all about me

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was an author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.

Contents [hide] 1 Life 2 Death 3 Bibliography 3.1 Holmes books 3.2 Challenger stories 3.3 Historical novels 3.4 Other works 4 See also 5 Notes and references 6 External links

[edit] Life

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to an English father of Irish descent, Charles Altamont Doyle, and an Irish mother, née Mary Foley, who had married in 1855.^[1] Although he is now referred to as "Conan Doyle", the origin of this compound surname is uncertain.^[2] Conan Doyle's father was a chronic alcoholic, and was the only member of his family, who apart from fathering a brilliant son, never accomplished anything of note. Conan Doyle was sent to the Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, at the age of eight. He then went on to Stonyhurst College, but by the time he left the school in 1875, he had rejected Christianity to become an agnostic.

From 1876 to 1881, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, including a period working in the town of Aston (now a district of Birmingham). While studying, he also began writing short stories; his first published story appeared in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal before he was 20.^[3] Following his term at university, he served as a ship's doctor on a voyage to the West African coast. He completed his doctorate on the subject of tabes dorsalis in 1885.^[4]

In 1882, he joined former classmate George Budd as his partner at a medical practice in Plymouth, but their relationship proved difficult, and Conan Doyle soon left to set up an independent practice.^[5] Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than £10 to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea.^[6] The practice was initially not very successful; while waiting for patients, he again began writing stories. His first significant work was A Study in Scarlet, which appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 and featured the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, who was partially modelled after his former university professor, Joseph Bell to whom Conan Doyle wrote "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes...round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man."^[7] Future short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes were published in the English Strand Magazine. Interestingly, Robert Louis Stevenson was able, even in far away Samoa, to recognise the strong similarity between the Scottish physician Joseph Bell and Sherlock Holmes: "my compliments on your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes ... can this be my old friend Joe Bell?"^[8] Other authors sometimes suggest additional influences e.g. the famous Edgar Allan Poe character, C. Auguste Dupin.^[9]

While living in Southsea, he played football for an amateur side, Portsmouth Association Football Club, as a goalkeeper. (This club disbanded in 1894 and had no connection with the Portsmouth F.C. of today, which was founded in 1898.) Conan Doyle was also a keen cricketer and, between 1900 and 1907, he played 10 first-class matches for the MCC. His highest score was 43 against London County in 1902. He was an occasional bowler who took just one first-class wicket. Also a keen golfer, Conan Doyle was elected captain of Crowborough Beacon Golf Club, East Sussex, for the year 1910.

In 1885, he married Louisa (or Louise) Hawkins, known as "Touie", who suffered from tuberculosis and died on 4 July 1906.^[10] He married Jean Elizabeth Leckie in 1907, whom he had first met and fallen in love with in 1897, but had maintained a platonic relationship with her out of loyalty to his first wife. Jean died in London on 27 June 1940.

Conan Doyle had five children, two with his first wife (1) Mary Louise (28 January 1889 – 12 June 1976) and (2) Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, known as Kingsley (15 November 1892 – 28 October 1918), and three with his second wife, (3) Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 – 9 March 1955), second husband in 1936 of Georgian Princess Nina Mdivani (circa 1910 – 19 February 1987; former sister-in-law of Barbara Hutton), (4) Adrian Malcolm (1910–1970) and (5) Jean Lena Annette (1912–1997).

Portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Sidney Paget, 1897.

In 1890, Conan Doyle studied the eye in Vienna; he moved to London in 1891 to set up a practice as an ophthalmologist. He wrote in his autobiography that not a single patient crossed his door. This gave him more time for writing, and in November 1891 he wrote to his mother: "I think of slaying Holmes . . . and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things." His mother responded, saying, "You may do what you deem fit, but the crowds will not take this lightheartedly." In December 1893, he did so in order to dedicate more of his time to more "important" works: his historical novels.