Doyle, Arthur Conan (1859-1930), a British writer, created Sherlock Holmes, the world’s best-known detective. Millions of readers have followed Holmes’s adventures and delighted in his ability to solve crimes by an amazing use of reason and observation. Doyle wrote a story in 1893 in which Holmes was killed. But public demand forced Doyle to bring Holmes back to life in another story. Critic Christopher Morley said of Holmes, “Perhaps no fiction character ever created has become so charmingly real to his readers.”
Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He began practicing medicine in 1882, but his practice was not a success. He started writing while waiting for the patients that never came. His early stories earned him little money, but he won great success with his first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887).
Holmes appeared in 56 short stories and three other novels—The Sign of Four (1890), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), and The Valley of Fear (1915). A scholarly edition of all the Holmes novels and short stories was published in three volumes in 2005 as The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Doyle may have been the highest paid short-story writer of his time. He also wrote historical novels, romances, and plays. He eventually abandoned fiction to study and lecture on spiritualism (communication with spirits). For his efforts in support of the British cause during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, King Edward VII knighted Doyle in 1902. He became known as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur died on July 7, 1930.
