Posted by fgoodwin on 05/22/06 18:47

May 22, 1859: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is born

http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=literary&month=10272957&day=10272987
http://tinyurl.com/gqz37

It's the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of master
sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle was born in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of
Edinburgh, where he met Dr. Joseph Bell, a teacher with extraordinary
deductive reasoning power. Bell partly inspired Doyle's character
Sherlock Holmes years later.

After medical school, Doyle moved to London, where his slow medical
practice left him ample free time to write. His first Sherlock Holmes
story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual
in 1887. Starting in 1891, a series of Holmes stories appeared in The
Strand magazine. Holmes enabled Doyle to leave his medical practice in
1891 and devote himself to writing, but the author soon grew weary of
his creation. In The Final Problem, he killed off both Holmes and his
nemesis, Dr. Moriarty, only to resuscitate Holmes later due to popular
demand. In 1902, Doyle was knighted for his work with a field hospital
in South Africa. In addition to dozens of Sherlock Holmes stories and
several novels, Doyle wrote history, pursued whaling, and engaged in
many adventures and athletic endeavors. After his son died in World War
I, Doyle became a dedicated spiritualist. He died in 1930.

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