Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an important Edwardian novelist who created the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, after starting life as a doctor. He wrote numerous other novels, short-stories and plays. He led an active life, serving as a doctor in the Boer War, working for political causes and became an important Spiritualist.

Key Facts about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Born 1859, died 1930

Created the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes

Spent his later years supporting the cause of Spiritualism

A Short Biography of Doyle

Arthur Ignatius Doyle was born on the 22nd of May, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was the ‘black sheep’ of an otherwise successful family of Irish-Catholic descent and Arthur had a generally unhappy childhood marred by relative poverty and his father’s drinking. The only redeeming feature was his mother, a lively well-educated woman and an expert story-teller, who gave the young Arthur an escape into fantasy with her dramatic tales.

When he was nine wealthy uncles came to the rescue and paid for his education at Jesuit schools in Lancashire and at the international Jesuit college of Stella Matutina, in Austria. While there Arthur discovered that he had acquired his mother’s gift for story-telling and would entertain the younger boys with impromptu tall-tales.

He then went to the University of Edinburgh Medical School and spent time as a ship’s doctor, travelling to Greenland on a whaling ship and also going to West Africa. He eventually graduated as a M.D., by which time his father had been committed as insane, dying in an institution in 1883. Around this time he added ‘Conan’ to his surname, a Michael Conan having been his godfather at his baptism.

He had already begun to write and received his first rejection from the prestigious Blackwood’s Magazine, followed by a successful publication in Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal in 1879. Chamber’s was one of many Victorian-era weekly periodicals that published short stories and serialized novels.

In 1882 he started a medical career, going into a partnership in Plymouth, a solo practise in Swansea, becoming a specialist ophthalmologist and finally setting up in that speciality at No.2 Devonshire Place in London. His office was in Marylebone, an area still known for its medical specialists and hospitals – and he was just a few minutes’ walk away from Baker Street. In 1885 he married his first wife, Louisa Hawkins, the sister of one of his patients. They had two children.

Throughout the years of his medical practise Conan Doyle had continued to write, and he invented Sherlock Holmes for his first novel, A Study in Scarlet, which was published in 1886. From the beginning he openly acknowledged that he had modelled Holmes on a former professor from Edinburgh, Joseph Bell. Dr. Watson would seem perhaps to be Conan Doyle himself.

His publishers commissioned a sequel, The Sign of the Four, which appeared in 1890, the year he set up his medical office in London. At this point his medical career seemed to collapsed and he wrote later that not one patient ever entered his rooms, something that rapidly became unimportant as Sherlock Holmes leapt into the popular imagination. He had several short stories featuring Holmes published in the widely read Strand Magazine. At that time Holmes enjoyed his greatest popularity in America and in 1894 Conan Doyle had a very successful speaking tour there, through 30 cities.

He was also writing other works and soon found himself in a dilemma. He saw his Holmes stories as ‘commercial’ and wanted to be regarded as a serious author for his other works. He raised his asking price for Holmes stories to almost absurd levels, but the publishers paid anyway, making him one of the highest-paid authors of the time.

As early as 1891 he was threatening to ‘kill-off’ Holmes so as to escape from writing about him anymore, and by 1893 he did so, in The Final Problem. However the public would have none of this and Holmes was resurrected in 1901 for The Hound of the Baskervilles. In 1903 he began again writing short stories ff Holmes’ adventures, starting with The Adventure of the Empty House, where he explained how Holmes had escaped his apparent death in The Final Problem. By 1927 he had written 56 short stories and 4 novels using Holmes and Watson.

During the 2nd Boer War (1899 – 1902) Conan Doyle served as a volunteer for a few months at a field hospital in South Africa, and after the war he wrote a book presenting a justification for Britain’s waging of the war itself and of its widely criticized conduct during it. This earned him a knighthood from King Edward VII. Around the same time he became friendly with the Irishman and early human-rights investigator Roger Casement, and joined with him in the campaign against the appalling activities of the King of Belgium in the Congo. He wrote The Crime of the Congo to publicise their cause, but parted with Casement over the latter’s pacifist resistance during WWI which ultimately led to Casement’s execution. He also ran unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Liberal and became involved in several important cases of legal injustice.

At the beginning of the new century he discovered that his wife had developed tuberculosis and Louisa went from being his wife to becoming his patient. Since 1897 he had been carrying on a serious platonic relationship with Jean Elizabeth Leckie, which turned into a marriage in 1907, the year after Louisa died. Conan Doyle had left London in 1897 and lived near Hindhead, Surrey. Following his re-marriage the new couple moved to Windlesham Manor in Crowborough, Sussex. They had three children and remained close until his death.

However Louisa’s death, followed a few years later by the death of their son Kingsley, of his brother, two brothers-in-law and his two nephews triggered an existential crisis for Conan Doyle, which he dealt with by becoming involved in Spiritualism, at that time a popular but controversial interest. He was a believer and frequently clashed with various debunkers and those who exposed the numerous frauds and swindles perpetrated by supposed psychics.

On the 7th of July, 1930, he died of a heart-attack. His last words to his wife were “you are wonderful”.

His Legacy

Besides his Holmes stories Conan Doyle wrote other adventure stories, particularly a series revolving around the pretentious and self-righteous scientist Professor Challenger, based on another of his professors. The Lost World is the most famous novel of that series. He also wrote several historical novels as well as plays and poetry.

Sherlock Holmes has been an enduring figure and featured in numerous films, television series and as a character in numerous novels by other authors. With Holmes, Conan Doyle created the mystery story format, with the chief protagonist solving the mystery through logic and specialized knowledge, which has been one of the most dominant literary, cinema and television genres every since.

Sites to Visit

As a Spiritualist Conan Doyle had not wanted a Christian burial and he was initially buried in the rose-garden of his house. Later he and Jean, who died in 1940, were buried beside each other in the church yard at Minstead, Hampshire.

There is a statue of Arthur Conan Doyle in the town of Crowborough, Sussex.

His childhood home was demolished in 1970, but there is a statue of Sherlock Holmes close to the site, in Edinburgh.

Undershaw, his home near Hindhead, Surrey, was recently purchased after decades of neglect and is being restored as a school for children with special needs.

Windlesham Manor, Crowborough, Sussex is now a residential care home for the elderly.

There are English Heritage blue plaques at several of his homes, including: 12 Tennison Road, South Norwood, Croydon, where many of the Sherlock Holmes stories were written; 2 Upper Wimpole Street, Paddington, London, where he lived in 1891; 1 Durnford Street, Plymouth, the site of one of his medical practices, and at several other locations in London and Australia.

Further Research

All the Sherlock Holmes stories are still in print and they can also be accessed on-line, along with almost all of Conan Doyle’s other writings.

There are numerous Biographies of Conan Doyle, including:

Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle, by Daniel Stashower (2014)

The Doctor and the Detective: A Biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, by Martin Booth (2013)

The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, by Andrew Lycett (2008)

His Autobiography, Memories and Adventures (1923), is also available.