Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle led a colorful life. Like his creation, Sherlock Holmes, for which he gained lasting fame, Doyle was a man of great chivalry who intervened to prevent injustices during his life. Doyle's work defined the detective genre and is still widely considered the pinnacle of the genre.

Born in Scotland in 1859, Doyle was sent to England to attend Jesuit boarding school. He eventually attended the University of Edinburgh where he met his inspiration for Sherlock Holmes-Dr. Joseph Bell. He pursued medicine as a career for a time, serving as a ship doctor for a whaler and then establishing a private practice.

At age 20, Doyle's first mystery was published, a short story titled, The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley. Eight years later he would publish his first Sherlock Holmes story. In four years time, he would give up his medical practice to write full-time.

In 1893, Doyle visits the famed Reichenbach Falls, the Falls at which he would try to kill off his creation. It was also the year that his wife was diagnosed with terminal tuberculosis and his father died. Holmes' death proved to be a temporary one when his fans refuse to let Doyle kill him off. In the mean time, he published a non-fiction pamphlet that would earn him a knighthood in 1902.

After Doyle's first wife, Louise, died at the age of 49, he married Jean Leckie. It was around this time that he became involved in two different police cases, helping to clear the name of a man accused of several crimes. He continued publishing stories and began to dabble in spiritualism. His writing from this period until his death in 1930 featured spiritualism and fairies.

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--B. Redman