SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
(1859-1930)

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, the son of an Irish Catholic family. Although he graduated in medicine from Edinburgh University, his first love was writing, and it was during his time as a practising doctor, that he created the character of Sherlock Holmes, his most celebrated literary invention.

The cerebral detective with his revolutionary techniques of deduction, first appeared in A Study in Scarlet, in 1887. By 1891 Conan Doyle was able to give up his medical practice, with the increased earnings from writing.

The Strand magazine would feature tales of Holmes and his congenial sidekick Watson in short story form over the subsequent two years. The popularity of the series was such that Conan Doyle had to resurrect his hero in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, ten years after the character had been 'killed off'.

He volunteered for military medical service during the Boer War (1899-1902) and received a knighthood for his literary defence of the British side. From 1928 he became strongly involved with the publicity of the case of Oscar Slater. This German Jew was falsely accused and convicted of murder in one of Scotland's most infamous miscarriage's of justice.

Much of Conan Doyle's work remains in print today, a testament to his style, wit, and wide ranging characters and situations which include seafaring, boxing, the fantastic and spiritualism, to which he converted following the death of his son in World War I.

Sherlock Holmes