Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Biography 

• About the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• Birth, family and first studies

• Higher education

• First stories

• Transition to letters

• Doyle's Love-Hate Relationship with Sherlock Holmes

• The Holmesian Canon

About the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Birth, family and first studies

Son of artists Charles A. Doyle and Mary Foley, Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. He was born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He grew up in the care of a wealthy, conservative-minded Catholic family. Accordingly, young Arthur attended Jesuit schools in England (primary and part of secondary) and Austria (high school).

Higher education

In 1876 Doyle began his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh. he stood out for his qualifications and in various sports (boxing, rugby, cricket golf)… In the same way in that study house he became a student of the renowned forensic doctor Joseph Bell, who impressed the young Arthur with the precision of his deductive processes.

First stories

Bell had a crucial influence on the construction of the character that gave Doyle literary fame: Sherlock Holmes. Equally, The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley (1879) short story published in the Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, he played his debut. The following year, he completed his surgeon training aboard the whaling ship De Hoop, in the Arctic.

He later boarded the SS Mayumba, a ship that traveled much of the West African coast. These voyages inspired stories such as Statement of J. Habakuk Jephson (1884), The Captain of the Pole Star (1890). In 1889, he obtained his doctorate thanks to his thesis Dorsale tabes.

Transition to letters

In 1882, Doyle was trying to live off the drugs in the office of his old classmate, George T. Budd. However, like his later offices in Portsmouth and London, this initiative was unsuccessful. Therefore, he began writing more frequently, including, The Cloomber Mystery (1888), Studeer in Scarlet (1887), the first starring Holmes.

 

In addition, Conan Doyle had time to devote himself to playing golf, football (he was a Portsmouth AFC goalkeeper) and cricket (he was part of the prestigious Marylebone CC). On the other hand, he was married from 1885 to Louise Hawkins, with whom he had two children, until her death in 1906 (tuberculosis). Later, the writer had three more children in his second marriage to Jean E. Leckie.

Doyle's love-hate relationship with Sherlock Holmes

In 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle was expressed in a letter to his mother that Holmes's character "exhausted his mind". However, despite the detective's alleged death, recounted in The Last Problem, the Scottish author published stories about Holmes (The Sherlock Holmes Archive) until 1927. In fact, Doyle died in England just three years after that publication, on July 7, 1930.

In any case, Doyle was generally shown not to depend on Holmes to create good stories and editorial success. Among them are the six books starring Professor Challenger, his numerous historical novels Rodney Stone (1896) for example and manifestos such as The Great War of the Boers (1900). The latter earned the Edinburgh writer the title of Sir.

The Holmesian Canon

Fifty-six stories grouped in five collections and four novels make up the so-called Holmesian canon created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As for the order to read the stories with Sherlock Holmes, there are two suggested ways.

 

The first refers to the detective's biography, including a coherent sequence for his feigned demise and subsequent return. The second way to approach the Holmesian canon is according to the release timeline shown below (the titles not designated as novels correspond to short story collections):

 

Study in Scarlet (1887). Novel.

The Sign of the Four (1890). Novel.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)

Memories of Sherlock Holmes (1903)

The Baskerville Hound (1901-1902). Novel.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1903)

Valley of Terror (1914-1916). Novel.

His Last Bow (1917)

The Sherlock Holmes Archive (1927)