Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Mystery Writer

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 22, 1859. His father was an alcoholic who accomplished very little, but his mother was an avid reader and great storyteller. He credits her stories with his love and ability to do the same. He attended a Jesuit boarding school for 7 years, beginning at age 9. He pursued and received a medical degree all the while writing stories and submitting them for publication. His first appearance of Sherlock Holmes came in a novel he wrote at 27 years old. The character was influenced by a teacher he had in medical school who used logic, observation and deduction to diagnose patients. This was to be the first of his most commercially successful writings. Doyle continued to practice medicine while pursuing writing. Some of his more intellectual pieces he thought would be well received, but they never received the acclaim of Sherlock Holmes. After a failed attempt to pursue ophthalmology in Vienna, he returned to London and was enjoined to write stories about Holmes for The Strand magazine. These stories, which were illustrated, soon became world famous. In 1891, after a near deadly bout of influenza, Doyle gave up medicine to concentrate on his writing.

He tried on several occasions to shed himself of Sherlock Holmes, but always returned to him, usually for commercial gain. At one point, after spending nearly 250 million pounds in pursuit of psychic adventures, he had to revive Sherlock in order to survive monetarily. It was during this time that he wrote his last compilation of twelve stories about Holmes for The Strand. He died on July 7, 1930 from heart failure.