Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930

Biography

Arthur I. Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Doyle attended the Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst in Lancashire from 1868-1870 and then went on to Stonyhurst College until 1875. From 1875 to 1876, he was educated at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch. From 1876 to 1881, Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. While studying Doyle began writing short stories. His earliest extant fiction, "The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe", was unsuccessfully submitted to "Blackwood's Magazine." His first published piece, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", a story set in South Africa, was printed in "Chambers's Edinburgh Journal" on 6 September 1879. That same year he also published his first academic article in the "British Medical Journal." Doyle worked as a doctor on the Greenland whaler "Hope," and after graduation from university in 1881, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast.In 1882, Doyle joined former classmate George Turnavine Budd as his partner at a medical practice in Plymouth. In the beginning of his writing career, Doyle struggled to have his fiction work published. "A Study in Scarlet," the first of his Sherlock Homes novels was published in 1886. Later the "Strand Magazine" published short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. Doyle's first novels were "The Mystery of Cloomber," not published until 1888, and the unfinished "Narrative of John Smith." Between 1888 and 1906, Doyle wrote seven historical novels. He also authored nine other novels, and later in his career (1912–29) five narratives, two of novel length, featuring the irascible scientist Professor Challenger. Doyle's stage works include "Waterloo," the reminiscences of an English veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. He was also interested in politics and stood for Parliament twice as a Liberal Unionist. In addition, Doyle had a longstanding interest in mystical subjects. He died on July 7, 1930.

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