Born in Edinburgh 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle was educated by the Jesuits before enrolling in Edinburgh University to study medicine in 1876. He served as a ship’s surgeon on voyages to the Arctic and Africa before entering private practice as a physician in 1882. His first published story, a seafaring tale derived from his maritime experiences, appeared in 1883. His breakthrough to literary fame occurred in 1887 with the appearance of the novel, A Study in Scarlet, the first of what would become a voluminous output of stories featuring Sherlock Holmes and his companion in adventure, Dr. John Watson.
Conan Doyle produced a second Holmes novel in 1890, The Sign of Four, and in 1891 embarked on the monthly publication in Strand Magazine of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a succession of short stories featuring the by-then sensationally popular detective. He continued this until 1893 when, wearying of the incessant need to invent clever puzzles for Holmes to solve, he arranged for Holmes’s extinction by tossing the detective and his great antagonist, Professor Moriarty, to their deaths over the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Subscriptions to Strand Magazine also plunged, falling immediately by 20,000.
Eliminating Holmes by no means ended Conan Doyle’s career as a writer. In the next several years he published short stories, novels, and verse, as well as a non-fiction account of the Boer War, in which he served as a medical officer.
But a clamorous public demanded the return of Sherlock Holmes, which occurred in 1901 with the serialized appearance of The Hound of the Baskervilles in the Strand. The author finessed the problem of Holmes’s death by setting the action in the 1880s, well before the fatal plunge in Switzerland.
Conan Doyle finally brought Holmes back to life in 1903 with the publication of “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” in the Strand. There followed another quarter century of Holmesian adventures, ending in 1927 with the publication of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of the final twelve stories about the world-famous fictional detective.
During the last decades of his life, Conan Doyle emerged as an ardent believer in spiritualism, which holds that the dead regularly communicate with the living at meetings called “séances” through the instrument of spiritual conduits called “mediums.” He wrote prolifically in defense of this supernatural phenomenon, and was widely ridiculed for his credulity. However, he remained unmoved in his convictions, and shortly before his death in 1930 he recorded an interview on film in which he emphatically confirmed his absolute faith in the reality of spiritualism. Given Conan Doyle’s training as a physician and man of science, together with his admiration for the calculating—and thoroughly materialistic—rationality of Sherlock Holmes, it has seemed to many unfathomable that he would turn so enthusiastically toward this kind of mysticism.
Conan Doyle produced a second Holmes novel in 1890, The Sign of Four, and in 1891 embarked on the monthly publication in Strand Magazine of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a succession of short stories featuring the by-then sensationally popular detective. He continued this until 1893 when, wearying of the incessant need to invent clever puzzles for Holmes to solve, he arranged for Holmes’s extinction by tossing the detective and his great antagonist, Professor Moriarty, to their deaths over the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Subscriptions to Strand Magazine also plunged, falling immediately by 20,000.
Eliminating Holmes by no means ended Conan Doyle’s career as a writer. In the next several years he published short stories, novels, and verse, as well as a non-fiction account of the Boer War, in which he served as a medical officer.
But a clamorous public demanded the return of Sherlock Holmes, which occurred in 1901 with the serialized appearance of The Hound of the Baskervilles in the Strand. The author finessed the problem of Holmes’s death by setting the action in the 1880s, well before the fatal plunge in Switzerland.
Conan Doyle finally brought Holmes back to life in 1903 with the publication of “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” in the Strand. There followed another quarter century of Holmesian adventures, ending in 1927 with the publication of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of the final twelve stories about the world-famous fictional detective.
During the last decades of his life, Conan Doyle emerged as an ardent believer in spiritualism, which holds that the dead regularly communicate with the living at meetings called “séances” through the instrument of spiritual conduits called “mediums.” He wrote prolifically in defense of this supernatural phenomenon, and was widely ridiculed for his credulity. However, he remained unmoved in his convictions, and shortly before his death in 1930 he recorded an interview on film in which he emphatically confirmed his absolute faith in the reality of spiritualism. Given Conan Doyle’s training as a physician and man of science, together with his admiration for the calculating—and thoroughly materialistic—rationality of Sherlock Holmes, it has seemed to many unfathomable that he would turn so enthusiastically toward this kind of mysticism.