Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle - A Famous Scottish Novelist
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930) was born in Edinburgh of an Irish Roman Cotholic family and was educated at Stonyhurst and Edinburgh University. From 1882 to 1890 he practised, not very successfully, as a doctor in Southsea. In 1887 Doyle created the most celebrated amateur detective in all fiction, Sherlock Holmes, in his very first book, A Study in Scarlet. From then until 1927, the year of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle was virtually the prisoner of his own creation. He wrote a number of full-length detective novels, of which The Sign of Four in 1890 and The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1902, were outstanding. And he wrote a long series of short stories about Sherlock Holmes to satisfy the clamant demand of the public and his own pocket. He was also the author of excellent historical romances, such as Micah Clarke in 1888, a tale of Monmouth's rebellion, The White Company in 1890, and Sir Nigel in 1906. His interest in science came out strongly in the Professor Challenger stories, of which The Lost World in 1912 is best known.
In later years he became a convinced spiritualist and wrote a number of works on the subject. but it was his creation of Sherlock Holmes, with Dr Watson as his friend and foil, that will carry forward Doyle's reputation. In Holmes he created a character with all the permanence ofa myth, a hero whose exploits are more in intelligence than in action, a familiar but evasive figure who has the qualities both of a magician and a favourite uncle. Conan Doyle was knighted in 1902.
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