Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than

itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. “ The Strand magazine must have

some extremely talented individuals working in its editing department then. The

Strand is the magazine that first serialized the Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle.

Sherlock Holmes is easily the most famous and widely read fictional

detective that has ever been created. He has made more appearances than any

other character in history and if one were to combine the worth of all of the

books, movies, television series, and radio shows the sum would be well in the

billions. There are many individuals that would consider the stories of Sherlock

Holmes are among the greatest and most timeless stories put on paper. They

have inspired many artists to write detective stories; they have even inspired

many detectives to take up their noble profession rather than another one.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes and it is safe to say that

more people know about Holmes than that know about Doyle. Even in this essay

the bulk is about Doyle but it still has to do with his involvement in creating

Sherlock Holmes.
Biography

Arthur Conan Doyle was born one of ten siblings on 22 May 1859

in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was born in

England of Irish descent, and his mother, born Mary Foley, was Irish.

His father was a political cartoonist and his mother was a very well read

individual who had an interest in storytelling and had a passion for

genealogy and she had a close relationship with Conan Doyle. And it

was his mother that encouraged Conan Doyle’s writing. (Wisser) Conan

Doyle was sent to the Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school Hodder

Place, Stonyhurst, at the age of nine. Doyle’s time at the Jesuit school

was not very happy for him.

He then went on to Stonyhurst College until 1875. From 1876 to

1877 Doyle was a surgeon’s clerk to Dr. Joseph Bell. Dr. Bell, as Doyle

as said, was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Bell used his own

powers of observation and deduction to diagnose patients and on

occasion even solving actual crimes. (Youtube)

In 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh,

including a period working in the town of Aston (now a district of

Birmingham) and in Sheffield. While studying, Conan Doyle also began

writing short stories; his first published story, “The Mystery of Sassasa

valley” appeared in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal before he was

twenty. In 1882, the enigmatic Dr George Turnavine Budd, whom Conan

Doyle had first met when the two were students in Edinburgh, invited

Doyle to become his partner in a medical practice in Plymouth. Their

relationship was a turbulent one, and ended with Conan Doyle moving

to Southsea. (Roden)

Following his term at university, he was employed as a ship's

doctor on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast.

He completed his doctorate on the subject of tabes dorsalis in 1885.

(Edinburg) While gaining his M.D Doyle continued to write stories as a

way to pass time and to make some money, however he had very little

financial success (Wisser).

In 1886 he married Louis Hawkins, and, during the quiet hours

in his medical practice office, he began to write A Study in Scarlet.

Doyle sent the manuscript around to three publishers, and it was

subsequently rejected by all three different firms. The main reason that it

was rejected was its length. “It was too long for a short story but not long

enough for a serial.”(Wisser) In 1887 the Ward Lock & Co purchased the

full rights for the story for a total of twenty five pounds and published the

story in Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887. This was the first public

appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. A Study in Scarlet was

not a smash hit but it did not do poorly, receiving lukewarm reviews but

it did allow for Doyle to get his name out there. In 1889 Doyle was

commissioned by Joseph M. Stoddart to write a story for the

Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, the result was The Sign of Four. The

story was published in February 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly

Magazine. It was republished several more times throughout the year by

other British journals.

Despite Doyle’s successful medical practice and the birth of his

daughter Mary, Doyle felt the need to change things up a bit. So in

December of 1890 he moved his family to Vienna to study

ophthalmology. However, the move did not work out very well and he

hurried back to London. He then opened a practice in London where,

as Doyle wrote in his biography, not a single patient crossed his door.

With all of the spare time Doyle began to concentrate on his writing.

Fortunately for Doyle, The Strand Magazine was just getting started and

published his short stories about the dashing Sherlock Holmes.

In May of 1891 Doyle came down with a life threatening bout of

influenza, it was during this time that he realized that he could not have

both a medical career and a literary career and be sucessful at both. So

he decided to foucus on his literary career. In the July 1891 issue the

short story “A Scandal in Bohemia” was published and it was wildly

successful. Herbert Smith, literary editor of the Strand 1901-1930, would

later recall seeing the story for the first time and thinking “I at once

realized that there was the greatest short story writer since Edgar Allen Poe.”
Doyle was immediately commissioned to write six more stories featuring

Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle became wildly successful thanks entirely to the Holmes

phenomenon but he wished to spread out and write about other subject. During a

trip to Switzerland, Doyle found the spot where his hero was to come to his end.

In The Final Problem, published in December 1893, Sherlock Holmes and

Professor Moriarty plunged to their deaths at The Reichenbach Falls. According

to the Literary estate of Doyle, twenty thousand readers cancelled their

subscriptions to The Strand Magazine as result of the killing off of Holmes. Doyle,

now liberated from his medical career and from a fictional character that

oppressed him and overshadowed what he considered his finer work, Conan

Doyle immersed himself into even more intensive activity.

He sailed for New York, with his younger brother Innes, in September of

1894, and was booked to give talks in more than thirty cities. The tour was a

huge success. In March of 1897 Doyle met Jean Leckie, and he fell in love with

her but he maintained a platonic relationship until his wife died of tuberculosis in

1904.

During this period Doyle wrote a play about Holmes, not to revive him but

to rather shore Doyle’s bank account. A successful American actor William

Gillette, who after reading the play asked Doyle if he could revise the play and

revise the character of Holmes. Doyle agreed stating “"You may marry him,

murder him, or do anything you like to him.” After Gillette was done there was
very little left of Doyle’s original text. The play was a huge success in both

America and England.

In late December 1899, Doyle became involved with warfare as problems

in South Africa were hitting home in Britain. The British became involved in what

is known as the Boer War. Anxious to serve his country, Doyle attempted to

enlist with the Middlesex Yeomanry and was devastated when their only

response was to place him on a waiting list. Almost immediately, however, he

was contacted by John Langman, who was sending out to Africa a hospital of 50

beds at his own expense. Langman suggested that Conan Doyle should help him

to choose the personnel and that he should also supervise the entire operation in

an unofficial capacity. Keen to serve in whatever way he could, Conan Doyle

accepted enthusiastically. Doyle was to spend his next months in the filth of the

enteric hospital. He wrote:

'Our hospital was no worse off than the others, and as there were many of

them the general condition of the town was very bad. Coffins were out of the

question, and the men were lowered in their brown blankets into shallow graves

at the average rate of sixty a day. A sickening smell came from the stricken town.

Once when I had ridden out to get an hour or two of change, and was at least six

miles from the town, the wind changed and the smell was all around me. You

could smell Bloemfontein long before you could see it. Even now if I felt that lowly

death smell compounded of disease and disinfectants my heart would sink within

me.'
 Following the Boer War Doyle wrote a short pamphlet titled The War in

South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, which justified the UK's role in the Boer

War. King Edward VII knighted Conan Doyle for services rendered to the Crown

during the Boer War. Doyle belives that it was this pamphlet was the reason to

him being knighted and appointed the Deputy- Leiutenant of Surry in 1902.After

being knighted Doyle revived the Holmes stories, they were published in 1903 in

The Strand’s serialization of The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

On the fourth of July 1904 Doyle’s wife died, this sent Doyle into a

debilitating state of depression. He attempted to help himself by turning to

spiritualism and other things but he did find solace in helping somebody more

unfortunate than he. In 1906, Doyle started work on attempting to solve a

criminal case that was previously closed. The case involved a shy half-British,

half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji who had allegedly penned threatening

letters and mutilated animals. Police were set on Edalji's conviction, even though

the mutilations continued after their suspect was jailed. It was partially as a result

of this case that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907, so not

only did Conan Doyle help George Edalji, his work helped establish a way to

correct other miscarriages of justice. (Youtube)

Doyle and Jean Leckie were married on September 18, 1907. He would

have three children with her Dennis, Adrian and Jean. The Doyle famil y moved

to a home called Windlesham in Sussex. It is here that Doyle would live out the

rest of his days.

 When World War One broke out Doyle attempted to enlist again however,

being fifty five he was denied. But he set out to create a civillian battalion. And

when the Royal lost a thousand lives in a day Doyle wrote to the War Department

suggesting that the sailors be equipped with “inflateable belts” (Doyle Literary

Estate). And He even advocated for the construction of a channel tunnel between

the English isles and the mainland of Europe. (Roden). Doyle also wrote His Last

Bow in 1914, in this tale Holmes thwarts a German spy ring obvious war

propaganda.

In 1916 Doyle felt the need to help another victim of the justice system.

The second case Doyle solved was, that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and

gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in

Glasgow in 1908, excited Conan Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in

the prosecution case and a general sense that Slater was not guilty. He ended

up paying most of the costs for Slater's successful appeal in 1928.(youtube)

Later in his life Doyle became increasingly involved with the occult and

after 1918 he wrote very little fiction and chose to write about spiritualism instead.

Over the years Doyle had spent over a quarter million pounds on his spiritualistic

views he began to write Sherlock Holmes stories again.

 Conan Doyle was found clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham, his

house in Crowborough, East Sussex, on 7 July 1930. He died of a heart attack at

age 71. His last words were directed toward his wife: "You are wonderful."

Works

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote sentimental historical romances and

the work that he is best remembered for is the Sherlock Holmes

chronicles. Holmes is without a doubt Doyle’s most famous character

and Holmes is second to none when it comes to being recognized.

Holmes grew in popularity during the first five short stories that Doyle

published in Strand Magazine in 1891. Holmes popularity only

continued to skyrocket after these first five short stories. It did not take

long for the legend of Sherlock Holmes to grow larger than the man

Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock Holmes is not only a great serialization it is a work that

was so great that itself became a genre. Even though Holmes was not

the original fictional detective is the gold standard. There was more of a

focus on the psychology of the criminal rather than the forensics after

the demise of Holmes.

 There have been hundreds of authors that cite Sherlock Holmes as a

source of inspiration. But Holmes has made hundreds of appearances

throughout the century. This started with the stage productions of Sherlock

Holmes. The actor most associated with the stage productions of Sherlock

Holmes is William Gillette.

William Gillette wrote, directed and even starred in his play, Sherlock

Holmes. The play was a Broadway production and showed from 1899 until 1930.

Sherlock Holmes has been revived several times by a number of production

companies over the years. William Gillette’s version of Sherlock Holmes is the

one that we all recognize immediately now, Holmes with a deerstalker hat, a

Inverness cape, and smoking a calabash pipe. The Doyle was vague as to what

Holmes wore and Holmes smokes many different kinds of pipes, depending on

his mood, in the stories, but he would never use a calabash pipe, Holmes

preferred hash and strong tobacco’s so the cool mellow smoke that a calabash

pipe produces would not be fitting to his preferences. However, Gillette chose the

large calabash pipe because it was easy for the audience to see and easy to do

other activities with is in one’s mouth.

The first known film featuring Holmes is Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a one-

reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Mutoscope and

Biograph Company in 1900. Since then Sherlock Holmes movies pop up very

frequently. According to Guinness World Records Sherlock Holmes is the "most

portrayed movie character" with 75 actors playing the part in over 211 films.

Holmes has also been the topic of countless radio and television shows.

The Sherlock Holmes phenomenon has also inspired not only artists but

also scientists especially forensic scientists. In the stories Holmes makes great

use of trace evidence and will use this evidence to test theories and will solve the

case. This is not unlike how forensic evidence is used today.

The popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories during their initial

run is attributed to the time and setting of the stories. The good

detective used the telegram system to communicate; newspapers had

personal columns, advertisements. Travel was done on hansoms, the

river or by railway. There were side characters such as the Baker Street

Irregulars, a gang of young boys whom Holmes employed to gather and

relay information. All of these bits and pieces of detail showed that

Holmes was not in some far off land nor was he from a time in the

distant future or past but that he was in London solving crimes in the

now. This contemporary nature allowed readers to identify with Holmes

and live vicariously through him. (Wisser p.18)

The characters constructed in the Sherlock Holmes stories also provide a

bridge for the reader’s imagination. Dr. Watson was the reader’s representative
in the story. While he lacks Holmes’s transcendent rationalpowers, Watson has

all the endearing qualities of courage, energy, compassion, patriotism, and

loyalty, as well as an ordinary intelligence. A kindly and admiring middle-

class gentleman, Watson connects the reader to the strange and

powerful genius of the detective.” Holmes himself was a more self-aware,

modern character than previous fictional detectives. His ability to mingle

with all walks of life in an uncontrollable, burgeoning London was

tempered with his devotion to traditional values. Holmes was an

instrument of control and was armed with the newly-emergent science

and liberal hopes.(Wisser p.19 )

On top of the contemporary setting and wonderful characters that

Doyle created in the Holmes stories, Doyle also made sure to avoid

using long words and that his writing style was simple and easy for the

reader to read and understand.

Critics

The Bad

Negative critics of Conan Doyle are hard to come by. The reasoning

behind that is that Doyle’s writing has been accepted as being a classic. But they

all say the same thing; the Sherlock Holmes is unoriginal. Arthur Bartlett Maurice
said in a essay that “ For a time after Dr. Doyle’s first success and populartity

there were strong indications of a general fizziling out of his originality.”

These critics that say Doyle’s work is unoriginal are correct. Doyle was put

in a position where he had to churn out many stories in a very short time and he

would constantly have to reuse plot points. “Upon one occasion he practically

rewrote, with new characters and a few minor changes, a story which he had told

a few years before.”