.
He led a difficult life, having barely enough to eat and cleaning up his doorstep and name plaque, early in the morning when none of his patients could see him. The solitary Arthur took to sports, something he had always enjoyed. His 10-year-old younger brother Innes joined him. Innes studied at the local school and took over the plaque-polishing and step-brushing duties of Bush Villas. His practice staggered on. He treated a victim of a riding accident that took place at his doorstep and placed a self-flattering account of it in the local newspaper. He treated a baby for measles and then gave the startled but grateful parents the change he had in his pocket.
The next year he began to let out rooms in exchange for housekeeping services. His mother and his Aunt Annette sent him decorative bric-a-brac, lending his establishment a more civilized air
More patients came to him but he earned only £ 154 that year. He fared better the next year with £ 250. At the end of the third year his practice brought him £ 300.
The struggling doctor wrote stories while he waited for his patients to arrive, a few of which were even published. He became a member of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society, and gave a number of lectures there, though he had to overcome a serious case of nerves before he delivered his speech.
His efforts at self-promotion succeeded. Dr William Pike who was also a member of the Southsea club like Conan Doyle began to refer patients to him. He became a consultant to the Gresham Life Insurance Company and Dr Pike even sought his advice on a case involving a man named John Hawkins in 1885. Hawkins who had arrived in town just a few months ago and did not have anywhere to live because no one would keep him and his mother and elder sister once the illness reached its final stage. He offered to fix up a room in his house and keep him as a resident patient. But his health declined and Hawkins died within a few days.
Life went on in this manner. He went on to write Micah Clarke and received a commission from Lippincot’s Magazine to write The Sign of Four.
He later got married to Louise Hawkins, John Hawkins’ sister whom he called ‘Touie’. His wife’s constant poor health led to a number of domestic upheavals in the following years. A year after his marriage, he became interested in psychic studies, on which he had attended meetings in Southsea.
During this time his mother and sisters moved to Masongill Cottage near Yorkshire, which belonged to the estate of Bryan Waller. Waller also moved there, to the family Manor that he had inherited on his father’s death five years earlier. This was the place where Conan’s mother lived for the next 30 years. Even Conan Doyle’s wedding took place at his house.
Conan received his doctorate in medicine in 1885 and was now an MD. His days of struggle were over. His literary output increased and his work appeared regularly in magazines.
After a few years, he realized that he needed a change and in 1890 went to Vienna to study Ophthalmology. By the spring of the next year the Doyles were back in London. They took up rooms at Montague Place and he set up his practice in 2 Upper Wimpole Street. There were no patients however and he devoted his time to writing.
Around the same time, the Strand magazine came up and he revived Sherlock Holmes in a series of adventures that appeared in it. The first of these was A Scandal in Bohemia. While he was busy writing the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, he became increasingly anxious that he should be writing books that would make him a lasting name in literature.
By November 1891, he was thinking of killing Holmes. "I think of slaying Holmes…. and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things", he wrote to his mother.
This idea stayed with him for a while and it was when he went to Switzerland and saw the Reichenbach Falls that he found the location for the fatal struggle between Holmes and Professor Moriarty.
The Final Problem, the adventure where Holmes is apparently killed, horrified the reading public when it appeared in the Strand in December 1893.
His wife, who had already given him a child and had grown weak since the second pregnancy, was diagnosed with severe tuberculosis. He was surprised and alarmed. He knew that their completely disorganized life was responsible for this. They went to Egypt as he felt that spending the winter there might effect a cure.
While they were in Egypt, fighting broke out between the British and the Dervishes and Conan Doyle became the honorary war correspondent for The Westminster Gazette. This gave him the experience that would be useful to him in war reporting in the time to come.
A short while after they returned to England, they moved to a house at Hindhead in Surrey that he had built. They believed that the air there would suit Touie. He went on producing his stories and also wrote a novel.
Late in the December of 1899, he attempted to enlist with the Middlesex Yeomanry when the problems in South Africa began. He was placed on a waiting list. At the same time, John Langman who was sending a hospital of 50 beds to Africa at his own expense, contacted him and asked him to help choose the personnel and to supervise the outfit in an unofficial capacity. He accepted and the Langman Hospital reached Capetown on March 21. Conan Doyle wrote of the months he spent there: "Our Hospital was no worse off than the others, and as there were many of them the general condition of the town was very bad. Coffins were out of the question, and the men were lowered in their brown blankets into shallow graves at the rate of 60 a day. A sickening smell came from the stricken town. Once when I had ridden out to get an hour or two of change, and was at least six miles from the town, the wind changed and the smell was all around me… Even now if I feel that lowly death smell compounded of disease and disinfectants, my heart would sink within me."
The outbreak of the defamation of Britain’s conduct, which occurred following the war, made him write a pamphlet, The War in South Africa : Its Cause and Conduct.
He was knighted for his contribution during the war but he held that it was this pamphlet, which resulted in his knighthood and also his appointment as Deputy–Lieutenant of Surrey in 1902.
Touie’s death in 1906 brought a period of darkness. It was a period during which he was unable to work. At this time a case where there had been, according to him, a grave miscarriage of justice, came to his notice.
It was the case of George Edalji who had been convicted for cattle maiming. The story went back to 1903. Edalji’s father was a Parsee who turned Christian and had been the Vicar of the parish of Great Wyrley for 30 years. He had married an English woman and the family had become the butt of a number of practical jokes and anonymous letters. The Police Commissioner had thought that it was George who had written the threatening anonymous letters directed at the whole family. A key of the local grammar school was found on the step of the house and the constable wrote to George’s father saying that he knew George to be responsible and that he hoped to give the culprit a dose of penal servitude. This incident which had occurred in 1895 had obviously been kept in mind as a chain of anonymous letters began accusing George of being one of a gang of cattle killers, when there was an outbreak of attacks on cattle and horses in 1903. An investigation was carried out and some dubious evidence was found in the family home. Edalji was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment. Conan Doyle plunged himself into the cause of George Edalji. His articles and investigations aroused the indignation of the country. A committee formed to report on the case was severe on him and did not give him any compensation for his long period of suffering. The Law Society though, felt differently and he was readmitted to their roll of solicitors. The Daily Telegraph began a subscription that raised £ 300 for him.
In 1907, Conan Doyle married Jean Leckie. Having met as early as 1897 and immediately falling in love, they hadmaintained a respectable friendship for the long period through Touie’s illness. In keeping with his beliefs, they had maintained a purely platonic relationship till their marriage.
They moved to Crowborough, Sussex soon after their marriage. The second case of injustice that he got involved in was that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew who had been wrongfully accused of murder. The case was long winded and Slater served an 18-year term of imprisonment till he was released in 1927 and awarded £ 6,000 as compensation. In the end they had a disagreement over the money, which Conan Doyle had expended in Slater’s cause. They never reached a settlement.
Conan Doyle introduced Professor Challenger in The Lost World in 1912 and there were further adventures of his in The Poison Belt, which appeared the following year.
It was at this time that he began to advocate the need for a channel tunnel, a dream that came to fruition just a few years ago. He played an instrumental role in collecting a local voluntary force when World War I broke out in 1914. He also served as a private in the Crowborough Company of the Sixth Royal Sussex Volunteer Regiment. He became a war journalist once more and visited battlefronts and talked to generals.
His explorations into psychic matters left him convinced of the fact that it was a cause worth pursuing. By 1916, he decided that he would devote the last years of his life to the cause of spiritualism. He traveled all over the world promoting spiritualism and even wrote on the subject.
The people, who had lost their loved ones in the war, readily accepted his beliefs, but they brought him into headlong conflict with a large number of people during the last 13 years of his life.
His efforts to spread what he thought to be the most important work of his life proved to be his undoing.
The public was intolerant. "Poor Sherlock Holmes, Hopelessly Crazy", read a headline. In 1922, when he declared the Cottingley Fairy photographs to be genuine, he was accused of credulity. What really happened was that in July 1917, two young Yorkshirewomen played a practical joke which was to have far-reaching consequences. Their photographs of themselves with 'fairies' were accepted as genuine by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and were the subject of speculation for over 60 years, until the two women revealed the truth. They confessed that they had used paper cutouts of fairies and after arranging them with pins, had posed with them and had had the photographs taken. This was a chapter which almost made a mockery of the great writer.
In 1929, he returned to England, exhausted from a tour to Scandinavia. He became weaker and was ill for a long time following a heart attack. He died at home on July 7, 1930, having led a life worth remembering.
"By a man’s finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt- cuffs -- by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable."
-From A Study In Scarlet
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Perhaps the most famous fictional character of all time, Sherlock Holmes is still alive in popular imagination more than a hundred years after he was created. The man who brought to life this legendary detective is however, often overlooked.
The story of Arthur Conan Doyle’s rise from a struggling small town doctor to the most popular of storytellers, is an interesting and inspiring one.
His life, with his adventures on board a whaler; to his stormy relationships and his many crusades, including the last psychic one, that he devoted the later part of his life to; is as exciting as any story that he wrote.
May 22, 1859
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born.
1868
Attended Jesuit educational institution.
1870
Passed the London Matriculation Examination at Stonyhurst.
Studied at Stonyhurst for the next five years. Edited an unofficial school paper.
1876
Passed the London Matriculation Examination at Stonyhurst.
Studied for a year in the Jesuit college at Feldkrich, Austria.
1876-77
Became a student of medicine at Edinburgh University.
1877-80
His first story, The Mystery of Sasassa Valley, was published in Chamber’s Journal on September 6, 1870.
September 20, 1879, first non-fiction work published in the British Medical Journal.
1881
Graduated.
1882
Began the ill-fated partnership with George Turnavine Budd, in Plymouth. Moved to Southsea, Portsmouth, in June. Work published in London Society, All The year Round, The Lancet and The British Journal of Photography.
1883
The Captain of The Polestar published. Worked on The Mystery Of Cloomber.
1884
Published J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement in Cornhill Magazine, The Heiress of Glenmahowley in Temple Bar and The Cabman’s Story in Cassell’s Saturday Journal. Worked on The Firm of Girdlestone.
1885
Published The Man From Archangel in London Society.
Married Louise Hawkins. Was awarded MD.
1886
Wrote A Study in Scarlet.
1887
A Study in Scarlet published in Becton’s Christmas Annual.
1888
The first book edition of A Study In Scarlet published. The Mystery Of Cloomber published.
1889
Micah Clarke published. The Sign of Four commissioned by Lippincott’s.
1891
The first of six Adventures of Sherlock Holmes published in The Strand magazine. The White Company published.
Beyond the City first published in Good Cheer.
1892
January to June - more Sherlock Holmes stories published in The Strand. The Doings of Raffles Ham published.
The Great Shadow published.
The Sign of Four republished by Newnes.
1893
The second series of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes continued to be published in the Strand.
Killed Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem to leave himself free for ‘more serious literary work.’
The Refugees published, Jane Annie or The Good Conduct Prize the musical that he co-wrote with J M Barrie failed at the Savoy Theatre.
1894
Round The Lamp, a collection of medical short stories published.
The Stark Munro Letters, a fictionalized autobiography begun. The Parasite published.
The Medal for Brigadier Gerard published in the Strand.
1895
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard published in the Strand.
1896
Rodney Stone and The Field Bazaar, published.
1897
Uncle Bernac published.
Three Captain Sharkey pirate stories published in Pearson’s Magazine.
1898
The Tragedy of the Korosko published.
Songs of Action, a collection of verse published.
Round the Fire Stories began to be published in the Strand.
His brother–in–law created A J Raffles and in 1899 dedicated the first of these stories to Arthur Conan Doyle.
1899
Concluded the Round The Fire Stories in the Strand.
1900
A collection of short stories, The Green Flag and other stories published.
Was an unsuccessful Liberal Unionist parliamentary candidate for Edinburgh central.
Published A Duet with an Occasional Chorus.
The Croxley Master, a boxing story was published in the Strand.
William Gillettle, starred in Sherlock Holmes, a play that they wrote together.
1901
The Hound of the Baskervilles serialized in the Strand.
1902
The War in South Africa Its cause and conduct, published.
Newnes published The Hound of Baskervilles.
He accepted the knighthood.
1903
Adventures of Brigadier Gerard published by Newnes.
1904
The Return of Sherlock Holmes continued in the Strand.
1905
The Return of Sherlock Holmes published by Newnes.
Sir Nigel serialized in the Strand.
1906
Sir Nigel published as a book.
July 4, his wife Louise, Lady Conan Doyle, died.
1910
The Last Gerard story, The Marriage of the Brigadier published.
1911
The Last Galley published.
1912
The Lost World, the first of the Professor Challenger stories published.
October, Jean Lean Annette Conan Doyle born.
1913
Wrote Great Britain and the Next War.
The Poison Belt, the second challenger story published.
The Dying Detective published in the Strand.
Started campaigning for a channel tunnel.
1914
Visited North America on the invitation of the Canadian Government.
Danger !, which warned about the dangers of a wartime blockade of Britain was published in the Strand.
1914-15
The Valley of Fear began to be serialized in the Strand.
1915
The Valley Of Fear published by George H.
Five Holmes films released in Germany.
1916
The British Campaign in France and Flanders began appearing in the Strand.
A Visit to Three Fronts published.
1917
His Last Bow published in the Strand. His Last Bow published by John Murray.
1918
Proclaimed himself a spiritualist and published The New Revelation.
1920
Engaged in a world–wide crusade for spiritualism, which he stood for till his death in 1930.
1921
The Mazarin Stone published in the Strand.
1921-22
His one–act play, The Crown Diamond toured with Dennis Neilson – with Terry as Holmes.
1922
The Problem of Thor Bridge published in the Strand.
John Murray published a collected edition of all non-Holmes stories in six volumes – Tales of the Ring and Camp, Tales of pirates and Blue water, Tales of Terror and Mystery, Tales of Twilight and the unseen, Tales of Adventure and Medical Life and Tales of Long Ago.
A collected edition of his poems was also published.
1923
The Creeping Man published in the Strand.
1924
The Sussex Vampire appeared in the Strand.
Memories and Adventures published.
1925
The Three Garridebs and The Illustrious Client were published in the Strand from January to March.
The Land of Mist, a spiritualist novel, which featured Captain Challenger began to be serialized in the Strand.
1926
The Land of Mist published. The Three Cables of the Blanched Soldier and The Lion Mane published in the Strand.
1927
The Retired Color Man, The Veiled Lodger and Shescombe Old Place published in Strand.
Murray published The Case - Book of Sherlock Holmes.
1928
Murray published The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories.
1929
The Conan Doyle Stories published.
The Maracot Deep and other Stories, last collection of fiction published.
July, 1930
Died at his home, Windlesham, in Crowborough.
From a poor doctor in the provinces, to being a ship’s surgeon, to playing cricket (even capturing the great W G Grace’s wicket), to introducing cross country skiing in Switzerland, to being a war journalist and writing numerous stories and novels, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle led a life crammed with lots of things to do.
It was at the school that Conan Doyle first realized that he could tell stories and that was what he did best.
His stories about the adventures of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes won him lasting popularity. Sherlock Holmes is remembered today with admiration and awe. His stories are as popular as when they first appeared. He himself was not so fondly remembered, mostly because of the antagonism he faced in his last years due to his psychic crusade.
Whichever of his works we read, be it The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Brigadier Gerard or Professor Challenger; we encounter something of the writer in his writings. Various events in his life are fictionalized in his works. His experiences as a student at the Edinburgh Medical School come out in a story called His First Operation.
His father’s alcoholism and subsequent detention find their way into an early story called The Surgeon of Goster Fell. It is the story of a young surgeon who is supposed to have imprisoned an old man for some cruel experiment. Later in the story, we learn that the prisoner is the surgeon’s father whose mental aberration took a homicidal turn. "It would weary you, were I to describe the terrible experiences which his family have undergone," says the surgeon, "Suffice it that, by the blessing of God, we have succeeded in keeping his poor crazed fingers clear of blood."
His father’s alcoholism had a profound effect on him and the subject is dealt with severely in all his fiction. In his autobiography he simply draws a veil over it. The turmoil and questioning of the years when he left school and had a spiritual shift, appears in the semi-autobiographical The Stark Munro Letters.
Besides Sherlock Holmes, he created other popular fictional heroes like Brigadier Gerard and Captain Challenger. The historical novels The White Company, Sir Nigel, Micah Clarke, Uncle Bernae, The Refugees and The Great Shadow are among the best of his works.
There were also his remarkable short stories written for magazines which include Tales of Adventure and Medical Life, Tales of the Ring and Camp, Tales of Pirates and Blue Water and also Tales of Horror and the Supernatural.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is remembered above all for his talents and for his zeal, and as a man who always spoke for the underdog.
• It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
• When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
• You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifled.
• It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
• Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
• A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
• It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
• London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers of the Empire are irresistibly drained !
• Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
• I have learned never to ridicule any man’s opinion however strange it may seem.
• The world, not the family gets the fruits of genius.
• Is religion the only domain of thought which is non–progressive and to be referred forever to a standard set two thousand years ago? Can they not see that as the human brain evolves it must take a wider outlook? A half–formed brain makes a half–formed God, and who shall say that our brains are even half–formed yet?
