| Arthur Conan Doyle 22nd May 1859 - 7th July 1930
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Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, the son of Charles Altamont Doyle and Mary (Foley) Doyle, both practising Roman Catholics. In order to supplement his income (he was an unsuccessful architect) his father painted and made illustrated books. Doyle attended the Jesuit Stonyhurst College but had abandoned his family’s Catholicism by the time he had completed his medical studies at Edinburgh University. In 1884 he married Louise Hawkins and qualified as a doctor in 1885 after which he practised as an eye specialist near Portsmouth until 1891, when he quit to become a full-time writer. His father died in an asylum in 1893 after being institutionalized for some years.
The first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was written in 1886 over a three week period and published a year later, but by 1891 he had had enough of his famous detective. In 1893 he attempted to kill him off in The Final Problem, but public reaction was such, 20,000 subscriptions to the ‘Strand’ magazine were cancelled, that he was forced to resurrect Holmes in The Empty Room.
Doyle served as a physician during the Boer War, and defended England’s policy in The War in South Africa. As well as the ‘Holmes’ stories he wrote a series of notable historical romances and a series of ‘adventure’ stories featuring Professor Challenger. He was knighted in 1902 and ran unsuccessfully for parliament. His wife, Louise, died in 1906, after a long illness. He married, in 1907, his second wife, Jean Leckie. In later years he turned to spiritualism and devoted much of his energy to promoting and writing on the subject. His last book The Edge of the Unknown (1930) recorded his own psychic experiences.
He died from heart disease on the 7th July, 1930 at his home in Windlesham, Sussex. |
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