Arthur Conan Doyle

19th-century writer who is most famous for creating Sherlock Holmes.

Life

Doyle was born to a Catholic family in Edinburgh, May 22, 1859. Although his intellectual, aristocratic grandfathers and uncles lived in London Arthur’s parents had moved to Edinburgh in the hope of advancing his father’s career in architecture which actually did not happen. Arthur was sent to a Jesuit boarding school. When his father fell ill in 1879 the family was financially protected by their lodger, B. C. Waller, but still Arthur as the new head of family was the one responsible for them.

He entered the University of Scotland where he graduated in medicine in 1885. The same year he married Louise Hawkins with whom he had two children. When he broke the news to his greater family that he planned on turning away from organized religions in general, all the financial support was put to a stop at once. Therefore Arthur needed to earn money and worked as ship’s doctor before opening a medical practice in Southsea (in the county of Hampshire, southern England). However, he did not find his profession mentally fulfilling so he started writing novels in his spare time. His first major success as a writer was the first Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). His subsequent stories were either published as books or in magazines and were an instant success – in terms of popularity and also financially. Although Doyle's other works were not exactly failures, they did not gain nearly as much attention as the Holmes stories.

In 1893 his wife Louise became seriously ill and finally died in 1900. Doyle married again in 1907 and he and his new wife Jean Leckie had three children.

After his first wife’s death Doyle’s political inclination showed in his visit to South Africa where he wrote about the Boer War. As a result of his writing a pro-war book and advocating the English cause in the matter as well as for his medical volunteer work in the field he was knighted in 1902. His other political activities involved advocating two unfairly convicted criminals who he exonerated with the help of deduction – like his famous detective figure Sherlock Holmes. He also “campaign[ed] for lifesaving equipment and body armour for the navy” (Yoder).

His dedication shifted towards spiritualism when his eldest son along with Doyle’s brother, nephew and brother-in-law died in or as a consequence of injuries suffered in World War I. He subsequently travelled to America and Europe in order to find like-minded people and to write several books on the subject (e.g. The Coming of the Fairies). Arthur Conan Doyle who had been suffering from heart disease for quite some time died in Crowborough (East Sussex), July 7, 1930, allegedly believing that death was but a grand new adventure.

Work

Doyle is one of the most famous authors of detective novels, a genre that developed in the middle of the 19th century, starting with Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin in the 1840s. In Sherlock Holmes Doyle developed Poe’s idea of the character further and established the element of surprise and the strategy of deduction as the leading characteristics of the detective story. Deduction and logic in general are significant for the way of thinking in the latter half of the 19th century when people were starting to get less superstitious as a result of several factors like the Enlightenment movement in the 18th century, and also due to scientific discoveries (e.g. by Charles Darwin). This development was reflected in literature, too. Consequently, Holmes’s scientific knowledge plays a major role in solving the cases – despite Doyle’s own spiritual inclinations. Tying in with this is that in the detective story there is always a reasonable explanation for the supernatural, a trend that also most of the fin-de-siècle Gothic novels picked up on. This is especially noteworthy because the detective novel originally was a derivative of the 18th century Gothic novel a core feature of which was the supernatural as a source of horror and terror.

Doyle’s contribution to literary theory that is most highly regarded today is that he established a scheme for the detective novel where the protagonists’ characteristics as well as those of minor characters and certain patterns and settings recur time and again – but always slightly varied to keep the stories from getting boring.

Another strategy Doyle applies is to make Dr Watson, Holmes’s friend and sometimes assistant, the narrator of the stories. In doing this, Doyle not only created a literary foil for Holmes but also a middleman between the ingenious Holmes and the reader.

Miscellaneous

- Dr. Joseph Bell, one of Doyle’s university professors, supposedly was the inspiration for the character of Sherlock Holmes because he taught Doyle the importance of observation.

- Despite his scientific and rational upbringing Doyle started attending séances around 1880 and believed in fairies until the end of his life.

- American magician Harry Houdini tried to convince Doyle to give up on spiritualism which eventually ended their friendship.

- Doyle played football and cricket on national teams.

- In 1894, Doyle temporarily killed Sherlock Holmes off in the short story "The Final Problem" but was virtually forced to revive him after a wave of public indignation.

Selected Works

Sherlock Holmes stories:

- A Study in Scarlet (1887, published in Mrs. Beeton’s magazine)

- The Sign of the Four (1890)

- "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1891, the first Sherlock Holmes short story, published – as well as the following short stories – in The Strand magazine)

- The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902, appeared in nine parts in The Strand)

- The Valley of Fear (1915)

Other stories:

- Micah Clarke (1888, historical novel)

- The White Company (1891, historical novel)

- Sir Nigel (1906, historical novel)

- The Lost World (1912, its plot has been adapted in several films such as Jurassic Park, 1993)

Works Cited

“Arthur Conan Doyle.” Discovering Sherlock Holmes. A Community Reading Project from Stanford University. Stanford University. 2006. 15 Jan 2011. <http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/biography.html>.

Erlebach, Peter and Reitz, Bernhard and Stein, Thomas Michael. Geschichte der englischen Literatur. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2007.

Strasen, Sven and Wenzel, Peter. "Die Detektivgeschichte im 19. und im frühen 20. Jahrhundert." Geschichte der englischen Kurzgeschichte. Eds. Arno Löffler and Eberhard Späth. Tübingen: Francke, 2005. 84-105.

Yoder, Rodney. “Biography of Arthur Conan Doyle.” A Selective Index of Detective Fiction. n.d. 15 Jan 2011. <http://pbpl.physics.ucla.edu/~yoder/mystery/doyle-bio.html>