Sir
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a
Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the
detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered milestones 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,
plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place,
Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was English of
Irish descent, and his mother, born Mary Foley, was Irish. They married
in 1855. In 1864 the family dispersed due to Charles's growing
alcoholism and the children were temporarily housed across Edinburgh. In
1867, the family came together again and lived in squalid tenement flats
at 3 Sciennes Place. Supported by wealthy uncles, Conan Doyle was sent
to the Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst,
at the age of nine (1868-1870). He then went on to Stonyhurst College
until 1875. From 1875 to 1876, he was educated at the Jesuit school
Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria.
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) and in Sheffield, as well as in Shropshire at Ruyton-XI-Towns.
While studying, Conan Doyle began writing short stories. His earliest
extant fiction, "The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe", was unsuccessfully
submitted to Blackwood's Magazine. His first published piece "The
Mystery of Sasassa Valley", a story set in South Africa, was printed in
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal on 6 September 1879. On 20 September 1879,
he published his first non-fiction article, "Gelsemium as a Poison" in
the British Medical Journal. Following his studies at university, Conan
Doyle was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead,
in 1880, and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS
Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast, in 1881. He completed
his doctorate on the subject of 'tabes dorsalis' in 1885. Doyle's father
died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of
psychiatric illness.
Although Doyle is often referred to as "Conan Doyle", whether this
should be considered a compound surname is uncertain. The entry in which
his baptism is recorded in the register of St Mary's Cathedral,
Edinburgh, gives "Arthur Ignatius Conan" as his Christian names, and
simply "Doyle" as his surname. It also names Michael Conan as his
godfather. The cataloguers of the British Library and the Library of
Congress treat "Doyle" alone as his surname. Steven Doyle, editor of the
Baker Street Journal, has written Conan was Arthur's middle name.
Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as a
sort of surname. But technically his last name is simply "Doyle".
Nevertheless, the actual use of a compound surname is demonstrated by
the fact that Doyle's second wife was known as "Jean Conan Doyle" rather
than "Jean Doyle".
In 1882 he joined former classmate George Turnavine 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.
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. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting
for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his
first novels, The Mystery of Cloomber, not published until 1888, and the
unfinished Narrative of John Smith, which would go unpublished until
2011. He amassed a portfolio of short stories including "The Captain of
the Pole-Star" and "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", both inspired by
Doyle's time at sea.
Doyle struggled to find a publisher for his work. His first significant
piece, A Study in Scarlet, was taken by Ward Lock & Co on 20 November
1886, giving Doyle £25 for all rights to the story. The piece appeared
later that year in the Beeton's Christmas Annual and received good
reviews in The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald. The story featured the
first appearance of Watson and Sherlock Holmes, partially modelled after
his former university teacher Joseph Bell. Conan Doyle wrote to him, "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." Robert Louis Stevenson was
able, even in faraway Samoa, to recognise the strong similarity between
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?" Other authors sometimes suggest additional
influences—for instance, the famous Edgar Allan Poe character C. Auguste
Dupin. A sequel to A Study in Scarlet was commissioned and The Sign of
the Four appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in February 1890, under
agreement with the Ward Lock company. Doyle felt grievously exploited by
Ward Lock as an author new to the publishing world and he left them.
Short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes were published in the Strand
Magazine. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first began to write for the ‘Strand’
from his home at 2 Upper Wimpole Street, now marked by a memorial
plaque.
While living in Southsea, Doyle played football as a goalkeeper for
Portsmouth Association Football Club, an amateur side, under the
pseudonym A. C. Smith. (This club, disbanded in 1896, had no connection
with the present-day Portsmouth F.C., which was founded in 1898.) Conan
Doyle was also a keen cricketer, and between 1899 and 1907 he played 10
first-class matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). His highest
score, in 1902 against London County, was 43. He was an occasional
bowler who took just one first-class wicket (although one of high
pedigree—it was W. G. Grace). Also a keen golfer, Conan Doyle was
elected captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club, East Sussex for
1910. He moved to Little Windlesham house in Crowborough with his second
wife Jean Leckie and their family from 1907 until his death in July
1930.
In 1885 Conan Doyle married Louisa (or Louise) Hawkins, known as 'Touie',
the sister of one of his patients. She suffered from tuberculosis and
died on 4 July 1906. The next year he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie,
whom he had first met and fallen in love with in 1897. He had maintained
a platonic relationship with Jean while his first wife was still alive,
out of loyalty to her. Jean died in London on 27 June 1940.
Conan Doyle fathered five children. He had two with his first wife: Mary
Louise (28 January 1889 – 12 June 1976) and Arthur Alleyne Kingsley,
known as Kingsley (15 November 1892 – 28 October 1918). He also had
three with his second wife: Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 – 9 March
1955) second husband of Georgian Princess Nina Mdivani, Adrian Malcolm
(19 November 1910 – 3 June 1970) and Jean Lena Annette (21 December 1912
– 18 November 1997).[29]
In 1890 Conan Doyle studied ophthalmology in Vienna, and moved to
London, first living in Montague Place and then in South Norwood. He 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, "You won't! You can't! You
mustn't!"
In
December 1893, in order to dedicate more of his time to what he
considered his more important works (his historical novels), Conan Doyle
had Holmes and Professor Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths
together down the Reichenbach Falls in the story "The Final Problem".
Public outcry, however, led him to bring the character back in 1901, in
The Hound of the Baskervilles, though this was set at a time before the
Reichenbach incident. In 1903, Conan Doyle published his first Holmes
short story in ten years, "The Adventure of the Empty House", in which
it was explained that only Moriarty had fallen; but since Holmes had
other dangerous enemies—especially Colonel Sebastian Moran—he had
arranged to also be perceived as dead. Holmes ultimately was featured in
a total of 56 short stories and four Conan Doyle novels, and has since
appeared in many novels and stories by other authors. Jane Stanford
compares some of Moriarty's characteristics to those of the Fenian John
O'Connor Power. 'The Final Problem' was published the year the Second
Home Rule Bill passed through the House of Commons. 'The Valley of Fear'
was serialised in 1914, the year, Home Rule, The Government of Ireland
Act (Sept.18) was placed on the Statute Book.
Following the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century
and the condemnation from around the world over the United Kingdom's
conduct, Conan Doyle wrote a short pamphlet titled The War in South
Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, which justified the UK's role in the Boer
War and was widely translated. Doyle had served as a volunteer doctor in
the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein between March and June 1900.
Conan Doyle believed it was this pamphlet that resulted in his being
knighted by King Edward VII in 1902 and appointed a Deputy-Lieutenant of
Surrey. Also in 1900 he wrote a book, The Great Boer War. During the
early years of the 20th century, he twice stood for Parliament as a
Liberal Unionist—once in Edinburgh and once in the Hawick Burghs—but
although he received a respectable vote, he was not elected.
Conan Doyle was a supporter of the campaign for the reform of the Congo
Free State, led by the journalist E. D. Morel and the diplomat Roger
Casement. During 1909 he wrote The Crime of the Congo, a long pamphlet
in which he denounced the horrors of that colony. He became acquainted
with Morel and Casement, and it is possible that, together with Bertram
Fletcher Robinson, they inspired several characters in the 1912 novel
The Lost World. However, Doyle broke with both Morel and Casement when
Morel became one of the leaders of the pacifist movement during the
First World War. When Casement was found guilty of treason against the
Crown during the Easter Rising, Doyle tried unsuccessfully to save him
from facing the death penalty, arguing that Casement had been driven mad
and could not be held responsible for his actions.
Conan Doyle was also a fervent advocate of justice and personally
investigated two closed cases, which led to two men being exonerated of
the crimes of which they were accused. The first case, in 1906, involved
a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji who had
allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were
set on Edalji's conviction, even though the mutilations continued after
their suspect was jailed. It was partially as a result of this case that
the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907, so not only did
Conan Doyle help George Edalji, his work helped establish a way to
correct other miscarriages of justice. The story of Conan Doyle and
Edalji was fictionalised in Julian Barnes's 2005 novel Arthur & George
and dramatized in an episode of the 1972 BBC television series, "The
Edwardians". In Nicholas Meyer's pastiche The West End Horror (1976),
Holmes manages to help clear the name of a shy Parsee Indian character
wronged by the English justice system. Edalji himself was of Parsee
heritage on his father's side. The second case, that of Oscar Slater, a
German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an
82-year-old woman in Glasgow in 1908, excited Conan Doyle's curiosity
because of inconsistencies in the prosecution case and a general sense
that Slater was not guilty. He ended up paying most of the costs for
Slater's successful appeal in 1928.
Following the death of his wife Louisa in 1906, the death of his son
Kingsley just before the end of World War I, and the deaths of his
brother Innes, his two brothers-in-law (one of whom was E. W. Hornung,
creator of the literary character Raffles) and his two nephews shortly
after the war, Conan Doyle sank into depression. He found solace
supporting spiritualism and its attempts to find proof of existence
beyond the grave. In particular, according to some, he favoured
Christian Spiritualism and encouraged the Spiritualists' National Union
to accept an eighth precept – that of following the teachings and
example of Jesus of Nazareth. He also was a member of the renowned
paranormal organisation The Ghost Club. Its focus, then and now, is on
the scientific study of alleged paranormal activities in order to prove
(or refute) the existence of paranormal phenomena.
On 28 October 1918 Kingsley Doyle died from pneumonia, which he
contracted during his convalescence after being seriously wounded during
the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Brigadier-General Innes Doyle died, also
from pneumonia, in February 1919. Sir Arthur became involved with
Spiritualism to the extent that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on
the subject, The Land of Mist. His book The Coming of the Fairies (1921)
shows he was apparently convinced of the veracity of the five Cottingley
Fairies photographs (which decades later were exposed as a hoax). He
reproduced them in the book, together with theories about the nature and
existence of fairies and spirits. In The History of Spiritualism (1926),
Conan Doyle praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materialisations
produced by Eusapia Palladino and Mina "Margery" Crandon.
Conan Doyle was friends for a time with Harry Houdini, the American
magician who himself became a prominent opponent of the Spiritualist
movement in the 1920s following the death of his beloved mother.
Although Houdini insisted that Spiritualist mediums employed trickery
(and consistently exposed them as frauds), Conan Doyle became convinced
that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers—a view expressed in
Conan Doyle's The Edge of the Unknown. Houdini was apparently unable to
convince Conan Doyle that his feats were simply illusions, leading to a
bitter public falling out between the two.
Richard Milner, an American historian of science, has presented a case
that Conan Doyle may have been the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax
of 1912, creating the counterfeit hominid fossil that fooled the
scientific world for over 40 years. Milner says that Conan Doyle had a
motive—namely, revenge on the scientific establishment for debunking one
of his favourite psychics—and that The Lost World contains several
encrypted clues regarding his involvement in the hoax.
Conan Doyle was found clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham
Manor, his house in Crowborough, East Sussex, on 7 July 1930. He died of
a heart attack at the age of 71. His last words were directed toward his
wife: "You are wonderful." At the time of his death, there was some
controversy concerning his burial place, as he was avowedly not a
Christian, considering himself a Spiritualist. He was first buried on 11
July 1930 in Windlesham rose garden. He was later reinterred together
with his wife in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire.
Carved wooden tablets to his memory and to the memory of his wife are
held privately and are inaccessible to the public. That inscription
reads, "Blade straight / Steel true / Arthur Conan Doyle / Born May 22nd
1859 / Passed On 7th July 1930." The epitaph on his gravestone in the
churchyard reads, in part: "Steel true/Blade straight/Arthur Conan
Doyle/Knight/Patriot, Physician, and man of letters". A statue honours
Conan Doyle at Crowborough Cross in Crowborough, where he lived for 23
years. There is also a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place,
Edinburgh, close to the house where Conan Doyle was born.
[Source - 'Wikipedia' at,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle]
And now here is some reading material...
The
Original of Sherlock Holmes
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Part 2
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapters
III, IV and V
Chapters VI and VII
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
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